11. Sincere
“You wanna talk about what happened down there?” Enzo closed our bedroom door after dessert and a movie marathon with Goldyn.
He pressed his back against it while I walked over to my nightstand and started stripping my jewelry. I tugged at the white gold ring hugging my index finger and hesitantly met his eyes.
There was no explanation I could give him other than, “I panicked.”
My husband released a low chuckle and closed the space between us. “I can see that. So we’re back on this ninety-day deadline?”
“Yea,” I sighed. “Unless she says no to everything.” Because that was still a very real possibility. Goldyn could wake up tomorrow morning, say thanks for dinner and dip. The thought made my chest ache and I forced myself to sit down on the edge of the bed before my mind could run off in that direction. I was really good at thinking up the worst-case scenarios and tonight was no different.
Why did I think inviting her to dinner at the last minute was a good idea?
Enzo stood in front of me, a soft smile on his lips and understanding in his eyes. “I know how much you obsess over things when they’re important to you.”
He sat down beside me and his hands found my shoulders, kneading away some of the tension.
“She’s gonna say yes.” He paused even though his hands kept working. I leaned into his touch and felt myself fully relaxing for the first time since I got home. “And if she doesn’t, it won’t be the end of the world.”
I knew him saying that was supposed to be comforting, but all it did was make me sit up straighter. The more I thought about it, the more I could see her slipping through my fingertips.
It felt like missing somebody who was never mine. Grieving something that never got a chance to exist.
Shaking my head to clear the thought, I looked over at Enzo. He was already looking at me, his crooked smile still in place while his eyes crinkled at the side. When he did that, it always reminded me of the first time he gave me his undivided attention.
The first time he smiled at me and introduced himself to me as my Statistics tutor, I knew I was gonna fail that class. I was already in trouble which was why I needed his help in the first place. But when he showed up to our first session, looking like he’d just stepped out of a fashion spread, I knew it was over for me. I showed up to every tutoring session early and didn’t retain shit. Somehow, I still passed the class by the skin of my teeth, and the best part was that I got to keep him. We became inseparable and the rest was history.
It was so rare to find somebody who spoke the same language as you that we didn’t think twice about getting married four years after graduation. We were ten years deep and six years in to a marriage I never questioned. I never questioned anything when it came to Lorenzo because I knew we could do anything together.
Later, when I climbed in bed beside him after my shower, I let Enzo pull me against his chest, our limbs tangling on instinct. With his heart thumping out a familiar beat against my chest, I sighed and allowed my thoughts to wander back to Goldyn. Not that they had strayed far.
I was so tempted to go downstairs and check on her, but I knew if she needed anything she would come find us. Or Rome who was in the gym down the hall from her room. I honestly just wanted to see her again, but I was forcing myself to chill. We’d spent the better part of the day together and while I didn’t tire of people I liked easily, I knew it wasn’t the same for everybody else.
Lorenzo’s breathing evened out and instead of welcoming sleep, I stared up at the ceiling and replayed our conversation.
She’s gonna say yes…and if she doesn’t, it won’t be the end of the world.
I wasn’t proud of it, but the only thing I could think about was the card I didn’t pull. One I knew would work just based on the conversation we had today.
Goldyn wanted that bookstore more than she wanted a lot of things. But using that as a pawn to cement my chance with her didn’t feel right.
It would cheapen what I wanted with her and I wasn’t ready to make that move.
Besides, I already told her we would give her everything. That came with making sure her bookstore became a reality. I couldn’t be involved with someone and not do everything I could to make their life better. It was wired into who I was at this point.
All I needed was for her to agree to being ours and I’d figure out the timeline and everything else later.
GOLDYN
It didn’t matter that it was the weekend, I woke up the next morning at six o’clock on the dot. My body was programmed after years of van living to get up early, go to the gym to shower and get out the way before things got crowded.
And even though I didn’t have to do that today, I got up anyway, found the book I fell asleep reading buried in the sheets and settled in to read it after I brushed my teeth.
Stretched across the bed with my feet in the air, I had to stop myself an hour later when I realized I was literally giggling and kicking my feet over words on a page at 7 o’clock in the morning.
But nobody would blame me if they read what I just read. Kimber hooking up with her husband’s best friend while he watched it all with a smile on his face had me flushed.
“Damn,” I heard from the door, startling me out of my reading trance. I snapped the book shut and rolled over on my side to see Sincere staring at me from the door. Shirtless and wearing low slung black pajama pants.
From the angle of his gaze, I knew he was staring at my ass in these sleep shorts. My ears grew hot at the thought and desire pulsed in my core.
“Hi.” Every time he was anywhere near me I lost my ability to play it cool. Not that I was very good at that anyway, but it evaporated whenever Sincere so much as looked at me. It filled me with warmth and something else. Maybe it was lust. Maybe it was delusion .
“Morning, Goldyn.”
Abandoning my book, I hopped off the bed and walked over to him, stopping a few inches in front of him. “I didn’t expect anyone else to be up this early.”
My heart was never going to recover from the way Sincere’s face softened the closer I got to him. It filled my head with too many possibilities and made me forget what logic was.
“You look pretty.” He licked his lips and ran his eyes over me from top to bottom. “Did you sleep okay?”
“Mhm,” was all I got past the knot in my throat.
We stood there, lost in each other’s eyes for a beat before Sincere’s long lashes fell against his cheek and broke the spell.
“I was just coming to check on you. I didn’t know you were up.” He tilted his head and ran a hand over the faint stubble on his sharp jaw. “Do you drink coffee? I’m about to make some.”
“No, but I’ll come with you.” I was just happy to have another human to do something with. I didn’t care if that was obvious from the way I stayed up last night watching movies with him and Lorenzo. Human companionship was something I spent too many of my days craving for me to pass up the chance.
