25. Then
TWENTY-FIVE
then
Maggie
are you nervous?
Ella
About what?!
Maggie
??????
I bet he’s hung. the confident guys like him always are.
it’s that BDE
Ella
MAGGIE
omg
Maggie
what are you going to wear?
pasties?
Ella
Leggings
Maggie
crotchless panties?
Ella
Maybe some Hello Kitty socks
Maggie
jeweled ?? plug?
Ella
Have you seen my gray hoodie?
I turned out to be an even more hopeless cook than I remembered.
By the time Ella stepped into my apartment, I was shirtless and harried, with half of my kitchen shit spread across the counters.
She still smiled at me like an angel, picking her way to the butcher-block island before stepping out of her boots and pulling her sweatshirt over her head.
God Almighty .
My mouth dried. She looked so hot . Tight red leggings highlighted her long legs and gave me a great view of her ass. Under her sheer white shirt, dark lace covered her breasts .
When she caught me staring, she bit her lip, nervous. “I wasn’t sure what to wear to a co-ed sleepover,” she told me, looking at herself. “I’ve never had one before.”
Just like the night at the gallery when she told me I was the first man to ever get her off, a ridiculous rush of delight swept through me. I loved that she gave me pieces of herself she had never trusted anyone else with. I couldn’t explain why, but it meant something to me.
I hugged her close, relishing the feel of her silky hair against my bare chest. “You’re perfect. Do you want a drink while I finish raiding my kitchen?”
She giggled softly. “Sure. Do you mind if I look around?”
I shook my head. For a moment, I forgot about which pots I needed to find and watched her drift further into my bedroom. Part of me wanted to race over and tackle her onto my bed.
Instead, I gripped the edge of the countertop and waited. She sipped her wine, floating over to my single favorite place in the whole loft—the corner next to the window, where I kept an antique drafting table.
Her fingers ghosted over the half-finished rendering left on top of the scuffed wood surface. She turned around unexpectedly and caught me observing her once again.
“Gray,” she said, beaming, “These designs are incredible.”
I looked away on instinct, dropping my gaze to the open drawer of random cooking utensils in my island. “It’s just a hobby.”
She turned back to the drafting table, her expression clouding with disbelief. “Didn’t you say your father develops real estate? Have you shown him any of these?”
As if he’d actually look . The bitter thought clenched my fists. “Not really.”
I heard her sifting through the pages. “You should . You’re so talented.”
I wasn’t sure why her praise rattled me, but suddenly, my neck heat. “Not really,” I repeated, half-shrugging .
She laughed, surprising me again. “Well, I guess that settles it,” she sighed, coming toward me. “You’re just as bad at taking compliments as I am.”
An unexpected grin pulled at my lips, threatening to bloom into an actual laugh. She made me smile when I least expected it. I couldn’t remember anyone else doing that, ever.
She was close enough to grab, so I gathered her up against me, regaining my equilibrium as soon as we touched. Ella gazed up at me, her expression softening and sending a pang through my chest.
“Thank you.” I didn’t know what I was thanking her for. I only knew I felt grateful—for her compliments, that she always knew how to lighten my mood, that she was there with me at all.
Amusement gilded the sapphire blue. “Thank me by turning your oven on. I’m starving.”
Grimacing, I hooked my free arm around the paper bag of groceries she brought with her, peering in to try to size up how pitiful my dessert would be compared to hers.
Her smile lit her beautiful bare face again. “I’m going to make brownies,” she added. “But they’re the extra fudgy, death-by-chocolate kind.”
Her attention turned to the array of shit sitting on my countertop. “Is that liquor?” she asked, bemused. “You trying to get me tipsy again, Mr. Stryker?”
God, yes .
I replayed the image of her on her knees all week. Her full, painted lips, the sounds she made when I came in her mouth. But, mostly, how her eyes shone up at me.
The way she worshipped me like a god should have inflated my ego, but instead, it humbled me. What had I ever done to deserve to have someone like her look at me that way?
