Chapter 19
Chapter 19
Three years, two months, two weeks, and six days earlier
Edinburgh, Scotland
Of course, Conor’s staying at The Balmoral.
I would tease him about it, but there are two reasons why that won’t be happening.
The first is that I wouldn’t want to provoke him into dropping me. As it turns out, the alcohol-metabolizing enzymes I’ve been working on must be on vacation. I’m not drunk, but I am tipsy, and I made the crucial mistake of tripping over a cobblestone as I animatedly explained to Conor that in the event of an apocalypse, I would lie down in the streets and let the zombies take me—because I could survive longer, but why would I want to?
He decided that I needed to be carried.
I decided not to protest too much.
The second and most important reason is that I’m too concerned with prying a story out of him. “What do you mean, your father hired her?”
His eye roll fills the mirror-wrapped elevator. “As I said, forget that I mentioned—”
“Nuh-uh.” I started this. By angrily oversharing every single annoying thing Alfie did in the eighteen months of our relationship, ranging from the morning he smushed my lipstick while drawing a heart on my bathroom mirror, to the way he got me tickets for a band he liked for my birthday.
(Hindsight’s 20/20, but I must wonder: Was the heart for Georgia all along?)
“I told you,” he says. “Nothing to add.” We’re on his floor, and he’s clearly planning to walk out of the elevator.
So I lean over and press the shut doors button.
“What are you doing, Trouble?”
“Tell me more about what happened after she hit on you.” I send the elevator back to the first floor. Via the fourth, third, and second. “How did you realize that your dad had sent her?”
An indulgent sigh. I hear it and feel it, through the many places where my body touches his. Yes, we are inside. Yes, I’m unlikely to stumble again. Yes, he’s still carrying me. “She was the most attractive woman I’d ever seen, spoke three languages, and had a graduate degree. She was way out of my league.”
“Aww, Conor. I’m sure you were the handsomest pimply eighteen-year-old in the world. So, you asked her if she’d been hired, and she…?”
“Immediately admitted that she had been sent to, and this is the expression she used, take my virginity, as I was now of age.”
“And you told her…?”
“That my virginity was long gone, and that her services were not required, but that she should get as much money as possible out of my father. She sat in my room and showed me pictures of her cats and of her recent vacation in Majorca, we chatted for about twenty minutes, and then she left.”
“Were you mad at your dad?”
“Yes, but not because of this. Frankly, I was proud.”
“Of him?”
“Of myself, for managing to hide the sexual experiences I’d had from a guy who constantly set private investigators after his children.”
“He did ? Couldn’t he just…ask?”
He smiles like I live in a world in which hammer sharks and clownfish frolic together in the ocean, and no blood is ever spilled. He shifts into me and presses the button for the fifth floor.
“Wait, wait, wait.” The rise begins. “Your brothers—did he do it just for you …?”
“I highly doubt it.”
I cringe. “God. Rich people are messed up .”
“And we’ve got money for therapy, which leaves us no excuses.”
The suite where he’s staying is larger than my apartment, and nothing like the sleek mid-century decor I usually find in American hotels. It’s a master class in European elegance, and probably wasted on me, but as soon as Conor sets me on the floor, I begin exploring like it’s my job.
“Can I steal the toiletries?” I ask, glancing around the spotless bathroom.
“Do you need me to buy you shampoo?”
“Nah, I just want the thrill of the crime.”
“You may take them, but sorry to inform you, it’s not theft.”
“Forget about it, then. Oh my god, have you seen this shower?”
“I did. What’s so special about it?”
“It’s giant . It’s a sex shower!” I really am drunker than I thought.
He’s clearly trying not to laugh. “Every shower is a sex shower, if you want it enough.”
“You know what? Good point.” I brush past him on my way out of the bathroom, a little woozy. “Can I lie on your bed?” I ask, letting myself flop on the mattress before he agrees. There has been no conversation about me sleeping here. I didn’t ask, he didn’t offer. And yet, I know I’m not going back to my place. Because I don’t want to be with Georgia and Alfie. Because I’m exhausted.
Because of other reasons.
There are little cogs in my head, grinding, and I hope Conor can’t hear them. Yet.
“There’s another bedroom across the living room, too,” he says, but I ignore him and turn on my back, starfishing, smiling at the ceiling, sinking in the soft cloud of the comforter. “Hey, can I ask you for a favor?”
A few beats later, Conor is looking down at me, and it’s ridiculous . The more I see him, the more I…
“You may, Maya.”
“When you’re back in Austin, don’t tell Eli and Minami that you were here.”
He considers it. Briefly. “I don’t keep secrets from them.”
“Never?”
“Never.”
I prop up on my elbow. “Why?”
“Part of the reason we’re friends is that someone kept secrets from us. And we swore to never do the same.”
