“I knew we’d be put in an impossible situation, a love affair that would mean more than it should, more than either of us could endure once it was over.”
He got out of bed as she spoke and grabbed his suit pants. “Love affair? We’ve neither made love or had an affair tonight, so you are either overly confident or psychic.”
“I’m neither. I just know what I feel and I could see what you needed.” She walked past him as he buckled his belt.
Following her into the living room, he spoke to her back. “And what do I need that was so apparent to you?”
“Not just to me. To anyone who really looked.”
“God, can you just answer one fucking question, Jude? You’re leaving. Give me this.”
While unlocking the door, she stopped and faced him. “For the record, everything you have said to me mattered. That’s why I’m leaving.” She walked out.
Jude was halfway down the hall, almost to the elevator when he said, “That seems like a reason to stay.”
“Don’t let them change you,” she said as she pushed the elevator button. “They’re trying to. They’ll eventually win, but hold out as long as you can. Okay, Hazel? Hold out.”
Watching her, he debated if he should follow. He debated if he should stay. He debated. He debated. He debated. He debated until she got into the elevator, then the debate was over.
He ran.
Hitting the button just before the door closed, he stood there, praying it would reopen. When it did, the cockiest grin he’d ever grown was solidly in place. She was standing at the opening and grinning herself. “Damn, Hazel, I actually thought you were going to let me go there for a minute.”
He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her to him, laughing. “Nope, not letting you go.” His lips crashed heavily into hers as he pressed her against the doorframe of the elevator. Until it started buzzing. Taking her hand assertively in his, he led her back to the apartment and then kissed her again and didn’t stop kissing her until they were in his bedroom.
They parted long enough to catch their breath. Taylor looked at her red lips, then took her coat off. She kicked her boots off and stood in front of him, missing his lips, missing his breath, and liking his eyes on her, craving her. When her coat was dropped, he leaned in and kissed the side of her bare neck. His hands were holding her shoulders and covered most of her skin.
Sucking.
Kissing.
She closed her eyes, let her head fall back gently, and moaned. When his lips worked their way back up, his nose ran smoothly behind her ear, and the hand on her jaw held her to him. The other hand slipped her strap down over her shoulder. His lips replaced it as her opposite strap was lowered. He found the zipper with ease and slid it down her ribs. They let the dress fall, pooling at her feet.
He leaned back and looked at her bare breasts, at her body, drinking her in through his gaze. Taylor was so comfortable, she thought him an anomaly from the man he’d appeared to be at the party. At the party, he wasn’t pistachio. Right now, he wasn’t rocky road either. He was somewhere in the middle, maybe something smooth and definitely something delectable. Someone who got what he wanted, but who usually asked for it. She liked that he hadn’t asked this time. She liked that he was taking…
His fingertip dipped into the front of her panties while he watched her eyes, watched for her reaction. The lips that were slightly swollen from kissing parted and her breath deepened. He kissed her until his lungs filled with the freedom she’d been inhaling.
Moving around her, he pressed his chest to her back and flattened his hand, sliding it down between her legs. Weakening under his touch, she reached up and from behind, she grabbed him around the neck, trying to keep her panting from breaking his lips apart from hers.
Taylor’s mouth was at her ear, and he breathed, “You’re so wet,” emphasizing the T.
She shivered from his words. She shivered from the loss of control she had been searching for, and had finally found. Her mouth dropped open while her head fell farther back, giving him access to whatever he wanted access to. It didn’t matter as long as his hands were on her body somewhere.
Gentle circular strokes coaxed each and every breath to leave harsher than it entered. She spun around in his arms and undid his belt. Watching him scrape his teeth over his bottom lips made her anxious and she hurried with the zipper. His pants fell to the floor and he stepped out of them. Cupping her face, he kissed her as he backed her to the bed until she sat and crawled onto it. Once she was settled, he took his boxers off and climbed to the middle where she lay, waiting for him. Centering his body over her, he kissed her.
Taylor squeezed her breasts, then bent down to kiss and suck each of them. He wanted to move lower. The light reflecting off the frame on the nightstand was in his eyes, so he lifted up, set it face down, and then returned to her body. She was soft under his touch. She was on the thinner side, but had fuller breasts, and wider hips. “Jude?”
“Yes?”
His face was between her breasts and he kissed her twice before asking, “What do you want?”
“I want you.”
“How do you want me?”
She replied, “All over,” while digging her fingers through his light brown hair.
“What do you like?”
“Architects. Ice cream in the middle of winter. Cooking for you. And your mouth on me. Anywhere. And everywhere.”
A chuckle heated her chest, then he sucked good and hard. Maneuvering lower, he lowered her panties as he went down.
Reaching above her head to hold onto anything, she grappled to find something solid, but failed. His hands opened her wider and his mouth was on her. Jude’s arms dropped to her sides and she fisted the blanket. “Taylor,” she murmured, unable to keep his name inside her any longer. One of her hands took hold of his hair and she tightened her fingers in it. The straining pain on his scalp was harsh and encouraging, making him dip deeper, and press on her inner thighs harder. Each of her seductive whimpers was poetry to his groin and he bore down.
He loved to look at her. She was open and so completely tempting. As he tasted her, he found her pleasure. Reaching into his drawer next to the bed, he got a condom and put it on as she lay there, recovering from the riptide of tremors that coursed through her body.
Taylor settled between her legs, balanced above her on his forearms. As they looked into each other’s eyes, she touched his cheek and lifted up to kiss his lids. Her lips were warm and plush, covering his eyes as he pushed inside her. He sighed. Relief and satisfaction became one as they became one.
When he dropped his forehead to the bed, he kissed her shoulder and pulled back out. Slowly. Slowly. Slowly he pushed back inside her welcoming warmth. Wrapping her arms around him, she rubbed the back of his neck, and down his spine. The muscles teetered between tense and relaxed as his arched back moved under her touch. Taylor’s breathless voice called to her, “Juuuude.” He repeated her name over and over until it got lost in the moans and motions of their bodies coming together and releasing.
Taylor fell to the side, a slight sheen of sweat covered his face, and when he kissed the rounded edge of her shoulder, he tasted her sweet and salty skin. “You’re beautiful,” he said in the light of day. January third.
Without opening her eyes, a satisfied smile covered her ruby, kissable lips. “You’re sex drunk. Tell me when you’re sober.”
He could have told her she was beautiful again, right then. He wasn’t sex drunk. He was more aware of who he was and what he felt, more life sober than he’d been in years. But he knew she wouldn’t believe him, so he placed another kiss on her shoulder and rolled onto his back.
Jude scooted into his side and rested her head in the nook of his arm. She should leave, but she felt drunk on the sex they just shared, and didn’t want what was pulsing deep inside her to end. The feeling was too powerful, entirely intoxicating, and utterly heartbreaking.