Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Four
I t was late afternoon when she parked the car. She said the apartment complex was the best she could afford on her meager paycheck this close to campus and the paint on the buildings was peeling at the edges of the small balconies. “It’s not much but there’s a pool and a little workout room that almost never has anyone else in it.”
No one looked up as they passed the pool where blue water glimmered, and it was strange how out of place he felt in a world that continued to move along without him when the prison doors had clanged shut.
She watched the line of his gaze. “It’s too hot to do much outside right now, but we could definitely go swimming if you want.”
The idea that he had the freedom to do that was almost enough to steal the breath from his chest. “I’ll need to get a bathing suit,” he said as he followed her into the breezeway of one of the buildings and made a mental note of the large number on the side, so he didn’t get lost if he had to go outside for anything. When was the last time he had to worry about remembering or finding his way around someplace that wasn’t familiar?
She laughed, her voice echoing in the small space as they climbed the staircase. “You’re going to need everything. Pants and shirts, socks, underwear. I already let my boss know I’d be out for the rest of the week while you got settled so we can go shopping.”
She fit the key into the lock and pushed the door open with her shoulder. She’d said that the apartment was theirs, but she’s been living here alone for months, and he was hesitant as he followed her inside.
The door opened to a tiny living room on the left and a minuscule eat-in kitchen on the right. There was a single hallway that he assumed led to the bedroom and bathroom and a sliding glass door that revealed a balcony that he doubted was large enough for the two of them to both stand on at the same time.
She hung her keys on a hook by the door, reaching around behind him to flick the locks as she toed off her shoes. “This is it,” she said, spreading her arms wide as she began to walk, chattering about the apartment and expecting him to follow. The living room was tidy, the small space taken up by a small dark blue couch with a low coffee table and a flat screen TV on the opposite wall—but that wasn’t what caught his attention as he looked around the room.
“The couch is a little small for you, probably,” she said, evaluating it skeptically as he stood next to it, “but we can get a bigger one when we move—”
“Mia,” he interrupted, pointing at the wall behind the couch. “You kept all of these?”
His art lined the wall, arranged neatly in rows of thin black frames, all grouped together with others that had similar themes and colors so that it blended from black and white on the top right to a furious explosion of color on the bottom left.
She nodded, tipping her head to look at her arrangement. “There’s more in the bedroom and the hallway,” she confirmed, taking his hand and leading him through the rest of the apartment, showing him the art she’d hung and the places where she kept pictures of them together in frames on the dresser beside her bed. The worry about invading space that belonged to her faded in the face of just how much of him was already here.
“Do you like it?” she asked, standing in her bedroom and drumming her fingers on her thigh. She was nervous, he realized, afraid that he wouldn’t like her home or the things that were important to her.
“I love it,” he said, smiling as she relaxed with a nearly imperceptible sigh.
His eyes roamed the rest of the space and landed on the bed that sat beneath the room’s lone window. She’d brought him here with the expectation that he would stay, and he thought—hoped—that she meant for him to share that bed with her. If not right away, then at some point. Her letters and the phone calls they’d shared over the months that had passed had been heated, as explicit as they could be under the circumstances, but he knew about Mia’s upbringing and her faith. They’d never talked about it, another thing he’d assumed wrongly that they’d have more time to work out between them, but he knew that she’s always intended to wait until she was married, and he suspected that would still be true now, even if she did bring him here.
“I was just wondering” he mumbled, raking his hand through his hair. “Where I’m sleeping?”
“Where do you want to sleep?”
“Wherever you are,” he said honestly, deciding that it was better to be damned for the truth than a lie.
The tension drained from her shoulders. “Yeah?”
“I want you,” he said, leaning down until he could sweep his lips over hers, the barest brush of skin with the heaviest hint of promise, “but I want you to be sure and we’re not married yet.”
“Yet?” She tipped her face up to look at him, brows lifted in surprise.
“Yet,” he agreed. “I know how you feel about that, and I love you too much for you to think we made a mistake.”
“I love you, too,” she said, reaching up on tiptoe to press her lips against his cheek as her fingers rubbed lightly at one curl of his hair. “And that’s why I don’t want to wait. I’m not ashamed of wanting you.”
He breathed, an intentionally controlled soft and slow inhale and exhale as her meaning entered his mind and went straight to his body. Still, it hadn’t been that long ago that she’d been unable to even speak the names of her own body parts out loud. “I’m glad you’re not ashamed of it,” he said cautiously. “But I won’t ask you to do anything that you’re not ready for.”
“I’m ready,” she insisted. “I didn’t have time to go to the clinic for birth control yet, but I bought condoms.”
“You did?” He tried to imagine how much determination it must have taken for her to overcome her shyness and buy condoms from the store.
“Yeah,” she said, and he heard the edge of fierce determination in the statement. “I want this.”
She leaned into him eagerly when he tightened his arms around her and pulled her back up on tiptoe to slot his mouth over hers again and moaned, a small soft sound that was somehow fragile, a mixture of unabashed desire and nervous anticipation. It didn’t take her long to learn to soften her lips against him and match the erotic movement of his tongue and she shifted closer, pressing against him on instinct, until they both froze when the hard evidence of his arousal unmistakably rubbed into her stomach.