“Right. I get it. However. Counterargument.”
His lips twitch. Like he knows I’m about to make him smile. Like he’s learned my beats over the past…Has it been only twenty-four hours? “Let’s hear it.”
I open my mouth to show him my best debate self, and that’s when I’m hit with the realization that the shots of tequila may have been a mistake.
As I vomit in Conor’s pristine bathroom, he holds my hair back and rubs his large palm against my spine.
I wake up several hours later, alone in Conor’s bed.
My last memory is of a comforter being laid out over me, cool fingers against my forehead, and a shushing sound as I insisted that, Fine, I’m fine, I’m all right, not drunk, just sick, stomach bug.
It’s two thirty in the morning, and my brain feels smooth, the fuzziness of the alcohol nothing more than a lingering ache in my temples. When I walk into the living room, Conor is on the phone, wearing sweats and a white T-shirt, deep-register talking about tax filings and liability. I observe him, tired, happy, not yet willing to disturb this moment. A faint memory that must be at least half a decade old floats upward: Minami in our kitchen, sighing. Eli rubbing his eyes and asking, “ Should we escalate this to Hark? ”
He must be the emergency guy. The one who takes care of the bottom line. And yet, I can tell that the inside of his head is a mess of flying thoughts—most work-related, but by no means all. He keeps that shit locked tight, though. Is that why Minami didn’t marry him?
“—if it’s reviewing the customer and supplier agreements…” He notices me, and instantly says. “Sorry, I have to go. Yeah. Yeah, of course.” He hangs up. His lips curve, amused.
I decide, at this very moment, not to bother being embarrassed about what happened.
“Can I borrow your toothbrush?” I ask.
“By all means,” he says, with that faintly sarcastic undertone that I may be starting to fall for.
“Thanks.” On my way to the bathroom, I make a pit stop in his closet. Ignoring the five identical suits hanging in it, I steal a threadbare Yale T-shirt. Then, as I let the faucet run, I stare at my flushed cheeks, suddenly determined. I discard my jeans and dig a scrunchie out of the pocket, then change my mind on what to do with my hair. A few minutes later, Conor finds me sitting in his bed, wearing my pilfered pj’s. If he’s surprised, it doesn’t show.
“Sobered up?”
I nod.
“You need anything?”
I shake my head.
“You should still drink this.” He’s holding a glass of water, and I decide that he’s right. I’m thirsty, and I also want him to come closer.
“Sorry I stole your bed,” I say after a long sip.
“It’s fine. I’ll take the other.”
“You don’t have to.” I pat the mattress next to me. Slide a little, making room for him.
It’s too much, too soon. I can tell in the way he stiffens. “Maya.”
“Yeah?”
“I need to be sure that you know this isn’t going there.” I’m being rebuked. Scolded, even.
I must be into that. “What’s going…where?” I ask, blinking, and I must hit the sweet spot. The way I let my eyes widen just enough, the tilt of my head at an angle that broadcasts utter ignorance—no, I don’t have the faintest clue what he might be talking about.
I’m convincing. His jaw shifts, but after a moment he smiles and shakes his head, like he just mixed up a shadow for a ghost and feels sheepish about it. “You got interrupted. Tell me about that counterargument.” He sits next to me, weight dipping the mattress. His eyes are warm. Not always, not by default. But on me, tonight.
His gaze has been thawing throughout the day.
“Oh, yeah. Counterargument. You shouldn’t tell Eli, because…aren’t you my friend, too?”
“Am I?”
“You tell me.”
“Well, there is the fact that until thirty hours ago I thought you were still in middle school.”
“No, you didn’t. We had simply forgotten about each other’s existence.”
Silent laughter.
“But now you have a relationship with me, too. And…I’m not going to ask you to keep secrets from my brother if they can harm him. But I’d rather he found out about this weird mess that I’ve made of my life from me. I need a little more time, before Eli and I…”
He gets it. Because he nods, and when I shift into him for a hug, he lets me. He reciprocates. His arms close as much on my waist as mine loop around his neck. I memorize the feel of his flesh. The blood pulsing underneath. The consistency, so different from mine, but made of the same stuff. It’s more physical contact than we’ve had all day. He smells like fresh air and something soapy, warm skin that I want to lick. Which might be the reason I do something…
Yeah. Pretty stupid.
I was going to slowly work toward this. I was going to…is seduce a word anyone has used in the past ten years? I was going to. But I can’t help myself. I can’t remember ever being more turned on, ever wanting so assuredly, so I pull back a little, change the angle, and try to press my lips against Conor’s—who doesn’t push me away.
He does, however, grip my chin in between his fingers, stopping my mouth just a few short inches from his.
