Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
HAPPILY EVER BEFORE
Arden
We’re standing in the dimly lit hallway, leaning against opposite walls, waiting for the bathroom.
The crowd has turned over, and he didn't exchange any version of a goodbye to his brother when he left. We've just spent the last hours engrossed in conversation spanning topics from all quadrants of the New York magazine approval matrix.
The noise of the bar reaches us but is drowned out by the pulsing I can feel as my heart beats out every other thought every time I get a glimpse of him. The idea of his lips on my skin is overwhelming in a way I can’t justify, and don’t want to ignore.
I've spent years choosing the safety of predictable men who couldn't surprise me, but standing here with Will, those walls feel paper-thin, ready to dissolve at his touch. The clean scent of his laundered shirt mingles with the gritty bar, much like how the roughness of him seems to soften only when he looks at me.
There’s something voracious about him, or maybe just me being near him. Has this been here the whole time? Not because of him, but me? Have I hidden this piece away too afraid to stoke it myself? I thought this was part of growing up. The idea that you leave behind the pieces of yourself that were too much, too wild. So that’s what I did. But to whose benefit? Because looking at my life recently, I’m unconvinced it’s been my own. There was a time I wouldn’t doubt my interest in a man, and I wouldn’t deny myself the pursuit of it. Not if it was something I really wanted. So what really changed, besides me of course.
The space between us is thick with possibility, an electric current passing from one side to the other. Absorbed and returned from our bodies.
The bathroom door opens and our gaze is broken momentarily as a person passes between us. We might be separated, but not for long. And each lightly pushed ourselves off the walls we leaned against to take a slight step to the middle.
He looks at me and curls his fingers around my ear, wrapping the loose hairs behind it, and dragging them along the curve of my jawline. Each lifting slowly from the path, until his long index finger draws up under my chin ever so slightly encouraging a glance up towards him.
"What if…” I take a breath. “Tonight, I’m not unavailable after all." The words slip out in a whisper amongst chaos meant only for him. Too afraid to admit even to myself what this sense of immediate gut churning interest could mean.
It couldn’t have been more than a blink when I stepped into his arms. And he consumed me. He leaned down into me, pulling me against him as my hands held his face and his tangled in my hair. My feet are off the ground as I’m in his grip.
Wrapped in a kiss so deep and full I’ve forgotten completely where we are.
His lips are generous and I’m greedy for each movement his mouth makes against mine.
"Bathroom." I say, as he lowers me, but I’m far from grounded.
He leans down again, kissing me with intensity I’ve craved, crackling voltage beneath my skin, as his hands hold mine. He walks backwards a few steps refusing to take his eyes off me, and when he’s in reach of the doorknob, pulls us both in. And the sounds of the bar are turned down another notch as our commingled breaths are the only things I hear.
Our kiss is fueled by something unrecognizable. Or perhaps more terrifying, something I’m afraid to recognize.
Powered by an energy I can’t source.
And as he locks the door behind us, his hands move to the backs of my thighs, and wordlessly, I’m hoisted into his arms. My back pressed against the door and legs locked around his back.
He exposes a grin so devilish it drips down my throat through my stomach right into the pulsing, tightening, core of me.
His lips find mine, though they were never lost to him. As he pulls our weight off the door and spins us until I feel cold ceramic hit my slightly exposed ass his hands climb my back.
He’s standing over me as he leans in for another kiss, pulling my lip into his mouth and twirling the tip of his tongue against the same spot I just had my teeth.
His kiss lowers, his tongue leaving the trail along my jaw, down my neck, and across my collar bone.
My hands hold his face and pull him into my view and trace my thumb across his bottom lip, smearing what remains of my lipstick that is blooming across his face. Imprints of passion that I was here even if they say something else tomorrow, but right now, in this moment, I couldn't care less about tomorrow. I can feel his smile more than see it. We're existing in some liminal space between propriety and complete wanton abandon.
My free hand is sliding up his chest, counting his heart beats against my own. They are two drumsticks on the same snare.
He captures my wrist, his thumb pressing against my pulse point in a way that makes me wonder if he can read my thoughts through the rhythm of my blood.
The way he looks at me now, it's the same intensity from the museum, that focus turned carnal. His hands slide into my hair, cradling my head with a gentleness that contradicts the hunger in his gaze and what I’m sure is matching in my own.
"Tell me to stop," he breathes against my mouth, not quite kissing me, just sharing the same air. "Tell me this isn't what you want."
