Chapter 10
MY FIRST TIME CLAIMING AN INNOCENT
Thomas
The car ride back to my place is mostly silence and luminous city blur, her knees turned toward the window, my hand loose on the wheel.
I let the silence stretch. It’s a test: see how much tension she can hold before she cracks, or I do.
We’re both faking calm, but I can tell by the way she slides her eyes my way every minute—quick, clandestine flicks, as if she expects me to change my mind about her in midair.
She doesn’t know I made up my mind weeks ago.
Maybe the second I saw her at that fundraiser, or maybe even before, when I fucked her by the Faculty Club and thought: she’s so fucking hot, and she’s mine.
The valet at my building opens Andie’s car door like she’s made of something breakable.
He recognizes me, and probably her too—if not her face, then the fact of her, that ineffable beauty and grace she carries.
I tip him, and he looks at her, not me, when he says, “Have a nice night.” Andie thanks him in the voice that is unbelievably melodic, and I swear the poor guy swoons.
Inside, the elevator is as hushed and exclusive as a bank vault.
It’s private, programmed for penthouse only, no stops, no witnesses.
Andie is still and fragrant, then smiles at the floor numbers as they tick up, up, up.
She smells like a rainstorm in June combined with something feminine and ineffable—some combination of innocence and sharp, expensive want.
At the top, the elevator opens straight into my home. That always gets a reaction; most people expect another hallway, or anything but instant exposure to someone else’s entire world. Andie stops dead on the threshold, as if she’s afraid the view will knock her over.
I watch her scan the space: the endless sheet of glass to the left, running the entire length of the living room, looking out over the black ribbon of the river and a city strung with lights like neurons firing.
On the other side, a massive wall of white, hung with two abstract paintings the size of coffin lids.
One is red, a bloody hex grid fractured with lines like open wounds; the other is blue, a spiral so deep and saturated it feels like it might swallow you.
The rest of the space is all cool stone, pale wood, and furniture that looks designed to survive a nuclear war in style.
I toss my keys onto the kitchen island. The sound echoes. “You can take your shoes off, if you want,” I say.
She glances at her heels, then at me, then slips them off, standing a little shorter but ten times as relaxed. “Are you always this tidy?”
“I’m not tidy,” I grin. “Mrs. Olsen is tidy. She comes every morning at seven and makes sure I don’t die of bachelor squalor.”
Andie giggles and runs a hand over the marble of the kitchen island, slow and deliberate, like a jeweler checking for flaws. “Mrs. Olsen must be a saint.”
“She is,” I agree. “She leaves food, too. If you’re hungry, there’s cheese and whatever else you can dig out of the fridge. Wine?”
“Yes, please,” she says, and suddenly she’s softer—like the decision to accept is the only power move she needs.
I pull a Zin out of the fridge, not the best I own but still impossible to get in most zip codes, and pour two glasses. Set the bottle and both glasses on the end of the island, along with a slate slab with a wedge of cheese, some brown crackers, a pile of almonds shiny with oil.
She takes the glass from me and holds it up to the light, as if she’s going to guess the year just by looking. Then she sets her nose to the rim and inhales.
“Are you one of those people who can tell what region a wine comes from by the smell?” she asks.
“No. I just know what I like.” I watch Andie sip, slow and careful, and for a second she looks like a different person: more woman than girl, more predator than prey.
She sets the glass down and leans back against the counter, arms crossed. Her bust is pushed up and I’m distracted, my dick jerking in my pants. “So am I part of your M.O. tonight?” she asks. “Do you always take girls up here, and impress them with the view, the cheese, the wine?”
I smile, not because she’s wrong but because she’s only half right. “Actually, I’ve never brought anyone here before,” I say. “Not in that sense.”
She lifts an eyebrow, unimpressed. “Liar.”
“Not lying,” I say, and mean it. “If I wanted to show off, there are a lot of different ways. I’d take you to the lake house. Or the suite at the Four Seasons. This is home, so it’s different.”
She absorbs that, and for a second, neither of us moves. The city’s reflected in the glass behind her, the lights painting her gold and electric blue.
“You’re staring,” she says, without looking at me.
“So are you,” I reply, and watch the blush rise in her cheeks.
For a minute we just drink, taking turns picking at the cheese and the almonds. She eats with her fingers, licking the salt from her thumb after every bite, and I can’t help but imagine her licking other things. The thought tightens something in my chest, then lower.