He’s right here. Breathing, even. Pupils, wide. And yet. “No,” he says, firm. A heartbeat later, cold air brushes against my bare legs, and he’s walking out of the room.
Well.
Shit.
“Wait, Conor…” I run after him, but stop the second he spins around to face me. He looks so furious , it should probably scare me into a rapid retreat. All it does, though, is make me furious, too.
Yup, anger issues.
“Maya. This is…” He shakes his head. “We can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
“You like me,” I say, accusing. “You want me.”
“Do I? What else do I want, Maya?”
“World peace? Honestly, I don’t care. But I do know that you’re attracted to me.”
“Is the attraction in the room with us?” he asks, derisive.
“Yes,” I say, deliberately lowering my eyes to his hips.
He turns away, raking his fingers through his hair. “Jesus.”
“You want me, Conor,” I repeat. It’s a statement. An axiom. We can fight over what to do about it, we can disagree on every letter of every word we say to each other, but I refuse to negotiate this simple truth.
He lets out a single, bitter laugh. Takes several angry steps closer, pointing his finger at me. “Of course I fucking want you. You are stupidly beautiful, and too fucking smart for your own good, and I refuse to go there, Maya.”
“Why?”
“Because you are twenty. And I’m not. That’s the end of it.”
I flinch backward. For some reason, I did not expect this. I figured he’d bring up Eli, but my age…Why would he care? “You can’t be serious.”
“Watch me. Christ .” He retreats again, running a hand down his face.
“What does my age have to do with it? You realize that it’s just a—a construct—”
He drops his arms. “If I cut a tree, I can count its rings. Age is a fucking biological reality.”
“What does deforestation have to do with us? Please, explain it to me, because I—”
“Come on, Maya.”
“We just spent a really nice day together in which we were just people hanging out, so—”
“Maya,” he says darkly. “You are being disingenuous.”
“I’m not. Please, spell it out for me.”
Conor seems to wrestle with himself for a moment. A deep nod. “Very well. There is lots going on, starting with the obvious, which is that I am fifteen years older than you.”
I shrug. “Like you said, Alfie was older, too. He’s nearly twenty-two.”
“There is no comparison.”
“What if he were twenty-three? Or twenty-four? Or twenty-five? Twenty-six.”
“Maya—”
“No, really, give me a cutoff. If you’re so certain that being with someone who’s older than you is wrong, there must be a scientific threshold to establish it. Where is the formula, Conor?”
“You’re being obtuse. This wide an age gap always comes with a power imbalance.”
I snort. “ You ”—I point at him—“could be a million years old, and you still wouldn’t be in a position of authority over me. Age is not always a proxy for power. It can be, sure, but I have absolutely nothing to gain from being with you, aside from being with you. And in case I haven’t made it clear, I am talking about sex.”
He closes his eyes, like he needs to get himself together. For a split second, I think I won.
Turns out, I’m a fool. “I am in a position of power, Maya. I have a great deal more money than you do.”
“My brother is filthy rich, and I have full access to his money.” I fold my arms. Take a step into him. “Come on. Give me more.”
“There are several complicating factors. You knew me when you were young, and vice versa.”
“True. And since we knew each other so well…I dyed my hair the year I turned fourteen. What color?” His lost expression would be funny, if I weren’t busy arguing for my life. “Where did I go to school? What was my favorite book? What was my best friend’s name? Come on, Conor. Tell me something about me as a teenager, or I’ll have to think that you barely ever glanced at me. Which, incidentally, is exactly what happened.” I step closer. “This is not a crush that I never outgrew and you’re exploiting. There is no hero worship. This is, plain and simple, me meeting someone that I like, and wanting to—”
“Because you’re heartbroken and rebounding from the end of your first long-term relationship. I came to your aid when you needed someone, and now you feel grateful, and—”
“And what? What if I want to have sex with you because I feel grateful? What if I want to have sex with you because you have pretty eyes, because I like your mattress, because you’re rich?”
“Maya.”
I exhale, outraged. “If you are not interested in being with me, for any reason at all, then I’m going to drop this, no questions asked. No is a full sentence. But you’re not saying that. You are automatically assuming that being younger and poorer and recently dumped makes me unable to initiate consensual sex, and…This is infantilizing. If I can move abroad on my own, if I can vote, then I can also decide who I want to fuck.” There is a quiver to my lips. I don’t like the way it undermines my point, so I gather myself, and add, more calmly. “I understand that you’re worried about taking advantage, and I appreciate it. But I’d like for you to stop patronizing me and treat me like an adult.”
I’m pretty proud of how that last part came out—determined, fully fledged, uncompromising. Even more so when it becomes obvious that Conor has no half-decent response to that.
“Isn’t it what your father thinks, Conor?” I ask quietly. It’s the kill shot. “That every relationship has to be conceptualized in terms of power? That someone always has to dominate and take advantage?”
