Chapter 39 #2
I took a step closer to him, the car door he held open between us. I grabbed hold of the top of the doorframe and pushed myself up on my toes. “Does this make things clearer?” I asked, inches from his mouth.
He smirked. “A little.”
I let our lips touch for a brief moment. “And that?”
“That helps,” he said.
“Take me home,” I said. “And we can show each other exactly where we stand.” I stepped into his car, tucked my drink into the holder in the middle console, and clicked my seat belt into place.
On the drive, he never let go of my hand, even though at times it made driving difficult.
“Did you sell a book?” he asked. “In the coffee shop.”
With Oliver showing up when he did, my brain hadn’t processed that yet. “Almost,” I said. “He’ll have to convince an acquisitions board, but I think there’s a good chance. It’s the AI book.”
“Wait. Kari Cross?” he said. “You’re Kari’s agent?”
I nodded, a goofy smile taking over my face. “Yes, I am.”
“She’s lucky to have you. What about Rob?”
“Rob is working on letting her go.” I still got one text a day from him, full of threats. “He hasn’t read one of her books in four years.”
Oliver blew a huff of air out his nose. “Do you wish I would’ve punched him? I really wish I would’ve punched him.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t. He would’ve pressed charges.”
“I hadn’t thought of that.”
“ You hadn’t thought of that?”
Oliver parked in my marked spot at the apartment. “I’m proud of you.”
“I am too.”
He turned off the engine and faced me.
I leaned toward him, ready to feel his mouth on mine.
He stopped me with, “We could just talk, Margot. If there’s more you need to say.”
“I love you, Oliver. That’s all I need to say right now.”
He kissed me, our lips coming together like they’d been denied their means of existence for the last couple weeks. His mouth was warm and he tasted like cinnamon.
“I missed you,” I said between kisses.
“I was lost without you.”
“I do love cars,” I said. “But can we go inside?”
“Let’s go inside.”
We managed to make it into the house with several points of our bodies touching the whole way.
As soon as the door was shut behind us, he was peeling off my shirt.
I was unbuttoning his pants and we were leaving a trail of clothes as we worked our way down the hall.
In my room, he wrapped a strong arm around my waist and carried me the rest of the way to my bed.
“It’s not made,” I said against his lips.
“I didn’t notice,” he said back, lowering me to the bed and climbing on after me.
“Is this weird for you?” I asked.
“Your unmade bed? I’ll survive.”
I laughed. “No. That I’m Audrey’s sister.”
Those words had him collapsing to my side and propping himself up on his elbow. “You need to talk more.”
“I guess I do.”
He picked up my hand and brought it to his lips, resting his mouth against my knuckles while he thought for a moment. “Maybe it should be weird for me, but I hadn’t thought about your sister in years… no offense.”
“You don’t watch her daily videos online?”
“I didn’t even know she did that until you said something.”
At some point in our shedding of clothes and our bumping of walls on the way into the room, one of us had hit a switch, and the ceiling fan turned a lazy circle above us.
I watched it rotate several times. “My whole life I’ve been compared to her and come up short.
She’s always been better than me, older, prettier, smarter, more successful. ”
He started to object but I held up my finger.
“She excels at everything. She even had two babies at once! And honestly, it was fine because we had such different interests that I could tell myself that I didn’t want the things she had anyway. But when I found out she had you first, loved you first, I didn’t think I could get past it.”
“And now?” he asked, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear.
“Now I realize that I can’t live my life constantly trying to impress my sister, trying to live up to the bar she set. And she doesn’t get to run my life along with her own, no matter how successful she’s turned out to be.”
“This is a very good realization.” His finger traced a slow line along the lace edging of my bra, the only piece of clothing left on either of our bodies, sending a shiver through me. “Also, you are the smartest, prettiest, funniest woman I’ve ever known.”
His finger continued its line to the strap of my bra, where it slid beneath it and coaxed it off my shoulder. All the nerve endings in my body sang with pleasure. “Is talking about my sister turning you off?”
He laughed. “It normally would, but you lying here in just your bra is having a counteractive effect on the words coming out of your mouth.”
“Good.” My eyes roamed down his strong arms, then I ran a hand along the smattering of hair across his toned chest. “I missed you. I missed this.”
He took me by the hip and turned me flush with his body. “Me too.”
“I can tell,” I said, pressing myself even tighter against him.
“Margot?” He undid the hooks at the back of my bra and I maneuvered it off my body and tossed it to the floor.
“Yes?” I asked.
“Are we going to be okay? Is this okay?”
I nodded. My chest was warm against his.
“Because I want you.” His hands explored me with the words, sliding along the sides of my breasts to my waist, pausing at the sensitive spot just below my hip bone and gripping me there.
“Well then take me,” I said.
In a fluid motion, he rolled me to my back, his body resting on top of me.
The weight of him sent a thrill through me that settled and throbbed between my legs.
His mouth, soft and urgent, explored every inch of me.
And as I held on to him, I knew I’d made the right choice.
That we really would be okay. More than okay. Perfect.