Slipstream

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Three

Shit.

I stare at the dark ceiling of the hotel suite, not moving a muscle. It’s between midnight and sunrise. I’m in a bed.

And Arthur Bianco is asleep next to me.

We’d come to bed after cleaning up, something that had seemed fine—nice, even—hours ago. He’d slept politely restrained to his side of the twin-sized mattress, until I’d wriggled over and got his hand in mine. Then he’d wrapped me in his arms, sunk his nose into my hair, and gone to sleep again. So had I, for a brief, dreamless interlude.

That’s where I am now. In his arms.

Shit.

This is extreme. Not that I dislike it. I like it. But sleeping together in the literal sense is zero to two hundred miles per hour without checking to see if we have brakes. How am I supposed to act in the morning when things are awkward and strange between us? What even are we, now that we’ve confirmed there are feelings? Oh, wait. I’d confirmed I have feelings. I don’t know if he did. And we’re going to have to talk about the film at some point, and how to handle the professional apocalypse heading our way, and it’s going to be awful and weird and uncomfortable and—

“You awake, Graywood?”

Arthur’s sleep-deepened voice drifts down the pillows. My head’s against his chest, his arm around my back, and when did he wake up? His breathing never changed.

“Maybe,” I admit.

He laughs, deep down in his throat. “You freaking out?”

“Also maybe.”

There’s a soft touch along my shoulder. He’s stroking my back. “You don’t need to.”

“Why?”

“We’re good.”

“Are you sure?”

“Mm-hmm.”

Arthur keeps stroking my shoulders, his short fingernails trailing along the thin fabric of my T-shirt. I tilt my head up, peering at his chin. It’s dark. The lights outside are muffled by the thick curtains, the clock on the nightstand glowing soft blue.

“Do you like me?” I ask. “You never said.”

His fingers don’t miss a beat.

“I like you.”

I hate having to ask, waking him up, crawling for a compliment. It makes me feel small, needy. I am small and needy when it comes to him.

“Lilah?” he says, breaking my train of thought again.

“Yeah?”

“Check my pants pocket.”

Diversion tactics. Typical. I shift over to my side of the bed and grab his discarded jeans. I’m guessing he’s looking for his phone, but I can only feel the rounded-square shape of a small box. I pull it out, then have to not yelp. It’s a tiny red velvet box, and I don’t want to hand it over to him, in case whatever is inside might change my life more drastically than tonight already has.

“Open it.” He laughs, sensing my primordial fear.

Holding my breath, I use the clock light to pop the hinged lid open—and I’m both relieved and strangely hollow at the sight of a bizarre-looking little watch. Gingerly, I pull the black band from the white satin and inspect the ticking surface. The distorted watch face resembles a melting clock painting by Salvador Dalí.

“Care to explain?”

“You said you’d wear a watch,” Arthur says from his place lying down. “It’s called a Crash.”

“ Arthur .”

“Listen. I’ve never…” He swallows. “After the crash, I threw myself into anything that kept me from feeling things. But I want you to know that this, you and me… I feel it. So much.”

“So you’re not, this isn’t—also fake? Or it won’t be, tomorrow?”

He hums out a soft “No,” then stretches out his arm. I set the watch down, hot and happy all over, and bury myself back in his side. Arthur strokes up the back of my neck, fingertips winding along the ends of my hair.

“If you get me talking about what I feel about you, I’m gonna keep you up all night,” he murmurs. “You won’t be able to get me to stop.”

That…

Doesn’t sound bad at all.

He moves to my head, fingers splaying through my hair to massage my scalp, and I force myself not to yawn. It’s hard to keep my eyes from drifting shut, lulled by his warmth, his touch, the night. Sleep keeps fuzzing the outskirts of my thoughts, blurring the lines between Arthur and me. I wonder if he feels the same, like we’re mixed together, him and me and me and him. I wish we were.

“I wanna hear the nonstop feelings. I’m ready.”

“You sound ready. And awake.”

“I am.”

“If you say so,” he says. “I like how angry you get. I like when you prove me wrong. I like your thoughts, big and wild. I like your body, small and serious. I like the parts of you that you think are too much, too weird. They’re my favorite.”

“Okay, okay.”

“I like when I can tell you’re thinking, but I don’t know what about. I like when I surprise you, because I don’t think a lot of people do.”

“You’re full of surprises,” I grumble. “Sunrise rooftop breakfast, instant classic.”

“You like looking at beautiful things, and I like showing you them,” he continues, and I’m glad he agrees—whatever is going on here is painfully not fake. “My attempts to win you over hadn’t been working.”

“Attempts, plural?”

“Multiple. Many,” he says. “It was hard not to after that night at the club. When you said you were over that asshole, it was like, fuck, what am I going to do?”

I think back to that night, the bassy music and him close to me and sitting at the bar, mustering up the courage to ask him about…

“Oh my God.”

