Chapter Thirteen
THIRTEEN
I don’t want to leap to any conclusions about Fisher’s invitation.
(Well, that’s not entirely true. But I am going to try to play this cool.
Over the last couple of weeks, our kisses have been ratcheting up in intensity, until we’re almost back to where we started that night in the workroom.
But he hasn’t pressed me for more than that, and I—well, again, jumping into bed with a guy after a few dates feels a lot more Lydia Bennet than Elizabeth.)
But the thing is, it’s not about sex … though the way he kisses me makes me think I will not be disappointed when and if we get there.
Maybe it would be more accurate to say it’s not only about sex.
Most of all, I want what I think it could mean for our relationship: Deeper connection. Deeper intimacy. Deeper trust.
Still, I’m trying to resign myself to the possibility that you’re welcome to stay here means I should be prepared for a pillow and blanket on the couch.
Then he tugs me closer. Not quite into the space between his knees.
He drags his gaze slowly upward—so slowly that by the time he reaches my face, his expression is even hotter and more intense than it was earlier tonight, when he first saw me in my fancy-ish dress from across the room.
I can feel I’m on the verge of something, maybe melting into a puddle, maybe combustion.
And then he stands up.
His height is momentarily disorienting. I push onto my tiptoes without knowing why, then steady myself by transferring my grip from his hands to his wrists, then his arms.
“This house has six bedrooms,” he says, which seems to answer the question of what he’s offering, until he adds, “but only one bed.”
For some reason, that phrase makes me giggle.
Which makes his dark eyes dance nervously over my face. “If you want, I’ll—or you could—I don’t want to assume—”
“That I want to sleep with you?”
Color streaks across his cheekbones. It’s honestly adorable. I have a sudden flash of insight, a mental image of him as a nerdy teen who couldn’t bring himself to talk to a girl.
I slide my hands further up his arms to his shoulders, dragging us closer together, close enough that I can whisper in his ear. “Then how should I make my wants clear?”
It’s a brazen move, for me at least. And risky too, because what if it isn’t what he wants? His posture is unyielding. But uncertain? That, I can’t tell.
“You want me?” he says, and his breath stirs my hair. “Just … me?”
If I didn’t know better, I’d say he suspects me of harboring secret Mr. Darcy fantasies. But who needs a book boyfriend when you’ve got a smart, salty, sexy man in real life?
“Just you, Fisher,” I assure him, then rock back onto my heels. I’m not going to throw myself at him. I slide my hands back down his arms to his hands, curl my fingers around his. “So, I guess now it’s up to you to decide if you want m—”
He swoops to kiss me, moving so quickly that, by rights, there ought to be a collision, bruised lip, chipped tooth, something.
But his mouth covers mine with precision, perfect pressure, just the right angle, fitting us together like it’s how we’re meant to be.
His hands rise to curve lightly around either side of my face, and I feel them tremble with pent-up emotions that find their outlet in his lips as they move against mine.
One palm slips through my damp hair to my neck; the other slides over my shoulder and comes to rest in the hollow between my shoulder blades, hot even through his heavy sweatshirt. I need to feel his touch against my skin.
He breaks our kiss long enough to murmur, “Do you want to—?”
I nod and start kissing him again. It doesn’t matter what he was about to say.
I want to.
Gripping my waist, he steers me backward a few steps, then snags my hand instead and leads me through the door, onto the landing, and into his bedroom.
I clamber onto the high, pillowy mattress and watch as he removes his watch and glasses and lays them on his dresser, then unbuttons his shirt.
As neat as everything in his house is, I half expect him to go in search of the hamper, but I’m gratified when he drops it on the floor where he stands.
Light pours from the bathroom, but by the time it reaches this side of the room, it’s softer, shadowy.
Still, I can see everything. The long lines and curves of his muscles—arms, chest, abs.
The smattering of dark hair across his sternum, which narrows into a line that disappears into his waistband.
