27. ADRIAN
ADRIAN
My hand is extended. And Sienna is still standing on the pavement.
I ran several scenarios on the drive over. What she might say. What I'd say back. I’m good at it. Occupational hazard I guess.
But no scenario prepared me to see her like this. Beautiful. Frozen on the spot.
The city moves behind her. A car passes. The streetlight catches her face and she's looking at me, but I can’t read her expression. I am very aware that my hand is out and she hasn't taken it.
She bites her lower lip.
I don't move. I hardly dare to breathe. I keep my hand extended. I keep my face neutral like I have been trained through depositions. Like when I was receiving bad news at the hospital. Those times it came effortlessly.
Right now it is costing me.
Then she steps forward.
Her fingers close around mine, I pull her in and the door swings shut behind her cocooning us inside the dim light and the quiet around us. I don't let go of her hand.
Sienna sits beside me. I can sense her nervous energy. Her eyes look everywhere but me. Small, quick movements. Registering the partition. Registering that we are alone.
"Carter apologizes for not being able to come," I force a confident version of a smile. "He's babysitting some VIPs. I hope you don't mind."
She finally looks at me and I can’t decipher what is behind her brown eyes. She hasn’t made a motion to free her hand and that has to count for something.
She looks at me steadily. "I don't mind." A pause. "But do you? Or is this you babysitting me too?"
I can feel her distance and hurt in that question.
I answer by pulling her onto my lap.
She comes without hesitating, velvet warm under my hands, settles against me with a naturalness I didn’t dare to hope.
I take one slow breath and let it go.
"I'm sorry." I exhale.
I take her face in my hands and tilt it up.
"I’m so sorry. I was an asshole to you." She meets my gaze and I don't look away.
"I was a coward. I saw what I wanted and felt scared that I might not get it.
" I can see questions in her expression so I try to explain better.
"I think, for a while there, I forgot how to live. "
Her brows come in slightly and I can see her working it over, trying to make sense. Then the small line between her brows eases. Her expression shifts. Not forgiveness exactly. Understanding. The kind that doesn't need anything more said around it.
I palm her face and bring her mouth to mine.
The kiss starts slow. She eases into it carefully, her hands finding my chest, mine her waist and I pull her in flush against me. She moans against my mouth and I feel it across my whole chest.
Then I feel her hands on my chest, pulling back. I reluctantly let her go.
I can still feel her hands gripping my chest. Her lips are swollen and parted, eyes darker with desire. I can feel each exhale against my face.
"You said you didn't want something serious..." She whispers against my lips. "I… Carter…"
I can’t resist and give her a brief reassuring kiss. "I know you and Carter have something," I say.
“We… It’s not—” I can see her struggle to find the right words so I take the lead.
I can see the confusion in her face so I try to explain.
"We both want you. We want to see where this goes.
" I close my eyes for a second, trying not to fuck this up.
" We both come with our baggage. Flawed.
But maybe you can see the best in each of us.
" I open my eyes and look at her. "In both of us. "
I wait.
She has gone still.
The kind of stillness a body does when something arrives before the mind has worked out how to process it. Her eyes are on my face but not quite focused. I watch the thought move through her.
And underneath the shock, in the slow shift of her breathing, the slight part of her lips and the way her hands are no longer pressing against my chest but resting there, not pushing, I see that she is not rejecting the idea.
"Both?" she says.
"Both."
She looks at me for a long moment.
"Let's take it slow," I say. "See how it might work. I'm willing to risk it." I hold her gaze and I mean every word. "You?"
One full breath in and out.
Then she kisses me.
There is no patience in it. She presses into me and kisses me like she's been holding it back and decided to stop. I match it exactly, pull her in as close as the position allows. Something in my chest unclenches that has been tight for too long.
I rotate us and press her against the seat. I want to taste all of her.
I find the spot under her ear that makes her shiver.
She tilts her head and I inhale her scent, while kissing her along her neck.
I’m thorough in my exploration. The curve where her neck meets her shoulder.
The top of her chest above the neckline, where the dress has an opening.
She shivers when I press my mouth to her collarbone and I go back for it a second time because that shiver is worth it.
