Chapter 10
ten
. . .
By early afternoon, the city had gone warm and unhurried in that way summer Sundays did, when the weekend had started tipping toward the week and nobody was quite ready to let it go.
I was stretched across the couch in a worn-down little house dress with a book open in one hand and exactly three pages of it actually read.
Trying to act normal after a man had kissed you into next week was its own kind of foolishness.
Normal still happened. Coffee got made. Kendra called and demanded details.
Music played low through the house. I folded towels, wiped down the kitchen counter, watered the plant in the corner that had been threatening to embarrass me for weeks, and moved through all the small, necessary things that made a Sunday feel like mine.
But Micah stayed under all of it.
He showed up in the quiet spaces between songs.
In the memory of his hand at my waist while I shook out a towel.
In the low ease of Donell Jones drifting from my speakers, making me think about his voice, his condo, the way he sounded at home when nobody was asking him to perform.
Every time I shifted on the couch, some part of my body remembered his mouth and answered like we were still in that booth.
So when my phone lit up, my body reacted before I even looked.
A little pull low in my stomach.
A little heat.
A treacherous little pulse between my thighs.
Micah: Last night wasn’t enough.
Now I need time with you I don’t have to cut short.
When do I get that?
Last night hadn’t been enough.
That was the part I kept trying not to hold too openly, even alone in my own house. The kiss had stayed with me. So had his hands, his mouth, the weight of him beside me in that booth, the way I had gone to sleep still feeling him and woken up wanting more.
Not just more heat.
More him.
My thumb hovered over the keyboard, and for one reckless, fully grown second, I almost typed the first thing that came to mind.
Then come over.
I could see it too easily. Micah reading it. Micah at my door. His hands on me before either of us had time to pretend we were patient. The whole night turning hot and fast because all that want finally had somewhere to go.
Heat rolled through me hard enough to make me shift on the couch.
I typed the words.
Then come over.
My pulse went stupid the second I saw them sitting there.
Because if Micah came over right then, I knew exactly what kind of night it would become, and God knew I wanted it.
But that was the problem. I didn’t only want relief.
I wanted time with him I could actually feel.
A night with some air in it. Enough room for the wanting to keep doing its work before we gave it everything it was asking for.
I deleted the words, dropped the phone on my chest, and stared at the ceiling.
“Damn you,” I muttered softly, though whether I meant Micah or my own body was not entirely clear.
He had asked me a real question, and some part of me loved that too. No lazy late-night message. No pretending to be casual after showing me he wasn’t.
He wanted more time with me, and he had enough sense to say it plain.
That deserved a real answer.
I picked the phone back up and typed slower this time.
Me: You’re making it hard to act like I’ve got good sense.
I looked at it, then sent it before I could soften it.
His reply came quick.
Micah: I’m okay with that.
A laugh broke out of me before I could stop it.
Of course he was. Of course this man, with his broad chest in that white tee and those big hands and that kiss still living in my body like memory with teeth, was perfectly fine with me losing ground.
I typed back:
That’s because it’s not your sense in danger.
This time his pause felt deliberate.
Micah: You want me to behave or you want me honest?
I sat up slowly on the couch, the book sliding forgotten to the cushion beside me.
Because there it was—the real question.
I could feel the more reckless answer rising again, hot and shameless and almost sweet in how simple it was.
Come over.
Now.
Let me stop wondering what the rest of you feels like.
I did not send that either.
Instead I let myself be honest in a different direction.
Me: I want you honest. That’s why this is a problem.
Micah: Then be honest too.
You want to see me tonight?
My thighs pressed together before I could stop them.
Because yes. Yes, I did.
Wanted him in my space. Wanted his hands on me without a booth and a table and a room full of strangers forcing us to pretend at limits.
Wanted the night. Wanted the possibility of him taking my face in those big palms again and kissing me until I forgot what the polite version of this was supposed to look like.
I closed my eyes for one second and imagined telling him to pull up.
The townhouse would be clean enough. The lights low. Music easy. Mena would probably cuss me if she knew I was about to let a man into my house while I was already this gone over him, but that was not Mena’s business unless I made it hers.
I stood and crossed to the window, phone still in my hand, city light moving faint across the floor.
There is a special kind of trouble in being old enough to say yes and wise enough to know every yes has a consequence.
I wanted him. I also wanted the wanting.
Wanted the space between now and next time to keep building instead of burning itself out the first moment we gave it a room.
Me: I want to.
Then, before he could get too satisfied with himself:
But if I tell you to come over right now, I’m not pretending I don’t know where that ends.
That one sat long enough to make my pulse shift again.
Micah: And you think you’re the only one who knows?
Damn.
I typed back:
Exactly.
His reply came quick this time.
Micah: Then tell me what you want.
That moved through me exactly the way it was not supposed to.
Because there was something about a man asking directly instead of assuming, instead of leading the answer where he wanted it to go, instead of deciding for both of us what came next. It made me want to be just as honest back.
I looked down at myself. Bare legs. Thin little house dress. Nipples tight all over again because his name was on my screen and my imagination had already started cutting up.
Me: I want more than a rushed version.
There. That was true.
But it was not the whole truth.
The whole truth was that I wanted him badly enough to feel it in my teeth.
Wanted him to put me on my back and drill me into a mattress ’til all that good sense I kept trying to wear around him broke apart.
Wanted to know how his mouth felt everywhere.
Wanted his weight. His hands. His voice going low when he lost some of that gentleman control and started talking to me like a man who was done being patient.
Wanted to taste his dick and find out if he sounded the way I imagined he would when pleasure stopped being hypothetical for him too.
And still.
I wanted more than him coming over hot and leaving me open and shaking and staring at the ceiling afterward wondering whether we had rushed past something that deserved room.
I wanted time. Room. The chance to let this deepen without treating every ache like an emergency.
His answer took longer this time.
And when it came, something in me softened even while the heat stayed right where it was.
Micah: Good.
So do I.
Dinner tonight. My turn to keep it long.
I read that twice. Then once more.
Because right there in the middle of all the want and all the heat and all the very real possibility of doing something reckless and satisfying before the sun went fully down, he had met me in the place I actually lived.
Desire with standards.
That was maybe more dangerous than the kiss had been.
I smiled before I could stop it.
Me: Tonight works.
His answer came back like a hand at my back.
Micah: Now stop thinking about last night long enough to eat something.
I laughed, full and helpless enough that it echoed softly through the room.
Me: You first.
Micah: Already did.
Now I’m working on the part where I leave you alone ’til I come get you.
I read that and bit my lip.
Because no, I did not want to be left alone till he came to get me.