We worked around each other for about twenty minutes. Cooking was entirely novel for me, not to mention having a gorgeous girl in my kitchen. There was something sexy about it—the close quarters, the heat from the stove, the way we had to brush past each other occasionally.
Ella giggled at me more than a few times, but I couldn’t blame her. I looked ridiculous trying to chop up Belgian chocolate and whisk cream. At one point, I somehow managed to leave a towel next to the gas range and almost set the kitchen on fire.
She, on the other hand, moved like a pro. Even though she’d never been in my kitchen before, she seemed to have an intuitive sense of where things were and how they worked. Though, when I pointed that out, she called it “common sense” and gave me a patronizing pat on the shoulder.
Within the hour, we had a fresh pan of perfect brownies and a pot of the most questionable hot chocolate ever conceived.
We set them side by side on the island… and started laughing.
“You win,” I admitted, pulling her hip against mine and dropping my forehead to her shoulder in defeat. “I surrender.”
“Let’s taste them both first and then decide who won. Yours looks like hot fudge. And I know there’s booze in there. Maybe you win.”
God . It kept hitting me over and over again: she was sweet . Genuine and kind. It was rare that a girl could look as beautiful outside as she was inside.
I nuzzled against her neck for a second, savoring the scent of honeysuckle mingling with the aroma of chocolate hanging in the air. “All right. Let’s get this over with.”
We took plates of brownies and mugs of chocolate sludge over to the rug in front of my couch and sat cross-legged. She settled in, moving slowly, with her oblivious grace and general cautiousness. The low light caught in her loose hair, burnishing the gold waves and slanting over the soft lines of her face. I stared for a second too long, and the exposed V of skin at the base of her throat turned pink.
Before she got too flustered, I forced my attention to the fudgy square of chocolate on my plate, going in for the kill .
“My God.” I held up the brownie I’d just bitten into and stared at her. “How did you do this?”
Her eyes shimmered while she smiled, pleased. “I went through a baking phase last spring. This is probably my two-hundredth batch of these brownies.”
I shook my head while I devoured the rest of the square in one bite. “It’s amazing. I’m going to need more.”
When she lifted the mug of hot chocolate to her lips, I flinched. But she took three sips before making a contented sound and giving me a wide grin. “It’s good .”
“No way.” I swallowed a mouthful and looked down at it, surprised. “Huh. A miracle.”
She drank more. “It reminds me of a French bakery I love in the Bowery. Only yours has liqueur in it, so I think you win.”
Between the spark in her eyes and the blush on her cheeks, she truly glowed. It suddenly got harder to breathe. The deep well of indescribable feeling echoed inside of me once more.
“You know what?” I murmured, leaning over to kiss her. “I think I did.”
“Okay, okay,” she shrieked, waving her hands in front of her face to fend me off. “I’ll tell you!”
I’d never seen anything more beautiful than Ella laid out in front of me on my rug, laughing wildly. Still, I relented and stopped pressing my fingers into her sides.
We were trading stories, swapping embarrassing moments and firsts. I’d just told her about losing my virginity to Marissa Reeves in her Hamptons pool house. The anecdote served as both a humiliating memory and a “first” rolled into one since I’d slipped on the wet floor during doggy style and wound up falling face-first on the tile next to the bed.
Ella got the whole sordid tale out of me by promising to give me hers afterward. When she threatened to renege, I had to tickle her into holding up her end of the bargain.
The night had already surpassed all of my expectations in the most unexpected ways. We never even glanced at the television. We argued about music and food (she thought my musical taste was too basic, and I had the same critique of her palette).
She tried to teach me how to do a yoga headstand. I couldn’t do it, but I appreciated that I got to watch her beautiful body bounce and stretch while she demonstrated the proper technique.
Ultimately, we wound up back where we started, spread out side-by-side on my only rug. Wanting to be closer, I lowered myself to lie beside her. “All right,” I prompted, giving no quarter. “Go.”
