Chapter Fifteen — Sienna #2
I get his shirt open while he gets the rest, Belt, trousers, everything.
Then his skin is against mine and I can feel how much he wants me, hard against my hip.
I reach between us, wrap my hand around him, and circle my thumb over his swollen head, slick and warm with pre-cum. I feel him groan against my mouth.
"Sienna—"
"Now," I say.
He turns me. His hands on my hips, my palms flat against the headboard, and I feel him positioned behind me before he pushes inside slowly. The stretch of him fills me completely, and we both go still for a moment, breathing, his mouth warm against the back of my neck.
"Okay?" he murmurs.
"Yes." Terrifyingly okay. "Move."
He moves. Slowly at first, deep and unhurried, one hand gripping my hip, the other braced against the headboard beside mine. I feel every inch of it. I push back into him and hear his breath catch, feel his grip tighten, and slow stops being an option for either of us.
His hand slides around to the front of me, fingers finding my clit, still swollen and sensitive, and I drop my head and let him use it. Let him drive me toward the edge from both directions at once. His cock filling me, his fingers circling, his breath ragged against my ear.
The sounds he makes against my ear are low and unguarded.
I've never heard him like this anywhere else.
I hold nothing back. No composure, no careful management of what I let him hear.
When I come it's with his name in my mouth and his hands locked in mine against the headboard, both of us shaking.
His release following mine in a rush of heat inside me.
Afterward he pulls me into his chest. I let him. His heartbeat slows under my palm.
I close my eyes.
This is the most frightening thing I've done all night.
***
Iwake before he does.
The light is early, gray and flat off the Hudson, and he's asleep behind me. His arm heavy and warm across my waist and his breathing slow and even.
I lie there for a moment. Let myself have it.
Then I get up, before the warmth convinces me to stay.
I pull on his shirt from the chair by the bed. Find my way to the kitchen. Put the kettle on and look out at the city and try to sort through the tangle of last night into something I can hold without flinching.
He said soon. He promised soon.
I want to believe him.
I've been the kind of woman who waits before. I know exactly what it costs. I know exactly how it usually ends, and some stubborn, tired part of me keeps counting anyway. How many more soons do I have left in me before the word stops meaning anything at all?
Three days, I told him at the studio. I meant it as an accusation. This morning it feels more like a countdown.
I don't know which woman I'm going to be about this.
The one who gives him the time he's asking for?
Last night was real. I felt it in my chest, in the way he looked at me like I was the only fixed point in a room that wouldn't stop moving.
Or the one who's already halfway out the door, keeping a bag packed without admitting she's packed it?
Because waiting for someone to finally tell you the truth is leaving, just slower.
I used to think I knew which one I was. I don't, this morning. That's the part that scares me most.
My phone is on the counter where I left it. Next to it, half-hidden under my bag, is a folder. Kensington Global crest on the cover. Manila, unmarked, the corner sticking out just enough that I can see the header on the first page.
I shouldn't look.
I know I shouldn't look. I know exactly the kind of woman who goes through a man's files the morning after, and she's not the woman I want to be.
I look anyway.
KENSINGTON GLOBAL — SECURITY DIVISION SUBJECT ACTIVITY LOG PREPARED: brIGGS, H. — ONGOING
The first page is dated headers and timestamps. I don't understand what I'm looking at. Not at first.
Then I do.
07:42 — Subject departs Sanctuary, unaccompanied.
08:15 — Subject arrives Broome St. café. Contact: I. Kensington. No incident.
14:20 — Subject phone flagged. Incoming call, unlisted number, 41 seconds. Under review.
19:50 — Subject returns to residence.
Subject.
Not my name. Not even my initials, the way the other document had them. Just subject, over and over, like I'm a case file. Like I'm something being tracked instead of someone being loved.
I flip to the next page.
NOTE: Subject unaware of security detail. Recommend continued discretion per principal's instruction.
Per principal's instruction.
He knew. He signed off on it. Someone has been logging where I go, who I talk to, and how long my phone calls last. He is the principal and he told them to keep it from me.
The kettle clicks off.
I stand in his kitchen in his shirt with the folder in my hands and I think about last night. His forehead against mine. I've got you. The slow careful way he took me apart and put me back together. His heartbeat under my palm.
Subject unaware. Per principal's instruction.
I set the folder down exactly where I found it. I go back to the bedroom. I pick up my clothes from the floor, quietly, without waking him. I dress in the hallway. I pick up my bag from the counter.
I don't look at the folder again.
I take the elevator down.
Outside it's an ordinary morning. Delivery trucks, early joggers, the bodega on the corner already open. I stand on the sidewalk for a moment and let the cold air hit my face.
He said soon.
I think about the folder. I think about the studio, the call he didn't answer, the closed doors, the incomplete sentences. The month of something that felt like everything. Which had, apparently, been logged the entire time.
I think about the dress on the form upstairs. The wedding muslin. The test version, pinned and unfinished, waiting for real silk. The commission I said yes to because I let myself believe.
I flag a cab.
I have work to do.