The way his dark eyes glitter as he approaches the bed. Approaches me.
He shucks his pants and kicks them aside, leaving nothing but a pair of boxer briefs to disguise the outline of his cock.
My mouth goes dry—which is probably for the best, because otherwise, I might actually drool.
There’s something primal, elemental about the way the shape of him appeals to the shape of me.
My pulse flutters in my neck, my chest, between my legs.
He’s long-limbed enough that he doesn’t have to climb onto the bed.
He can just rest a knee against the mattress.
There’s still an ocean of pillows and plush down comforter between us, but he crosses it seemingly without effort and then we’re together again, his mouth against mine.
I spear my fingers into his hair and drag him closer yet, eager to run my hands over his hot skin and feel his weight pin me to the bed.
But he holds us apart just enough to allow himself room to skim a hand up my body, starting at my hip and slipping beneath his sweatshirt.
I feel the catch of his breath when he discovers I’m not wearing a bra.
(My semi-fancy dress didn’t require one.) As he palms my bare breast and his thumb finds my nipple and plucks lightly, it’s my turn to suck in a sharp gasp.
“I’m torn,” he murmurs against the corner of my mouth as he nuzzles my cheek. “Because you wearing my clothes is both cute and”—he nips my earlobe—“sexy as fuck. But I really want—”
I don’t need to let him finish. It’s sheer luck I don’t elbow him in the nose as I flail to shed the sweatshirt, desperate to be skin to skin.
As soon as I’m bare to him, he drags his lips down my throat, over my collarbone, to my breast, teasing my nipple with his tongue before sucking it into the wet heat of his mouth.
My nails scrabble over his shoulder, down his arm, as my back arches off the bed to press my soft body against his hard one with an urgent and unmistakable shudder of need.
We’re just getting started and already he has me coming apart at the seams.
Moments—or maybe an eternity—later, I feel his fingers working the knot in the drawstring of my borrowed pajama pants. I fumble to help and soon, though not as soon as I’d like, the waistband is sagging loose. He slides a palm over my belly and pushes the soft flannel down my hips.
By the light from the other room, I watch a notch of concentration form between his brows as his fingertips dance over my curves, slip into the shadowy hollows.
All the rush and uncertainty of this being our first time melts away; he studies my every reaction to his touch as if it’s the most important puzzle he’s ever worked out.
Fragments of words and catches of breath teach him what pleases me most.
When his hand slides between my thighs, I spread my legs with almost embarrassing eagerness.
But if anything, his movements only slow as he begins to trace a delicate figure over my pussy, sometimes brushing past my clit and sometimes stroking more deeply, sometimes teasing my opening and sometimes dipping his fingers into my wetness and painting me with it.
How can such a simple motion be so erotic?
“Please,” I cry, arching against him, panting with desperation, my fingernails scrabbling against the sheet, against his arm. “I need to come.”
“Patience, Elle,” he whispers against my temple.
I could protest, beg him to hurry, but the truth is, I want this sweet torture to go on all night.
But release is inevitable, just as he promised, and so powerful it rips a sob from my throat. “Oh my God,” I gasp when I’m capable of forming words. “That tricky little maneuver …” Weakly, I scribe a figure eight in the air with my index finger. “That is everything.”
His lips curve. “Well, it is the mathematical symbol for infinity.”
“Wait. You just pleasured me with math?!” I push playfully at his shoulder, but I’m too limp to do more. “It felt like magic.”
“Ahh, common mistake, not realizing they’re one and the same,” he says, as he rolls onto his back, pulling me with him.
With one long arm, he reaches across to his nightstand and opens the drawer. I hear the telltale crinkle of a condom wrapper being torn open a moment before he presses the cool latex into my hands. Then he sheds his boxers so I can sheath his rigid cock.
Still boneless from my orgasm, I manage to straddle his hips, balancing myself with my palms against his chest. His fingertips tighten against my hips. “Yes?”