He is desperate, clenching his jaw, all his muscles tense. So out of options, he backtracks all the way to our axiom. “Maybe I just don’t want you,” he says through gritted teeth.
I smile. Poor guy. “Yeah? Maybe. Though you already admitted you do.”
“Maybe I fucking lied.”
I bite back an even wider grin. “I get it. You didn’t want to hurt my feelings. I bet you don’t really find me beautiful. Or smart.”
His eye twitches, like he’s dying to contradict me on that. It’s sweet. It makes me want him even more.
I step closer, drawn by his heat, crossing that last line. Crane up my neck. The hem of my shirt brushes against his sweats. The truth is that I find him ridiculously attractive in ways that have nothing to do with how handsome he is. Yes, I would love to have sex with him. That specific desire sparked inside me at some point during the day and has steadily grown harder to ignore, heavier at the bottom of my stomach. Right now, though, what I want is for him to hold me, and to hold him back.
Circling my arms against his waist feels so, so lovely. “Here,” I say, letting my forehead fall just below his collarbone. “Isn’t this nice?”
He grunts, but it’s a yes. His erection presses against my stomach, hard, immense.
“If you want me,” I say simply, “you should have me.”
He must agree, because I’m being spun around. The wall is suddenly behind me, pushed into my back, and a split second later Conor’s muscular thigh is slotting between mine. An unexpected pressure right there, between my legs.
I gasp.
“Is this what you want?” he murmurs—and yes. It is. Not all of it, but enough that I’m already losing track of my surroundings.
I try to arch up, to chase his mouth, but he’s too much taller and not helping at all. Doesn’t matter, though. His hands are exactly where they should be, on my hip and lower back, tilting me in the perfect position for the meat of his thigh to hit…
“Oh my god,” I moan.
He makes a clicking, soothing noise, but doesn’t stop. I reach up, nails scraping against his scalp, the short hair at his nape, as my hips move in search of more friction. My underwear is soaked. I wonder if he can feel the slick mess of it through the fabric of his sweats.
“It’s okay,” he reassures me, and apparently I needed that. There is nothing particularly romantic about this, nothing sophisticated or delicate about the way he grinds me over his body, but it feels like the most intimate experience I’ve ever had in my life.
So intimate, I cannot do this alone. I bend my neck back, desperate to meet his gaze. He’s above my shoulder, forehead against the wall, breathing ragged and quick. Our eyes lock, and I blush all over.
“Conor,” I start, and I want to say more. The underside of his cock pushes roughly against my hip bone, and I want to touch it. But before I can, pleasure bursts inside me and I come, stupefied by the aftershocks of my own body, the ungainly, quaking tremors that seize me. Having an orgasm in front of someone is always a vulnerable, baring experience. Conor watches me lose control, irises swallowed by his pupils, and it just makes the experience even more erotic.
“Fuck,” he hisses from above, lips pressed hotly against my temple. For a moment, his grip is a vise-tight, splitting, bruising cage. “ Fuck .”
I breathe through the heat. Ground myself as I climb back down. Okay. So, maybe, I thought I knew what good orgasms felt like, and I’m now discovering that I was wrong. It’s fine. I can work on it. We can work on it.
A minute later, Conor lowers me on his bed. I’m worried that he might leave me here, alone, but he lies next to me. Gathers me in his arms. His eyes are full of something that’s too much like alarm. I hope that the flush on my cheekbones and the smile on my face will tip him off that I’m…pretty great, actually.
“Hi,” I say, squirming up to his body. I can feel his heartbeat under my hand, thumping through my skin. He wants me. It’s not just evident from the ridge in his pants. It comes off him in waves.
His hand cups my face, thumb caressing my lower lip back and forth. “You’re a fucking menace,” he mutters, making me smile.
“Yup. I am.” I want more. I want so much more. My fingers travel down the warm muscles of his chest. Meet the waist of his sweats. It’s a simple matter of sliding my palm inside and—
“No.” He traps my wrist. Doesn’t shoo my hand away, but neither does he let me proceed.
“Why?” I frown. “Why can’t I touch you?”
“Because I say so.” He must see how little his reasoning convinces me, because he adds, “Because I’m an old man, and if I blow my load now, I’ll be out of commission for the next five business days.”
I laugh. “So?”
“So…give me a minute. Just rest, okay?”
“?’Kay.” I burrow into his chest, hiking a leg over his. “But afterward…?”
“Afterward,” he says, tone inscrutable, and I don’t look up to scan his eyes for clues on how to interpret it, and…Well. That’s my mistake.
It takes me less than a minute to fall asleep. When I wake up, the sun is high in the sky, and Conor Harkness is gone.