We move to the large plate-glass window, and I stand beside her, both of us looking out over the river and the labyrinth of streets below. She leans her forehead to the glass, then turns to face me, her breath making a fogged oval on the window.
“It’s beautiful,” she says, so quietly it’s almost for herself.
“It is,” I say, but I’m looking at her.
She shifts, angling her body toward me, the strap of her dress sliding half an inch down her shoulder. “Why do I feel like this is the part where you tell me a secret?” she asks.
I swirl my wine, let the silence draw out. “I don’t have secrets,” I say, then reconsider. “Or maybe I do, but none I haven’t told you already.”
Her lips part, and I can see her tongue press the back of her teeth before she says, “There’s something you want to ask me.”
I smile. “Yes. There is.”
“Then ask,” she says, all challenge.
I set my wine on the sill, turn to her, hands on either side of the glass. She’s so close I can smell the heat of her skin, the floral of her shampoo.
“Andie,” I say, and my voice comes out rougher than I’d like. “You know I’m older than you. You know that my daughter is literally your classmate.”
She nods, biting her lip.
“And?”
I meet her eyes directly, my blue gaze flashing. “How much do you know about men? I need to know.”
Her face doesn’t move at first. Then she looks away, blinking, and crosses her arms over her chest, as if to hide the pulse jumping in her throat. “I know enough.”
I shake my head. “I don’t mean that. I mean—have you ever been with one? In the way that matters?”
She goes still. For a second I think she’ll lie, or laugh it off, or say something cute. But she just stares at the river, then at her own feet.
“No,” she says. Her voice is so small I almost don’t catch it. “I haven’t.”
I exhale, slow and careful. All the fantasies I’ve ever had about her collapse into something new: not just want, but hunger laced with a kind of reverence I haven’t felt since I was seventeen. Oh fuck fuck fuck. I’m so fucked, and I can feel all my so-called rules flying out the window.
She glances up, blue eyes pools in the city glow. “Is that bad? Does that freak you out?”
“No,” I say, and it’s not a lie. I want to pick her up, put her on the kitchen island, and fuck her until she forgets her own name. But I also want to go slow, so slow she has to beg for more.
She waits, watching, maybe bracing for rejection. I let the silence grow teeth.
Finally, I put both hands flat on the glass behind her, lean in until our faces are inches apart. Her eyes are big pools of blue, innocent and pure.
“I want to be the one,” I say, and it comes out almost a whisper.
She looks at me, then away, then back again. “You’re not like other men.”
“No,” I say. “I’m not.”
She uncrosses her arms, hands resting now on the cold marble. “Will it hurt?”
I almost laugh, but I see the nerves, the edge of real fear. I shake my head, gentle. “Yes, maybe a little at first. But then it’ll feel good, I promise. I’ll take care of you, sweetheart.”
She shivers, and I can tell it’s not from cold. I move a fraction closer, so she’s pinned between my arms, our hips almost touching.
“Is this what you want?” I ask. “Not what you think you’re supposed to do. What you want, Andie.”
She nods, eyes wide and unblinking.
I lean in, mouth to her ear. “Say it, then.”
She closes her eyes, swallows hard, and says, “I want you to be my first. I want it to be you, Thomas.”
The way she says my name nearly undoes me. I step back just enough to see her face, and she’s not scared anymore. There’s something else there, raw and alive.
I take her hand and raise it to my lips, kissing each knuckle, slow and deliberate. Her fingers tremble, but she doesn’t pull away.
“It will be good,” I promise. “And you’ll never forget it.”
She lets out a breath she’s been holding since the elevator.
I release her hand, but don’t let go. Instead, I draw her toward the master bedroom, slow and unhurried, the city watching us like an audience.
I catch our reflection in the glass: her small and gold, me looming over her, all angles and shadow.
For a second, I want to stop and memorize the way we look together.
But I don’t. There’s a bed, and a window, and a world of firsts ahead of us.
I take her there, knowing I’ll never get enough.
I lead her into the bedroom with a hand at the small of her back.
It’s as spare as the rest of the place—just a king-sized platform bed dressed in gunmetal silk, a single wooden nightstand, and the same endless window as in the living room.
From here, the city is all sodium arc and deep shadow, but the glass throws our reflections back at us: me, a huge, ominous shadow; her, a gold specter at my side.