In the kitchen, Sincere pulled out a high-back stool at the island and told me to sit.
Knees pulled to my chest, I watched him go through the steps to make a single shot of espresso and grinned at the contented look on his face when he took the first sip.
“You laughing at me, Goldy?”
Sincere cut his eyes at me but all it did was make me laugh harder.
“Never.” My words came out on a breathless giggle and when I blinked, he was no longer halfway across the kitchen but standing right beside me.
Setting his coffee on the island, he spun my chair until I was facing him. On instinct, I dropped my legs. And on instinct, he seemed to fill the space between them, bracing his hands on the cushion on either side of my hips.
Timid, sweet Sincere from the night before was gone, and he’d been replaced by a man with nothing but confidence and intensity shining in his eyes.
We got locked in another staring contest, but this time neither of us looked away.
“I’m really trying to take your lead on this, Goldyn. But I’ve wanted to kiss you since the second I found you on our couch.” His breath fanned over my freckles with how close he was and I was tempted to move closer. I wanted him to want me. I wanted him to kiss me. “Your lips are so fucking pretty. You’re so fucking pretty.”
My pussy was weeping now, completely overstimulated by the way he said every word and inched closer and closer to me.
“So kiss me,” I breathed. And that was all it took. All I had to say before he had me swept up in a kiss that felt like home.
I wasn’t a coffee drinker, but I could get used to the taste of it on his lips.
He broke the kiss before I could memorize the softness of his mouth and the urgency of his tongue against mine.
“Sincere,” I whimpered, cupping the side of his face and letting my forehead rest against his.
“Fuck. Don’t do that, Goldy. I’m already fucking this up.”
I frowned, some of the haze lifted as I searched his face. “Why do you say that? That you’re fucking something up when you’re just being yourself?”
He’d said it at Lucky’s yesterday, and now he was doing it again. But he wasn’t fucking anything up. Didn’t he know how beautiful it was when people showed up as exactly who they were?
Sincere tried to move away from me, but I held fast to his face, making it harder for him to retreat. “Stay right here and answer me.”
He tucked his bottom lip into his mouth and shook his head.
“Please,” I added in a softer tone.
“My fault, Goldy. I wasn’t trying to come on strong and persuade you to stay. That’s all. I want you to make the choice on your own. Not because I couldn’t keep my hands off you.”
“I told you to kiss me,” I reminded him, still holding his face. “And I think you want to do it again.”
His eyes slid shut. “Goldyn.”
“Do you want to kiss me, Sincere?”
“You know I do.” Those four words came out rough and desperate. I felt every syllable in my soul and spoke my next words directly against his lips.
“Then what are you waiting for?”
Sincere accepted the challenge in my question and gripped my hips, lifting me against him in one smooth motion. My legs hooked around his waist, my arms locked around his shoulders and my lips met his.
His tongue stroked mine with so much finesse, I could feel phantom strokes against my clit. The deeper he kissed me, the closer I tried to get to him. I was already wrapped around him, my limbs acting as his second skin, but it wasn’t close enough.
Moaning into my mouth, he pressed my back to the island and used his hips to pin me in place. The bulge in his pants pressed directly against my clit from this angle and now it felt like I was drowning.
“Sin—” I gasped, trying so hard to catch my breath. Every breath in left me before it could settle in my lungs. I’d never been kissed like this. Never knew I needed to be kissed like this.
Another kiss silenced anything I wanted to say and he rocked his hardness into me.
I was too sensitive for this. It’d been too long since I’d been touched. Too long since I’d come. If he didn’t stop, I was going to fall apart in this kitchen.
Strong arms snaked around my middle, abandoning my hips for a tighter hold on me. And again, Sincere ground against me, stimulating my clit through my shorts with the pressure of his thick dick.
Oh, fuck.
“Sincere, you’re gonna make me come. I can’t…”
“Why can’t you?” He asked, voice hoarse and full of wanting. “Why can’t you come for me, Goldy?”
“I don’t know,” I whimpered as his tongue left my mouth and trailed against my neck, leaving hot kisses against my throat.
He pushed against my sex, the rhythm of his movements doing exactly what I needed. I couldn’t see his dick, but I knew it was fucking perfect if it could make me feel like this through layers of clothes.
Sincere’s pace increased, pressing his erection into me over and over. Until my legs began to shake and I threw my head back as tremors began to ripple through me.
My clit pulsed and arousal leaked out of me to the point that I knew my shorts would have a wet spot. And yet…I didn’t care. I wanted this. I wanted this so bad my voice broke on a scream when my orgasm finally hit me and sent me into a shaking, stammering, panting mess of limbs.
I fell apart while Sincere held me in place against the counter, not caring to keep my voice down while sensations robbed me of my ability to do anything but come…and come…and come.
Sincere’s hips didn’t stop moving. He kept grinding against me through my orgasm and that made my second one hit me without warning.
My walls clamped around absolutely nothing, desperate for the fullness his hard length promised. When I finally calmed down, all I wanted was his mouth back on me, and he obliged me when I lifted my head, letting our tongues lazily move against each other.
His kiss was different now.
More urgent.
More possessive.
He was perfect. I wanted to tell him that, but then I’d have to break the kiss.
So many thoughts filtered through my head and the most dominant one was how much I wanted to tell him I accepted his offer. I would be theirs for the summer if it meant I got to experience even a fraction of that again. And he hadn’t even been inside of me.
Still dizzy from the aftershocks of my back-to-back orgasms, I gasped when Sincere sat me back on the barstool and took a step back.
“Fuck, I need to make you come every day if this is what you look like after.” He kissed my temple and shook his head. “Let me make you breakfast.”