I drop to my knees on the car floor putting my hands on her calves and slide upward slowly, watching her face, while I open her to me. When I press my mouth to the inside of her knee she inhales through her nose and whimpers.
I work up the inside of her thigh. Slow. Deliberate. Kissing and licking with a rhythm that is sweet torture to both of us. The muscle under my hands tenses by degrees as I push the dress up revealing more of her body to me.
She's wearing the panties I chose for her. I knew they would look amazing against her skin.
I look up at her. Color high in her cheeks. Her lower lip caught between her teeth.
I lower my head and press my mouth to her through the fabric, inhaling her sweet scent.
Slow and firm, pressure steady. She lifts her hips toward me wanting more.
I can feel how ready she is through the thin fabric, warm and damp against my lips, and I am in no hurry.
I keep my hands flat on her thighs and give a hard push, bringing her body even more to the edge of the seat.
She drops her head back and the sound she makes fills the car.
"Eyes on me." I demand.
Her head comes up.
I hold her gaze and pull the fabric to the side.
I press the flat of my tongue against her and watch her jaw go slack. Her hand tightens in my hair. I don't look away. I lick into her slowly, taking my time with angle and pressure, finding the combination that makes her thighs clamp around me while she moans my name and I want to keep hearing it.
I slide two fingers inside her.
She's impossibly wet and tight and I feel her clench immediately.
I curve my fingers inside her, caressing the spot that makes her lose stillness, with slow deliberate pulls while I keep my tongue on her clit in tight circles.
I watch her face through all of it. She's still with me.
Eyes on mine even as her mouth falls open, her hips start moving against me and the sounds coming out of her go formless.
"Don't stop." The words are frayed at the edges.
I don't.
She comes with her thighs locked around me, my name bitten off, her back arching off the seat. I keep going until she's ridden it out completely, until the last of it passes through her, until she drops back breathing hard and her grip in my hair has gone loose.
I sit up and pull her into my lap, having her straddling me. She's flushed from chest to cheek, lips bitten red, still trying to put herself back together.
I can feel her heat through my trousers. My dick is painfully hard and throbbing. I know she can feel it by the way she presses forward and undulates her body.
“Sienna, I—” Stop. More. I don’t know what I’m about to say. The only thing I manage to get out is a moan that escapes my throat.
I see her lean to the side reaching for her purse. Quickly she sorts through it, and takes out a condom. I watch with lustful attention as she tears off the foil, and meets my eyes once before she reaches for my zip.
I grit my teeth against the sound that wants to come out of me.
She frees my cock, wraps her hand around me and I have to look away for a second or I’m going to shoot my load at the erotic sight.
My eyes land on the car partition that is reflecting Sienna’s back, with the tails of that impossible bow touching her ass. Not better.
Her grip is warm and she is clearly enjoying making me wait. I exhale slowly through my nose and she makes a quiet sound that might be amusement.
She rolls the condom on. Positions herself. Holds my gaze.
Then she sinks down on me.
I put both hands on her hips, close my eyes and breathe through the full-body urgency to move, to take over, to stop being careful. She holds still too. Both of us suspended in that first moment, adjusting. Her heartbeat against my chest. Her breath at my neck.
I open my eyes.
"Use me," I say.
She braces both hands on the back of the seat and starts to move.
Slow at first, finding the angle, and when she finds it her hips roll forward and I feel it from the base of my spine up. I keep my hands on her waist where I’m bunching up her dress and let her lead, pressing my mouth to her throat where I can feel her pulse against my lips.
Her rhythm picks up and I grip her hips matching her movements. Her nails find my shoulders and I feel the change in her, the tightening urgency. I get my hand between us and press my thumb to her clit.
The rhythm goes ragged, she grinds down against my thumb and against my cock and I keep the pressure steady until she clenches around me coming hard, shaking, her face pressed to my neck, saying my name in a way I want to hear again and again.
I’m right behind her. I drag her body to me by her waist two more times and then I’m coming.
We both stay slumped against each other, trying to catch our breath, for a moment. And then I feel her start to move.
Instinctively I close my arms around her harder. And I hold.
She settles back against my chest. Her head leans on my shoulder. Her breathing slows.
The city moves beyond the glass. The partition and the tainted windows hold everything out.
I hold onto her.