Chapter 12
Much like Montrose had feared, it was awkward when we first saw each other. For about ten seconds.
And then he kissed me.
I was sitting at his desk typing up notes when I heard his key in the door. I always kept the door locked when I was in there alone.
I knew he’d arrived home from Switzerland yesterday—he’d texted me that he was on US soil, but hadn’t mentioned when he’d be coming back to Bribury. It was Saturday, and students were beginning to arrive, though most would be coming back tomorrow, with the new semester starting on Monday.
I guess I really hadn’t expected him to arrive until Sunday night, and that I wouldn’t see him until Monday afternoon.
I rose from my seat as the door unlocked, and moved around the desk as he opened and closed it.
A slow smile crept across his ruggedly handsome face as he saw me. “I knew you’d be here,” he said as he tossed his messenger bag onto the now box-free guest chair.
“I’m here,” I stated the obvious as he looked at me.
“Me too, now,” he said. The awkward level rose a few decibels until he laughed and stepped the five paces to get to me, put his hands—still cold from the outdoors and not wearing gloves—on my face, and brought his lips to mine.
Though he was cold from being outside, his lips were warm and the feel of them on mine nearly burned, the intensity was so strong.
I had loved this man for five years, never thinking I would ever even meet him.
I was in awe of his talent for so long. To now have his hands on my face, stroking my chin with his thumb as he ran his tongue along the seam of my lips… it was beyond my comprehension.
It had been the stuff of dreams, of fantasies, and yet here he was, kissing me. The feel of his camel hair coat as I placed my hands on his elbows, bent so that his hands could touch me. Real.
The scent of his cologne, barely there, but deep and musky, and not at all like the preppy Burberry Brit that Bribury guys bathed in. Real.
The taste of coffee as I opened my mouth to him and he swept his tongue in to find mine, to dance together. Real.
And yet, so…surreal.
Sliding my hands up his arms, I stepped closer to him, desperate to feel his body against mine.
“Syd,” he whispered against my lips. “God, I missed you.”
All I could do was nod a tiny bit because his mouth covered mine again.
More pressure this time, more urgency. His hands fell away from my face and he pulled me into his arms. I wrapped my arms around him, my hands sliding through the hair at the back of his head—so soft and wavy, maybe even a little wet.
Was it snowing outside? I burrowed my fingers deeper, and the backs of my knuckles encountered more wetness. Definitely melting snow.
It seemed like steam rose from the contact of my warm hands in his cold and wet hair, but maybe that was just how I was feeling inside. Very hot and steamy, like I was being singed by extreme weather conditions.
Being singed by Montrose.
I could feel his breath against my cheek as he angled his mouth for a better, deeper position.
His hands slid down my fleece, and curved around my butt, pulling me even closer to him.
His chest was strong and solid, and I loved that he was a man and not a Bribury boy who was still growing into himself.
I needed to feel that chest, know for sure how solid, how real, he was. But there were too many layers on him. I slid my hands down the lapels of this smooth-as-silk camel-hair coat and pushed it off his shoulders, his hands quickly returning to my butt once his coat had dropped to the floor.
Being Saturday, he wasn’t wearing a sports coat, but instead had on a three-quarter zip wool sweater in black with the soft cotton of a grey T-shirt peeking out at the collar.
One of his hands glided up from my butt and underneath my fleece, pulled my cami from my jeans and crept onto the small of my back.
Yes, that was what I needed, too—to touch his bare skin. “Yes,” was what I murmured against his mouth. Yes, was what I would always tell him. He squeezed my ass and his hand at my back flattened against my skin, and he pulled me closer.
I’d be tucked into him with no room to move, except my hands were skimming his chest, then moved down to the bottom of his sweater.
I raised the sweater just a tiny bit, then dipped a finger into the waistband of his jeans, right at the button, feeling both the harsh denim and the soft cotton of his tucked-in tee.
His breath hitched and he gently bit down on my lower lip, causing a groan from both of us.
I slowly moved my finger back and forth, though no deeper into his jeans.
“Jesus,” he said against my cheek as he kissed me there.
Moving to my jaw, and down my neck, he placed kisses all along the way.
Some soft, barely there, and very sweet.
Others long and involved sucking, and weren’t sweet at all.
I loved it all, baring my neck for him, his nose nudging the high collar of my fleece pullover out of the way.
I was just about to end the teasing (though the teasing was pretty damn good) and slide my hand lower, when a knock at the door pulled me out of it. It was a good thing, too, because Montrose kept reaching for me, even as I stepped away and returned to my side of the desk.
A look of confusion—perhaps even devastation?—crossed his face until a second knock came and he visibly shook his head.
He used to do that in class sometimes, pulling his thoughts back to us, back to reality.
I always wondered what he’d been thinking about when he did that.
Seeing the hunger in his eyes, the depth of it sending chills down throughout my limbs as I sat down behind the desk, didn’t have me wondering what he’d been thinking this time.
He’d been thinking we were about thirty seconds away from pulling each other’s clothes off, and ruining all my hard organizational work by swiping the credenza clear and laying me on it.
And I’d be so okay with replacing every last scrap of paper in its rightful place…after.
With a sigh, and a look of regret—and promise—he turned from me, grabbed his coat from the floor, and returned to the door, opening it just as I started typing into my laptop, pretending whoever was at the door was none of my business.
And it wasn’t, but whoever it was, they were now firmly at the top of my shit list.
“I thought I saw you coming in the building from my office, Billy,” came a female voice. I didn’t even look up, just kept on typing. I would have been more proud of myself for not being nosy, except that I could tell from her voice that our mood killer was a much older woman. Like, grandma old.