Ella screwed her face up, pinching her lips at the ceiling. “Ugh. Fine. Okay, so it was my high school boyfriend, Mark.”
That didn’t surprise me—I could tell she was a relationship person. What did surprise me was the sudden, violent urge to hunt Mark down and gut-punch him. The urge only grew when she proceeded to tell me that he took her virginity before junior prom and then dumped her before the dance.
I rolled onto my side and stared at her, noting her pink cheeks and unbothered air. She didn’t like the story, but she seemed to have made her peace with it. I ran the backs of my knuckles over her flushed skin, meeting her bottomless blue gaze. “I think I fucking hate Mark.”
Her warm little laugh still got me every time. Something in my chest snagged while I watched her chuckle. “It’s okay. He got the clap from his next girlfriend, so I sort of feel like the universe settled that score. ”
I couldn’t remember ever laughing so much. I fell back down onto my side while we both snorted. Without thought, I found myself reaching for her, tucking her into me. Ellie set her head against my chest, wiggling until she found a spot that seemed perfectly tailored to the curve of her cheek.
I felt sixteen again, in a good way. Knowing what was going to happen but not knowing when . The giddy, uncertain feeling of sitting in a movie with a girl I really liked, hoping I wouldn’t embarrass myself whenever things got going.
I couldn’t figure out why I felt nervous, though. We were basically together the week before, and it was incredible. Wouldn’t actual sex just be more incredible?
When we hooked up at the gallery, she told me it was the first time anyone had ever touched her like that. Now I knew for sure that she wasn’t a virgin, though I never really thought she was. Virgins didn’t normally accompany their dates to broom closets. Or give goddess-level blow jobs.
So…what? Those assholes had sex with her and didn’t even bother trying to get her off? How was that even possible?
The second I had her to myself, all I could think about was making her come. I wanted to do it again and again, in every way I could possibly think of. I couldn’t wait to taste her, to have her body tighten around mine while I was inside her.
Ella sighed and nuzzled her face against my bare shoulder. I stroked a hand over her hair, loving the way it sifted through my fingers like silky smoke. She gave a quiet, contended hum, and my chest tightened again.
I want to take care of her .
That splinter of truth lodged itself in my throat. Suddenly, everything else made sense. It explained why I couldn’t stop thinking about making her come. Why I waited by my phone when she had to ride the late train home from work. Why I always listened so intently when she told me her thoughts and her hopes.
I wanted to take care of her.
As if she sensed the turn in my thoughts, Ella tilted her head back to gaze at me. Her smile faded when she saw the look on my face.
Before I could speak, she closed the distance between us and tentatively brushed her mouth over mine, nervous I would pull away.
Even after everything between us, she was still shy. It tightened my throat.
I angled her face and kissed the hesitance out of her within seconds, stroking my tongue against hers until the tension drained from her body.
Ella moaned when I circled her tongue with my own, tasting the lingering sweetness of the liqueur and chocolate. She nipped my lip, and I hardened instantly.
My hands glided over every dip and curve they could find, touching her body at a slow, unhurried pace. This was the first time we were really, truly alone—and we had all night. I wanted time to memorize each perfect piece of her. Time to feel how flawless she really was.
Her kisses always got bolder the longer I kept at her. My fingers traced the swell of her breast, and she whimpered into my mouth, quivering while I stroked my thumb over the lace covering one of her taut nipples. She ran her hand over my stomach, and I shuddered, too.
A soft sound escaped her as she glided her touch up my naked back, lightly scoring me with her fingernails. When she reached the nape, she scratched harder. My body went rigid, a sudden rush of pleasure trickling from my shoulders down to my groin. When she grabbed the hair at the back of my neck and tugged, a growl built in my chest.
Damn . I didn’t even know I liked that.
My cock swelled as I fought the urge to grind it against the spot between her thighs. I wanted us to go slow, but it was hard to pace myself with her.
