Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
HAPPILY EVER BEFORE
Will
Dinner last night went better than anyone could anticipate. We talked in circles for forty-five minutes about their plans for the merger, my mother ran through the list of societal updates, and I could see Arden’s wheels turning the entire time. She works for a big consulting firm, the kind my dad would hire to handle some of his business, and her brain followed with far more interest than mine ever has.
She’s a chameleon in the most beautiful way. Adapting to reflect the people around her. I hadn’t noticed prior, never seeing a reflection of myself in any conversation, or maybe that’s the magic. Maybe no one realizes the honesty she makes them see.
Now, hours later, her hand is in mine as we navigate the crowd of Newport's finest, and more accurately, their worst. Her fingers tap out a silent piano concerto against my knuckles, a habit I've grown to love. She does this when she's thinking, when she's nervous, when she's plotting an escape.
My mother's friends are enchanted, my father's associates intrigued, and my brother Cal… Cal is especially taken. Of course he is. He likes to think of himself as the smartest person in the room, and in many ways he is, because he’s able to recognize the second he ceases to be. That’s when something far more shrewd switches into place. Charm and manipulation in a smoothness that has coerced more than one contract, and woman. For all he is, I think he sees through people, but not her, and that is driving him crazy.
‘The merger would benefit from a third-party oversight,’ she had said last night, and I swear Cal almost choked on his roast duck. Not because she was wrong, but because she was right in a way he hadn’t considered.
"Let's run away," I whisper, my lips close to her ear. The scent of her perfume, something with notes of vanilla and amber, makes me dizzy in the best way. A silk dress hugs her body down to the floor in a way that makes it easy for me to imagine it's not there at all. There’s this sensation between us that pulses like it's beating blood right to my heart.
I lead us away from the crowd, down the hallways until we reach the wine cellar door. It's unlocked, which again feels like the universe conspiring in our favor. Or caterers needing easy access.
Rows of bottles catching the low light, the temperature dropping with each step down. The musty cellar air mingles with her scent as ancient wooden shelves creak around us, bottles gleaming like dragon's eyes in the dim light.
‘There's an alcove in the back where I used to hide with adventure novels and a flashlight, avoiding whatever was happening upstairs.’ I had told her on the drive out.
My hands are on her faster than I can take a breath. Her arms tangle around my neck, the extra height from her heels granting her more access to my mouth than she normally has as her body is pressed against mine. We back into one of the racks and the gentle rattle of glass should distract us from the ferocity with which we consume each other. It doesn’t. I don't think there’s any amount of glass that could shatter around us that would pull us out of each other’s arms.
Another bottle quivers in its rack, and Arden breaks our kiss with a breathless laugh.
"If we break anything," she murmurs, eyes crisp even in the dim light, "your mother will have me banned from Newport."
But her hands contradict her words, pulling me closer with a desperation that matches my own.
For all the reasons she is cautious about love, her feelings aren’t hidden. She speaks it in a language other’s haven’t tried to learn. But it’s all here. Every so often, I think her lips will part and say the words I swallow down when I watch her drift to sleep. The way her mouth is greedy for more than mine. It’s a hunger I can feel that feeds words into silence.
We pick up speed together, in every moment shared, there’s no slowing down, and in this moment, she’s in my arms with an insatiability that is indescribable. And I would never pretend I had the words to describe it. Because who the fuck am I?
There’s noise above us, the rest of the world goes on, but she doesn’t care and neither do I.
Our hands race to undress just enough to increase the connection of skin that seems to shock us both into life. Her fingers loop into the knot of my tie, as I grip the silk of her hem so my hands can feel the skin that’s meant only for me in this moment. She shimmies in my grip stepping out of the underwear that I pick up from her feet and tuck into my pocket.
Her head lolls back as I press kisses along her jaw and lets out a whisper of desperate desire. Threaded between the letters of my name.
As soon as my name hits the air, my hands grip her thighs and pull her up to me so we’re face to face. She’s looking right through me full of more than lust. My whole body is throbbing in desperate need to be hers, and the way she’s locked around me tells me she agrees.
"Do you think anyone will find us down here?" she asks in a way that indicates she might not be bothered if they did.
"Is that what you want, darling?"
"I want you."
It takes a couple of steps before we’re backed into my favorite dark corner. I keep her in my arms as she reaches into my pants where I’m hard in a way only she could command. Her long fingers wrap around me as her thumb circles the head, tensing my entire body.
And as I slide into the grip she has on me in all ways is beyond any reason.
Somewhere between the frenzy of clinging to each other and the orgasm she screams into my mouth, a bottle comes crashing to our feet. Splashing us with red wine as the glass shatters around us. It spreads across the stone floor like spilled secrets, glass shards catching light like scattered stars.
I spin us around and set her down on the wooden table in the middle of the room, where a crystal decanter stands witness to our transgression. Her feet swing off the ledge, and I notice the missing shoe on the ground. It must have fallen off around the same time her leg was wrapped around my back.
When she says my name I don’t know how anything could ever sound better than that.
"I love running with you."
"There’s nowhere to run for me without you."
There’s so much more in that sentence. She’s trying it on for size. We don’t say the part that lives in the silence. Not yet. I’ve thought about it. Whispered it once when she inhaled a dream.
I kneel in front of her and take her foot in my hand, slipping the strappy black shoe on and placing it on my shoulder. Pressing kisses up from her ankle to thigh until I am back standing at full height in front of her.
She pulls at my tie, pulls my mouth down onto hers in a way telling me all the things she’s not ready to admit beyond the war of our lips.
For now, though, this is enough. She may not wear her heart on her sleeve, but mine is stitched into everything she owns.
"We should go back," she sighs, but makes no move to leave.
"Five more minutes," I bargain, pressing my forehead to hers.
"Let's just... exist here for five more minutes."