“The radio?” Arthur says, because of course he knows what I’m thinking. He’s been waiting for me to think it. Patiently, quietly waiting for me to see what’s been right in front of me. “They air what we say on the broadcast, by the way. You wouldn’t want to spill your secrets on it.”

“You lied about it being Merlin,” I whisper, thoroughly amazed at not realizing this sooner.

Arthur’s heartbeat drums against my ear. “It was you,” he says. “It’s been you. I’ve been driving myself crazy to keep your eyes on me.”

Surprise wedges between my brain and mouth, and anything intelligent I could say back to him is caught on the wrong side of that wall. It’s been me. Arthur likes me. I own a watch.

“How long would you have waited for me to figure it out?”

“Years?” He brings my knuckles to his lips, sending an effervescent chill down my arm. “But my schedule is very transparent, you see. You’d have been able to find me once you cracked the code.” He kisses my thumb. “Texas.” Another kiss. “England.” A kiss on the wrist. “Hungary, Belgium, Netherlands.” Kiss, kiss, kiss.

“I would’ve hunted you down.”

“Yeah?”

“I’d get on a plane to see you,” I say, and this feels like the biggest confession yet.

“I know. You already have.”

“Next time you understand us before I do, will you tell me?”

He goes quiet, so I don’t explain any more—that I’m only starting to understand what’s shifted inside me since we met. I don’t want to only look at him from behind the safety glass of my camera, like a piece of art, another beautiful thing. I want to go through life with him, looking at the gorgeous, terrible world together. If I never saw him again after tonight, I’d always look for him in a crowd, scanning for a tall blond head. But I’d always look with him, too. I’d see the beauty in the dilapidated buildings and fast cars and interesting strangers, because I think I see the world through his eyes now, or at least a peek of it, a hazy glimpse at happily ever after where the guy gets the girl and the girl gets everything.

And that’s beautiful.

When he finally tilts my chin up for a kiss, I’m not surprised. I feel it coming, his quicker pulse, the way his chest tenses. “I don’t want to keep you awake,” Arthur says against my mouth.

“Keep me,” I reply, and he chuckles, his thumb sweeping across my cheekbone. “Unless you’re tired. Then good night.”

He does something very distracting with his tongue as he slips one hand beneath the hem of my shirt. “I’m not tired anymore.”

His hand closes around my entire breast as he kisses across my jaw, toward my mouth. My body aches from the sensations; he’s curious and intense and everywhere, touching me like he’s learning my language. When he runs my nipple between two of his rough fingers—calloused and hot—I press into his hips and…

Arthur exhales sharply. “Careful.”

Just this already has his own need pulsing against my stomach. And I don’t know how he’s this appealing, in the middle of the night, when sex has always been the restaurant bread basket of physical touch to me; lovely but optional. But he’s so easy to work up, so reactive, and I want to feel him against my fingers, my stomach, my mouth, notched inside me. Hear him lose the last shreds of his incredible self-control.

I slip my hand between us and feel him, firm and thick. I slowly run up the outline of his cock over his underwear, my mouth going dry. He’s big. I’d seen that before, vaguely registered the size. But damn, this might take work.

“Is this okay?” I ask tentatively, stroking down.

“Yes,” he growls.

“Yes, as in you like it?”

Arthur inhales. Holds it. Exhales. “Yes as in, I’m trying very hard not to fuck you.”

Oh. “You… don’t have to.”

“I know. Shit, I wouldn’t—”

“No, you don’t have to try not to. You can try. You just can.”

This close, with every light in the universe turned off except for the glowing clock, I feel Arthur realizing what I’m offering him. His body goes taut, pulled into a tight, flat need, and I really, really hope he meant what he said, that he wants to do this, because a man shutting down at the idea of being inside me might be the hottest thing I’ve ever experienced.

Then he’s not shut down.

Then, he’s alive.

Pulling me against him, Arthur grinds against my hand, then the sensitive skin of my belly, making me pant. He’s dizzying, throbbing and hard, and our clothes are useless to disguise it. My throat ties into a knot as he shifts apart my thighs in one quick movement and positions my split-open legs around the hard press of him. Then we’re meeting where I never dreamed we would, only fabric and time separating us.

And his voice. Of course he’s talkative in bed, too. “This? You want me here?” he says, stunningly serious.

“Yes. I—yes.”

“You want me to make you come again?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” Arthur stares at me, his eyes gleaming black and white in the low light. “I’ll do it every day when you’re my wife.”

He doesn’t think before he says it. I can tell because his pupils go wide, then swing down to where my mouth opens with a shocked moan I try to muffle.

Neither of us speak for a beat. Me because, wow. Hello. Wife. Arthur because he must be waiting for me to declare this is one game I won’t play. Since that’s all this is, right? A game? He doesn’t want to marry me , specifically. It’s a kink. Foreplay.

And for once, I’m not going to be the person who always takes everything so seriously. I can do… whatever this is. At least, I want to try.