We had chemistry in the truest sense—dynamic, potent, inescapable. It moved between us. Building, burning .
And the bursting, bleeding feeling in my chest only spurred me on. I wanted to sink myself into her deeper than I’d ever been inside anyone else.
Ella ran her hand down my spine, then surprised me by sliding her fingers into the back of my boxer briefs. My shy, sweet girl couldn’t stop herself—she wanted to put her hands all over me.
I fucking loved it.
Ella enjoyed my body as much as I enjoyed hers. She left no doubt about that, especially when she gripped my ass and yanked my lower half closer.
With nothing under us but concrete and a rug, I knew I had to move her to a softer surface soon. But first, I needed to make sure she was ready. When she broke away from my mouth to kiss my neck, I murmured, “I want to take you to bed, Ellie.”
She pulled back slightly and looked up at me. Fear streaked through the haze of lust clouding her gaze, but she swallowed and nodded.
I couldn’t ignore the way her body tensed in my arms, though. “If you don’t want to, it’s okay,” I promised, trying to calm her with a half-smile. “We can stay here, and you can keep torturing me all night.”
Her expression softened as she studied mine—looking, I think, for some sort of insincerity.
I ran my hand over her hair, then touched her pale cheek, trying to reassure her. Why was she so nervous? Would she want to tell me the reason? Could I move forward if she didn’t?
Fuck it, I have to ask.
“I was wondering, when you said that no one had ever touched you the way I did… is this not something you do? Because I’m fine if we don’t have sex tonight, Ellie, I swear.”
It surprised me how much I meant it. As much as I wanted her, I never wanted to push her or scare her. Still, I was relieved when she frowned and shook her head.
“No,” she whispered. “It’s been a long time, but I… There have been a few other guys . I just meant that none of them had ever…”
I nuzzled my nose against the side of her face. “Made you come?”
“Right.” She sounded so small and embarrassed.
I kissed her again, softly. “That’s their fault, not yours. Your body is perfect. And making you come is all I’ve thought about all week.”
She snuggled closer, needing me to hold her tighter. The strange, all-consuming feeling swelled inside of me again. I banded my arms around her in a vise.
“It’s more than that,” she confessed to the spot between my pecs. “I just… There are certain things about sex that I—that I don’t like . And I feel weird about it because I want you to be able to do whatever turns you on, but there’s some stuff I just can’t handle.”
Shit.
Curiosity and concern roiled through me. “If there’s something you need or something you don’t like, I want to know. It’s important to me, okay?”
She bit her lower lip while her eyes watered slightly. “What if I disappoint you?”
God . A flaming arrow to the heart would have hurt less than the look on her face. I crushed her into me again, holding on as hard as I could.
“You won’t,” I swore, and I meant it. I was already happier with her, on my floor, clothed, than I ever had been inside of a bare-ass naked woman. “But I need to know.”
Ella tilted her head to press her face into my neck. “Okay,” she mumbled into the crook of my shoulder, sighing. “Can we keep the lights on?”
Watching Ella come in a fully lit room? My impatient dick twitched at the thought. “Yes, please.”
She gave a shaky giggle. “Can I take off my own pants? ”
That was an odd one, but obviously not a problem. I tried to make her smile again. “Thank God. Saves me some work.”
“Gray,” she scolded, slapping me lightly and leaning back to flash a half-smirk. “I’m serious.”
“Me too,” I replied. “Of course you can take them off. I promise it’s not a big deal. What else?”
Her face sobered. “Can I be on top?”
I felt my eyebrows rise. “Every time?”
She considered that, forming worry lines on her forehead. “No, I guess not. It’s less that I want to be on top and more that I don’t want to be trapped.”
For the first time in an hour, I wasn’t hard as stone. Because it was impossible not to click the pieces together in my mind.
She doesn’t want to do it in the dark… have me rip her clothes off… or be “trapped” underneath me.