“Hello, Corrine, how were your holidays?” he said, stepping away from the door and allowing in my enemy number one.
Except she couldn’t be my enemy number one because, well, she was just adorable. I realized this as she came completely into the office, Montrose shutting the door behind her, still holding his coat firmly in place in front of what I knew to be a pretty impressive hard-on.
Corrine was like a ball of cotton: white, fluffy hair, and nearly as round as she was tall, which was not very.
Totally a nurturer, Corrine, you could tell at first glance.
I briefly thought of my own grandmother.
My earliest memory of her was hearing her tell my mother, “Don’t bring that spic bastard around here anymore.
She don’t look like no grandkid of mine.
” This was the closest I ever came to knowing the ethnicity of my father (the spic slur), and I wasn’t even sure that she knew for certain.
I would see her again only when she’d come to visit my redheaded, oh, so Irish, little brothers.
She never acknowledged me, even though it was obvious that I was the one taking care of her beloved little Irish potatoes.
I’d bet my whole paycheck from Montrose that Corrine hugged and kissed every one of her grandkids with the same amount of love and enthusiasm.
“Oh, they were wonderful, Billy, thank you for asking. I went to Chicago and visited my daughter and her family. So wonderful to see those grandchildren, you know they’re the only ones that don’t live in Maryland anymore.”
Montrose was nodding, like he did indeed know where each and every one of Corrine’s grandchildren resided. He leaned against the credenza, his fine ass resting just between two different stacks of his notes.
“And then this past week we saw all the ones around here. Which we do quite often, of course, but you know me…I just can’t get enough of them.”
Yep, Corrine had probably not rung in the new year by calling one of her grandkids “spic bastard.” I kept my head down and typed.
“That’s great,” Montrose said.
“And how about you, Billy? Your family all doing well?”
Out of the corner of my eye I could see the picture on Montrose’s desk of his family as he gave Corrine a brief summary of his break.
“And New Year’s Eve? Did you go to Times Square?” she asked.
My fingers stilled and I looked up then to find him staring at me. “Uh, no. I spent it in. Just a quiet evening with…someone special.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful. I suppose to a native New Yorker that gets kind of old.”
He just nodded his agreement. Corrine then turned her attention to me. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “Corrine, this is my new literary assistant, Sydney O’Brien. Syd, Corrine Patterson. She pretty much runs the department.”
She swatted at Montrose in an “Oh, Billy,” delightfully exasperated kind of way, as she made her way to me. I stood, and offered my hand to her. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Patterson.”
“Oh, Corrine is fine, please.” Her hand was soft and warm, but the handshake firm.
“Syd,” I said, returning her smile.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said, and I nodded my agreement. She waved me back to the chair I had just vacated. “Please, dear, don’t let me disturb you from your work.”
“You didn’t,” I said, but sat back down anyway, though I continued to keep my attention on Corrine. And Montrose. Always on Montrose.
“Syd’s helping me get all my notes together so I can—hopefully—spend all my time not in class, writing.”
There was a momentary look of something that resembled…
hurt? on Corrine’s face and then she bloomed into a warm smile (I doubt there was any other kind of smile for Corrine).
“Well, that’s wonderful. And exactly what you need, Billy, so you can finish that book.
Everybody’s so anxious to read it, and I’ll be at the front of the line at the bookstore.
” She clasped her hands together, as if she couldn’t contain her glee at the thought.
My eyes were on Montrose and, though it was slight and Corrine probably wouldn’t notice, his body tensed at her words. The black sweater, which I’d had my hands under only moments ago, seemed to pull tighter across his shoulders.
I wasn’t sure if it was Corrine assuming that Billy was close to finishing his novel (when I’d just spent three weeks sifting through the evidence that it hadn’t even been started), or the crazy anticipation of Corrine, and really, the entire literary world and reading public.
Most likely both, and it was a wonder Corrine didn’t pick up on Montrose’s lack of enthusiasm as she rambled on about how excited she was to read it, and how certain she was that it would be brilliant.
All lovely sentiments, and though Montrose had a friendly smile on his face for Corrine, even from where I sat I could see his eyes turn that dark and stormy grey that, if I’d been the captain of a boat and saw seas that stormy, I’d turn back and head for safer harbor.
She was about to go even deeper about her love for Folly, when Montrose stepped away from the credenza, tossed his coat on the empty chair (Corrine apparently quickly becoming a boner-killer), and cut her off, by motioning to the neatly stacked piles behind him.
“Yes. You can see how helpful Syd has been already, and all this was just over break.”
She turned to me, the smile firmly on her face, as if she knew what a pleasure it must have been for me to dig around in Montrose’s notes.
She was correct on that count.
“And, I guess I better get ready for Monday’s classes,” he said, moving to the bookcase in the corner and pulling a binder off the shelf.
“Yes, of course,” Corrine said, moving to the door. “It’s nice to have you back, Billy.”
“It’s good to be back,” he said, but he was looking at me when he said it. Then he turned more fully to Corrine and said, “And it’s really good to see you again, too, Corrine.” There was genuine warmth in his voice and Corrine notice it too, because a cute little blush covered her cherubic face.
“Let me know if you need anything—supplies, or that kind of thing,” she said to me, then with a wave she was out the door.
Slowly, he stalked the small room toward me, locking the door, and throwing the binder on the chair, it landing on top of his coat.
He came around the side of the desk. “Now,” he said as he placed one hand on the arm of my chair, the other on the desk, pinning me in, “where were we?”