I run my hand up the back of his neck to tease his hair. “Every day? Won’t you get bored?”

Somehow, Arthur’s pupils blow wider as he registers my question. I shift, pressing myself closer to him, and his fingers twitch over where my nipple’s pebbled against the thin fabric of my shirt. Tempted, but not quite sure.

“It’s okay,” I say. “Tell me.”

He folds. He grasps me through the fabric, new determination in every touch. “Never. I will never get bored of you. Your mind. Your body.” He nudges his cock against the damp seam of my underwear. “ Everyone will know how well I fuck you. Your feet will never touch the ground again.”

Usually, now’s when I’d put up my own defenses—turn his words back on him and yank us out of the fantasy. Never? Seems impractical. That doesn’t feel fair, though. If I’m doing this, I’m doing it.

“You’ll carry me?” I say coyly. “But then how will you fuck me?”

“Easy. Like this.” He arches me against him by his hips alone. “And I’ll keep you full of me. Whenever you want to come, you’ll just need to ask your husband. My cock, my tongue, my fingers, anytime, anywhere.”

How is he strong enough to talk like this while using every abdominal muscle to grind against me? I can’t find the words to ask. All my focus is on where his body meets mine. “Arthur, please.” My voice is thin. “I want it now.”

“Now?” he says, faintly surprised.

I nod, and then have to throw my head back for air as he rolls his hips into mine. “Whatever my wife wants.” A jolt of arousal pierces through me at how utterly wrecked he sounds saying those two words: my wife . “Shoulders.”

Shivering, I take hold of his shoulders for leverage as he grasps my thigh. “You sure about this?” Arthur asks.

“Yes. This… isn’t boring.”

He exhales a breathless laugh as he pulls a condom from somewhere on the nightstand and rips it open with his teeth. Then he’s pushing the fabric between us to one side and nudging against me, and there’s nothing in my busy, hectic, overworked mind except how he slips right in, every spinning neuron distracted by him.

“Made for me,” he says. “Knew it. Second I saw you—heard your voice—knew I needed to be right here.”

Without moving a single muscle in his hips, Arthur somehow gets his fingers to my clit and strokes, his two thick fingers dampening any direct sensation. It’s almost, barely, just enough, and my legs twitch as he pushes in one more inch, getting my body used to this new shape. He works his fingers up, then down, patient, teasing more choked moans from me.

“That’s it. Can my perfect little wife come around the tip of my cock?”

Game, game, game. This isn’t real. My brain gets the memo, but my body doesn’t listen. Even though I’m so turned on I’m trembling, I bite my lip and say, “Make me.”

Arthur huffs. Instead of quickening his fingers, he slows to a punishingly leisurely tempo. He takes his time, and the sheer confidence of it all turns up the beat pounding in my core.

“Deeper. Please, husband .”

“Fuck.” He sounds ragged. “Say it again.”

“Please? Or husband?”

“You know which one.”

“And you know my answer. Make me.”

With a tortured noise, Arthur looks down to where our bodies meet and pushes in. He exhales a rapid-fire string of curses and jumbled praise, and I watch as he swallows, my head swimming.

“I… I’m not going to last long,” he pants.

I dig my fingernails into the back of his neck. “Me neither, husband.”

“Screw it, then,” Arthur whispers, more to himself than me I think—since moments later he starts to really move. Cold fire burns beneath my skin, buried in my bloodstream, at the glowing mix of adoration and awe on his face as we meet, there, here. All the way. He looks at me like he never wants to go to sleep again.

“I want it. What you want. With you, only you.” He says it in soft, staggered breaths I almost don’t understand. “Wanna put a baby in you. See you round and happy ’cause of me. My pretty wife pregnant with our pretty babies. Give it to me, right now.”

Everything inside me clenches—my heart and my jaw and my thighs—before the embers collapse, and out goes the fire. And it’s better than I ever thought this could be. Excruciatingly good. An I might’ve just died but that’s fine, leave me here orgasm.

“Did you come for me?” he gasps, and I laugh nonsensically, nodding back.

Maybe it’s my laugh. Maybe it’s every way our bodies are fitting together—like he said, made for each other. Arthur hisses my name into the side of my neck. Then he’s following me, his own pleasure peaking as his lips find my skin again and again and again, whispering words about our future and our life and everything he wants to give me, children, houses, gardens, cars, his time, his life.

And I want all of that one day, I think. When this isn’t a game, if it’s ever not a game with him… I’ll want to be loved like that.

Eventually, his breathing goes from tornado to summer storm. “I told you I’d keep you up,” he mumbles, a smile in his voice.

“I’m not complaining.”

When we’re back to only cuddling, our clothes righted and Arthur curled around my back, I finally find the right words to say. Just as I’m falling asleep, my body thoroughly exhausted. “Sorry I was so slow at figuring you out.”

He laughs and pulls me closer, his heat saturating through my skin. “Sorry I fell so fast,” he replies, and it’s the last thing I hear before I’m gone.