Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
HAPPILY EVER BEFORE
Will
Was it my plan to go down on her in the bathroom? No . Not at all. Condom or not, standing in that hallway my mind might have been consumed by her, but it was full of thought beyond some quickie in a dive-bar bathroom. She stood there across this invisible barrier of air that we shared and then she crossed it. Threw down the gauntlet, and I’ll be fucking damned if I was not going to rise to the challenge.
Coming down from going down isn’t the easiest considering it only heightened a desire that’s been building between us for hours. Fuck, if I’m honest, since I met her, or re-met her. She’s facing the mirror, so all I can see is the back of her, but I feel with some sense of certainty that it’s written across her face as much as it is mine. The slight tremor in her gives away her breathlessness, and I fight the urge to wrap my arms around her waist.
Come on… turn around… show me I’m right.
I don’t know if it's some temporal twine that’s tied us together, but I know her subconscious hears mine when she turns around to face me. Sure enough, the flush on her cheeks isn’t the giveaway as much as the glint in her eye as she looks me up and down. Challenge, invitation, warning, all at once.
Go right ahead.
She steps forward and into my arms. I wouldn’t call this cuddling per se, but given the surrounding it feels as close to spooning after sex as one could replicate in this space. No, she’s giving me a hug. An actual hug. And her head fits perfectly beneath my chin as if it was sculpted that way just for this fraction of a moment.
It’s barely a movement to kiss the crown of her. Her head tilts up, and she looks up through her lashes. Another kiss on her forehead. Her smile broadens slightly. Each time I pull my lips away, they beg to be returned with a sense of desperation. She rolls her head against my chest as her hand presses against my heart. I kiss her temple and she breathes out against me, her eyes closing with the pressure of my lips in their vicinity. Her skin has the path illuminated for me. I kiss the pad of her full smiling cheek. The kiss I plant on the tip of her nose nudges her head back. Her lips part with the smallest pop, and when I press my mouth to hers they know each other intimately.
She turns her body so I’m pressed against the door, and I will gladly keep us both here forever. I wasn’t kidding. If she wants to hide out in here, I’ll damn the outside world for as long as she wants. I’m not exactly eager to go running back towards impending responsibility.
She lands back on her feet and I release my hand from where it's clinging to the column of her neck.
"What if there are people waiting?" she whispers. Perhaps at the realization that this exit might be more public than the original frantic need for each other accounted for when we shut the door behind us.
"What?" I ask, but she’s smiling in a way that I’m starting to realize might be my undoing.
"I’m just thinking about how many people are going to know exactly what we’ve been doing when you walk out of here."
I lean in close again, my lips brushing her ear.
"Let them.”
"You don’t care if there are people just gathered on the other side of the door when we both skulk out of this single bathroom?"
"Do I care what a bunch of strangers think? Not particularly. And we aren’t going to skulk. I’ll scope it out if you want, but I have no reason to sneak out."
"You don’t think this is embarrassing?"
"It’s only embarrassing if you’re embarrassed." I lean down and whisper, "and there’s nothing embarrassing about knowing you were trembling against my tongue."
The coast is clear as I open the doors and step out, reaching my hand behind my back in request of hers. I’m not interested in letting go yet. She slips her fingers between mine, interlocking them together, confirming she also isn’t ready to snap the line. We step into the bar and it’s bustling with people. Over at the bar some poor sod who thought he had a chance with her. He’d have killed to see her in the form I just did, I’d bet most of the men and even some of the women in here would as well. Hearing the whimper escape from her as she came, feeling the tightening of her around my fingers as her leg tensed on my shoulder. I’m already desperate for more.
"I have to go," It’s loud in here, but she says it over the surrounding crowd.
"What?" My voice snaps with disbelief.
"I said, I have to go…" She repeats louder as if the volume of her voice was the issue.
"I heard you…"
"Then why did you ask?" She’s straightening her stance. This dynamic here isn’t one sided, she stepped into me, even now she is keeping us connected.
"Call it disbelief that you’re running already when your fingers are still grasping at my waist" She glances down where her subconscious is keeping us connected in a way that she was clearly unaware of until I mentioned it. She drops her hand and I pick it up, our fingers weaving together of their own accord. "Arden, if you want to run, tell me now."
She raises up on her toes to reach my mouth, and I would never keep it out of reach of her. She grants me a kiss that builds into something more without question, regardless of the obnoxious level of PDA it’s resulting in.
"I want to see you again." It’s a whisper that can reach me despite the commotion, the hoots and hollers of rowdy bar-patrons. "But you should know, I just ended a relationship. I’m not looking for another one."
"What are you looking for?" I ask, though it’s a pointless question. She clocks it. The look on my face tells her there’s no circumstance that could prevent me wanting her.
She is all fierce uncertainty and raw honesty.
"I no longer have any fucking clue."
"I’m in."