“Gorgeous.And yes, a little scary. She’s like the female version of you.”
I shake my head. “You think I’m scary?”
“You were.” She wipes the glossy imprint of Heidi’s lips from my cheek and replaces it with her own. “But I believe in facing your fears. Now you’re about as frightening as a kitten. Who was that, anyway?”
“Publicist.”
“Everything ok?” she frowns with concern.
“Of course. Just some paperwork that needed to be signed in person,” I lie seamlessly.
“Oh, I hope I didn’t interrupt.” She looks back at the door and frowns. “She doesn’t suspect anything with us, does she?”
“Would it bother you if she did?”
Ally shrugs and turns back to me, her gaze unfocused. “I don’t know. I mean, I know, but I’m not really sure how I feel about it.”
“You don’t know how you feel about us.” It’s not a question.
Her eyes touch mine, searching. “No. Yes. I do—of course I do—but I feel like it’s wrong to feel this way. Like I’m a horrible, disgusting person to harbor these feelings because of my situation. And if I acknowledge them, they’ll take over. They’ll consume me. You’llconsume me.”
I step in as close as humanly possible. Close enough to feel her heartbeat stutter against my ribcage. “I want to consume you, Ally. I want to devour every bit of you until there’s no you and there’s no me. Until we’re nothing but sensation and exhaustion. Until you see music and hear colors.” My lips are just a breath away from hers, longing for a taste. “You don’t have to define your feelings for me, Ally. Let me do it for you.”
She opens her mouth to speak, but I smother her words in a searing kiss. Her response isn’t necessary. What we have, what I feel for her, goes far beyond rational explanation. When I pull away, there are sad stars in her eyes.
“Why did that feel like a kiss goodbye?”
I kiss her again just to keep my mouth from admitting that it was. The beginning of the end. The very start of the saddest goodbye in history. Because after tonight, she’ll walk away from me and go back to him, holding a piece of me in the palm of her hand. And whenever I look up at the sky at night, wondering where she is, if she’s happy, if Evan laughs at her corny jokes or smiles whenever she does, that empty space left behind within me will ache with remembrance. Because her light once filled it. She filled mein a way that nobody on this Earth could. And I’ll never feel whole again.
We don’t speak as I lead her into the bedroom. Our eyes stay transfixed on each other as we slowly undress. When I touch her, she shivers, yet her skin is burning under my fingertips. I wrap her in my arms, wishing I could cover her in a way that would make her disappear in me. They can’t take away what they can’t find.
“You’re so small,” I whisper in her hair.
“You’re just so big. But I like it.”
I hold her until the pain of my erection becomes too great to ignore any longer. She slips a hand between us and squeezes it, hearing my thoughts and making me groan without a shred of dignity.
“So big,” she repeats with a satisfied grin. “But I like it.”
“It likes you too.”
Then there are no more words, all signs of jest erased as I lay her down and cover her body with mine. I kiss her mouth, her neck, each of her pert breasts, the dip of her navel. When my tongue finds the apex of her thighs, she opens for me automatically. I drag a thumb through her folds before pressing her clit. She shudders, and I repeat the motion, slowly trailing my thumb down through her pink flesh, tracing her sex with precision before bringing it back up to apply pressure on her sensitive bud. By the time I give her my tongue, she nearly breaks apart.
“What are you doing to me?” she pants, teetering on the edge of orgasm.
“Exactly what I taught you,” I reply. Then I send her flying into oblivion, giving her my mouth and fingers. Sucking her until her release trickles down my chin. Until she pulls me up by my shoulders, begging me to stop.
“Oh God,” she sobs. “I can’t take anymore. Too much.”
I kiss her so she can taste herself, my tongue snaking with hers as we share her arousal. I’m perfectly aligned with her entrance, still slick and hot, so I slowly push until the head of my cock is nestled inside her. Ally gasps at the intrusion, and I trace her lips with my fingers before hooking two inside her mouth. I delve in some more and watch the emotions play out on her face, all varying shades of carnal insanity. When I’m completely submersed to the hilt, I pull out so suddenly that she whimpers, and I flip her onto her stomach.
“Up you go,” I say, elevating her ass and hips, and bending her legs in a way that causes the soles of her feet to touch. I admire the way her sex contracts, begging for me to fill her once more.
One hand on her hip, the other on her shoulder, I enter her from behind, slowly at first. I’m so deep at this angle, that I can feel her heartbeat in her stomach. The sheets rumple under her tight grip, and Ally grits out a curse.
“Is this ok?” I ask. I don’t even know why I’m asking. I’ve never asked for anything I’ve wanted, and I damn sure didn’t care enough to do it during sex.
Ally nods into the pillow, eyes closed tight. “Yes. Better than ok.”
I pull out to the tip and plunge back in, pulling her back into me by her shoulder. We both moan in unison, and her knees tremble.
“Good?” I don’t know why I’m asking again. I know it’s good. I can feelit’s good to her.
“Yeah,” she rasps between whimpers.
All restraint is diminished, and I let go, thrusting into her with ravenous intensity. I lean forward and kiss her back, smothering my groans of pleasure in her skin and hair. She turns her head, and my lips instantly find hers.
If this was a different time, and I was a different man deep inside of a different woman, I’d look into her eyes as my body dipped and rolled into hers. She’d stare at me lovingly and caress my jaw, a look of pure ecstasy on her face. I’d sweep her hair to one side over her shoulder and drag my tongue across her neck to her ear. And when her back begins to arch, as the first tingles of orgasm seize her body, I would whisper “I love you,” because I’d want those words to be the only thing she hears when she comes for me. Only for me.
Regardless of my feelings for Ally—and there are feelings—I’m not that man and she’s not that woman. And all the time we have is right now. Uttering those words would only spark confusion and conflict for both of us. So I swallow both our moans of surrender as I give her the parts of me that I can give. The parts of me that quiver and pulse until pain and pleasure become one and the same. Until heat and cold race up my spine, and my joints are too flooded with sensation to move, and I release it all into her—the fear, the anger, the bliss of just having her in my arms—it’s all hers.
I’mhers.
SOMETHING STIRS ME from sleep, but I try to fight it. I don’t want to move, I don’t even want to breathe. But it sounds again from the living room, and I know I have to leave this bed and the warmth of Ally’s body.
Fuck. My phone.
Dim light filters through the blinds, and I realize that we’ve sexed and slept the day away. There was talking, some eating, even some hydrating, but mostly our time was spent kissing, touching and pushing our bodies beyond pleasure.
As gently as I possibly can, I unravel my arm from under Ally’s frame. She stirs, murmuring something unintelligible before resuming a soft snore. I shake my head and laugh silently to myself as I make my way to the living room. Before Ally, every woman I had ever been with, looked like supermodels even in slumber. Hair and makeup somehow stayed meticulously in place. Part of me didn’t even believe they ever truly slept, just fluttered those long-lashed eyes closed and posed like wax statues on the bed. But with Ally, everything is different, more real. Her red hair is in knots all over both our faces. She snores a bit, not loudly, but loud enough that I know she’s asleep. And a little drop of drool settles in the corner of her mouth.