Trapped.
That choice of words seemed key.
I watched her face until she finally met my gaze. Our connection cracked into place—instantly filling with all the things she didn’t say.
Did someone… hurt her?
She blinked and looked down at the spot where our chests met. A dozen questions spun through my head, but none rose to the surface. They all ran together, melding into a murky tumult of outrage and dismay.
Could I ask her? Would she tell me? Did I even have a right to know if she didn’t feel like volunteering the information?
I suddenly remembered her face, panicked and pale, that day in Golden Swan Garden. And the evening at the subway station in Chelsea. And the night I tried to walk her to work. She wore the same expression now.
If I push her, she’ll run .
Her voice matched her face—an apology and a plea wrapped in one. “You could do any other position, though. ”
Drowning in dread, I’d lost the thread of the conversation. Position ? Her face made my stomach clutch. I couldn’t focus on anything apart from her eyes, two swirling pools of pained mortification.
“Gray?”
Her nickname for me snapped me back to reality. Positions. Sex. Sex with Ella. Focus on Ella , you jackass . She’s offering herself up on a silver platter, and you’re just staring at her .
“I’m sorry,” I said, clearing the hoarseness from my throat. “I didn’t mean to hesitate like that. Of course any position you want is fine.”
Fine?
I sounded like a prick. What was I even saying? Any sex with her would be amazing . Everything I wanted. I didn’t give one sliver of a fuck which position it was in.
And she obviously felt embarrassed. Had I really just told her it was “fine”?
“It’s all right,” she murmured, quiet but earnest. “I ruined the mood. I understand if you don’t want to be with me now.”
Of course she would think that, with the way I was acting. Tears filled her eyes, turning the sapphires into oceans. My lungs nearly collapsed at the sight.
Fuck. How many ways can I screw this up?
I cupped my palm around her beautiful, ashen face. “Ellie, no.”
As if to argue, she glanced down to where my erection previously tented my sweats. The bulge was gone, quelled by the sickening thought of anyone violating her.
“It’s all right,” she said again, rushing to comfort me. “My little list isn’t exactly alluring.”
Frustration rumbled inside of me. Not alluring ?
“Nothing on your list bothers me at all, Ellie. I—I care about you. I just… Is there… a reason ? Or something you want to tell me?”
One lone tear streaked down her cheek, melting into my hand. She stayed silent for a long second. Long enough for me to watch determination steal away the sadness.
“No,” she sniffled, glancing away. “There’s not.”
A war waged inside of me. The part that felt so sure that my instincts were correct versus the part that trusted her more than I’d ever trusted another person. I wasn’t sure which side to give in to.
Ella rushed on before I could decide. “I want tonight to be about us and this crazy connection we have,” she said, beseeching me with her bright, wet eyes. “I want that so badly because I love the way you want me … the way you look at me like you could eat me alive. It turns me on and makes me feel beautiful and desired, and so, so happy.”
Fuck . Her happiness was too big a temptation. Irresistible.
She would tell you if there was something you needed to know.
I pressed my lips into hers softly, tasting the salt from her sorrow while I hummed my reassurance, giving in to the urge to trust her. “Tonight is still about us. I’m glad you gave me your list. It will help me make sure I don’t scare you off.”
Ella blinked up at me. “You’re not mad?”
Before I could answer, she surprised me by slipping away and standing up. For one horrible second, I thought she would run again. But she just stared down at me for a long moment.
“Do you still want me?”
I propped my head up in my hand and let my eyes trail down over her body. The answer was clear and immediate, just like the first time I ever saw her. “More than anything.”
Ella gave a single, certain nod. Then she pushed down her leggings. My jaw fell open while my gaze snagged on the black lace panties covering her from my view.
“Then show me,” she breathed, pulling her shirt over her head and tossing it away.
Everything rioting inside of me lurched to a halt.
Holy. God.
“Show me you want me, Gray.”