“This is exactly what I want.” I close the last whisper of space between us, and this kiss is different. Deeper and darker, like we're both trying to taste the truth on each other's tongues. His hands tighten in my hair, and I arch into him, propriety be damned.
The only words muttered are logistical ones. And now, and he wordlessly maneuvers his mouth over my skin, I see his body lowering as I remain perched on the sink.
His arms moving around me, hands tighten across my ribs, following the dip into my waist before finally hitting the hem of my skirt. Which he lifts, now eye level, and between my legs.
He looks up at me, a smile, as he says "I don’t have a condom."
I bite my lip and nod. Kneeling in front of me, as I’m precariously balanced, his fingers grip the band of my underwear. Slipping my leg through, and he hooks it over his shoulder before mirroring the motion to the other side.
He presses his full lips against my thick upper thigh, making his way higher up my leg. Deeper towards me.
His arm wraps around my thigh as it drapes over his shoulder. His finger presses into my skin, and I’m sure they will leave a mark for me to revel over tomorrow.
The current that has flowed between us all night, picking up frequency, picking up speed. And reverberates through me as I feel his lips press varying degrees against my skin.
"Don’t tease me."
"I have every intention of teasing you," he says as he drags a finger slowly up the middle of me. Gathering the moisture that has collected there. Not only in the moments leading up to this one, but truthfully from the moment he arrived at my side tonight.
The irony that in giving into a desire as strong as this one, it was now going to be teased out of me, is thrilling beyond belief.
My mind is void of any of the earlier stresses. Just watching this man, kneeling, for me, as he dips in. Tauntingly. Teasingly. Until his breath hovers against me. He slides another finger in and leans his lips against the aching parts of me.
He has me braced against the sink. His head pressed between my legs. As his arms locked around my thighs, I feel his fingertips sinking into my skin now, as his lips suck against me. Releasing my right hand from the ceramic I’m perched on, sinking it into his hair. Which is thick and full in a way that matches him.
Full of life. Full of passion. Full hair. Full lips. Full eyes.
They are hooded in lust, darkness and desire, but offering it all to me on the altar of this bar bathroom.
My fingers twined with his locks tighten as does his grip on me.
There’s a knock on the door. A pounding in actuality. Though the real pounding is taking place in here.
The knock comes louder.
I can feel it when he smiles against me. Smiles inside of me.
"Coming!" I scream back at the door. And his smile becomes a throaty laugh. That motivates him beyond teasing. He releases my right leg from where he held it, letting it fall to the floor, though I have no stability beyond what he's providing. And presses his fingers deep back into me. Curling them, moving them, pulsing them.
And I do. I come with his lips on me making passionate promises against my skin, and the desperation I have to feel him. All of him.
He was right, there isn’t anything I should deny myself. Especially if what I have been denying myself is him.
We break apart, both breathing hard, and I can't help but laugh at the complete disaster I've made of his mouth, his jaw, his collar. He looks thoroughly debauched and utterly unrepentant about it. My face must look the same, smudged of color from the red lipstick I’d forgotten I was wearing and flush with desire.
I don’t come down from my orgasm, even as my breathing steadies. His hands offer me support as he allows my body to slide down and land in his lap as he sits back on his feet. Arms wrapped around my back pressing his lips to my ear.
"I'm wondering," I say, my voice rougher than I expect as his teeth tugged on my earlobe "if this is just another form of running."
"Maybe," he admits, "but its better than standing still."
The immediacy of the attachment I have to him is overwhelming. Terrifying.
I used to be casual about sex. And then I grew up. Instead prioritizing the comfort of simple companionship until I ran out the clock. But Will isn't simple.
There’s no relationship we could have that wouldn’t have just started with him going down on me in a bar bathroom.
Despite his exterior, he’s soft. Not in that way. In fact, in that way it’s painfully obvious even through the thick black denim covering his lap, that he wants me. I move against it, grinding myself onto him, as his teeth drag down the column of my neck. Teasingly, as he said he would.
"We can’t stay in the bathroom forever" I stand from where I was seated in his lap. His hands remain on me, looking up at me from his knees. Lifting the hem of my skirt so he could place a final kiss on my thigh.
"We can do whatever we want."
"You and I live our lives very differently then."
"Maybe, but we don’t have to." He stands, reaching his full height, and grips my waist, hoisting me back up onto the sink. Stepping between my legs as his hands brace either side of the column of my neck. He dampens a paper towel and carefully cleans the smearing of makeup across my smile as his thumb drags across the line of my jaw.
"If you want to stay here, I’ll barricade the door and call this home."