I snag my lower lip between my teeth. I have no intention of denying him. But he is not a small man, and at the moment, both my strength and my stamina are in doubt. He scans my face, waiting for an answer, and only when I nod does he nudge his hips upward, slowly filling me.
Now, as a rule, I prefer to be on top—it’s easier to get myself off, and in my experience, that’s the distribution of labor most guys would prefer. But it only takes a moment for me to realize that’s not what Fisher has in mind.
Once he’s all the way inside me, rather than lie back and wait to be ridden, he pulls my whole body close, holding us both motionless, forcing me to do nothing but feel. His breathing is regular if a little ragged from the effort of not thrusting. His heart thumps steadily against my breast.
I realize he’s giving me exactly what I asked for earlier: a chance to absorb his strength and steadiness and focus. To settle into the sensation of our bodies becoming one.
This stillness may be the most difficult thing anyone has ever asked of me and my noisy, chaotic brain, but I can’t deny the rewards. The connection between us in this moment is extraordinarily intense.
I’m convinced, though, that I won’t come again in this position.
I need to move. But to my surprise, once the thought of another orgasm has flickered through my mind, it sends an arrow of sensation to my clit.
Oh. I clench my inner muscles around him and am rewarded with a groan that vibrates through his chest. Then I slowly inhale and exhale, concentrating on the way his hands heat my skin, the way his heartbeat thrums with mine.
When we’re fully joined in every way, body and breath, he begins to pulse his hips, the movement slight but powerful.
It doesn’t take long until I shatter again, cresting that wave of bliss as he drives deeper and holds himself there, straining into me as he comes.
Later, as I’m drifting off to sleep in his arms, I burrow closer and try to recall his words of reassurance. You’re not a mess, Elle … You’re you. Funny and creative and energetic and determined. Oh, and beautiful.
Inevitably some part of my life will go spinning off into chaos soon; it always does. But I’m starting to believe I can survive whatever cosmic rewriting the universe has in mind for me if I can just hold onto him.
When I return to my apartment Sunday evening, wearing Fisher’s Yale sweatshirt, I find Cassie lugging a suitcase from her room.
The sight of it is enough to puncture the bubble of bliss I’ve been floating in since Saturday night.
The ruined dress was almost forgotten, but now everything comes crashing back.
“I’m glad I caught you,” she says, even though she looks and acts more like I caught her.
“I don’t have any responsibilities on campus during finals week, so I’ve decided to head home now and stay through Christmas.
Thought it would be good to spend some more time with my folks.
I’m leaving first thing in the morning.”
I nod my understanding, though the size of her suitcase does raise some doubt in my mind as to whether she actually intends to come back. And Cassie leaving means I’ll be all on my own over Thanksgiving, because Fisher is going skiing with some friends.
His trip was arranged before we got together, though he invited me to come along, all the same.
I declined—I have too much work to do, and I am not going to be that girlfriend.
(Is it too soon for that word? Not after last night, right?
But is it really the best word for someone who’s staring down thirty?)
The truth is, I’d been thinking of the coming Fisherless week as prime time to get my friendship with Cassie back on track.
But of course, this is also peak season for the academic job market.
She’s probably got interviews and, even if things have been a little strained between us, she’s still too big of a person to rub it in.
And it’s certainly understandable that she’d want to be with her family before finally striking out all on her own as a young professional.
Well, more dissertation time for me. “I’ll take good care of Bi—” I catch myself just in the nick of time and reach out to scratch the cat behind the ears. “I’ll take care of this big boy while you’re gone.”
Mostly, I find it reassuring that she’s voluntarily putting a few hundred more miles between her and Bill. Things between them can’t be too serious if she’s willing to do that.
Only after I’m snuggled alone in my bed do I remember his White Sox hat.
Maybe her parents aren’t the only people she’s intending to see in Chicago.