“I’m sorry,” he said quickly, pulling away as she looked down at him and then back up with pink cheeks.
“No,” she said, her hands holding fistfuls of the t-shirt the prison had given him so he couldn’t move any further away. “It’s just … is that because of me?”
“Yes,” he breathed, watching intently as her eyes widened and then glanced back down at the straining bulge in his jeans.
“It’s bigger than I expected,” she said timidly, startling a laugh out of him.
“I won’t hurt you,” he promised, trying to focus on her concerns and not his own stroked ego. “If you’re sure you want this, I’ll make it good for you.”
A shimmering tear slipped from the corner of her eye to pave a wet path down her cheek as she refused to meet his gaze. “You’ve done this before, with Brittany and all the others. What if I’m not good at it and you don’t like it with me?”
“Hey, please look at me,” he beseeched, bending down and trying to peek back up at her face until she finally sniffled and cast a quick glance in his direction. “Nothing that happened with anyone else will ever mean as much to me as doing it with you.” He pulled her close to rub his nose against her temple, his voice low and soft as he whispered in her ear. “We don’t have to wait but we can go slow, and I can prove it to you.”
It hit him again, the glorious feeling of having time to spend. The bed behind them wasn’t going anywhere and neither were they. He could take as much time as he needed to show her that his words were true, that he meant it when he said he’d never loved anyone, never wanted anyone, the way he wanted her.
“Can you start showing me now?” Her eyes were still wet with tears and vulnerable. She might be pushing herself to do too much, too quickly, but he couldn’t deny her anything and he resolved to use everything he had ever learned about how to please a partner to make sure that she didn’t regret it. He bent down, hooking a hand around the back of each thigh and lifting her until she settled against him, her dress pushed up around her hips and her legs wrapped around his waist.
He walked to the bed with her wrapped around him like a vine, nipping and kissing his way across her jaw as he went. By the time he sat down with her on his lap, her body was already quivering, and her lips were parted, her breaths coming in soft pants of confused arousal.
She scooted closer as he kissed her neck and followed the curve of her body down until bare skin disappeared beneath soft cotton. He tugged down the bodice of her dress to reveal the lace of her bra and cupped a breast, squeezing it and rubbing his thumb over the hardened bud of her nipple. Her back arched, pushing her body into his hand as she shifted her hips restlessly, nearly overwhelmed with the newness of what was happening to her.
“Gabriel?” Her voice cracked, fear and desire at odds in her tone.
“It’s okay,” he soothed. “Just hold on to me.”
She tightened her fingers on his shoulders where she gripped him as he changed his hold on her, one finger tracing the curve at the top of her thigh. He didn’t dip beneath the fabric of her underwear, but she was already hot, and the cloth was damp against his knuckle.
Her hips bucked against him instinctively, seeking and searching for more as she tucked her face into the crook of his neck.
“Do you want me to stop?” he asked, running his fingers over the ridges and dips of her spine as she nodded against his shoulder. “We can stop but you don’t have anything to be embarrassed about. I fucking love it that you’re all wet for me.”
“You do?” She didn’t lift her head from his shoulder, but her voice was hopeful and her whole body shook at his words. Her hips were slowly shifting, trying to get some friction or relief from the arousal he knew she felt, but unable to do so because she was spread so wide around his torso.
Struck with sudden inspiration, he nudged her until his thigh was nestled between her legs, pressing against her center. “This will help,” he told her, letting his hands resume their exploration as he guided hers from his shoulders to his hips.
“So pretty,” he said, lifting the bra out of the way and revealing the expanse of her breasts beneath the white lace, his fingers plucking her nipples into pebble-hardness and then sucking one and the other into his mouth as she gasped and whined.
She shifted eagerly against his thigh, and he knew the exact moment that she realized the new position allowed her to rub her clit on the hard muscle of his leg because a soft and eager moan tore from her lips.
“Yes,” he whispered. “Just like that. Does that feel good?”
She nodded, her breath quickening, and he could feel the tension building in her body. Her face was flushed, and her hair was tumbling down from her bun where his fingers had dug into it.
“Can you come like this?” he asked.
“I think so.”
“I want you to.” He wanted that more than he wanted anything else, but she pulled him in for another desperate kiss and as soon as he let her go she pulled his shirt over his head and then started working to get his zipper down. He made a mental note to buy something better than the thin white boxers that the prison provided him.
“Christ,” he swore, sucking in a deep breath as her fingers brushed against his stomach.
“Did I hurt you?”
“No,” he said, gripping her jaw as he pushed his lips roughly against hers. “You’re fucking perfect. Keep going … please.”
Her breath slipped from her lips on a shuddering exhale when she tugged him free of his clothes. “Much bigger than I expected,” she murmured, tipping her head to look at him as her fingers continued to explore, exploring the new textures and his reactions to her touch. “So hard but the skin is so soft.”
“Mia,” he said, dropping his head to her shoulder. He wasn’t certain if he was begging or praying.
“Show me,” she whispered, the edge of need turning it nearly into a whine. “Please.”
He urged her to lean back, supported her with his arm as he pushed aside her underwear and explored her folds to gather the wetness of her body. He coated his fingers and began to stroke his hardened length as she watched intently and writhed on his thigh.
After a few minutes of observing, she reached between her legs without prompting, rocking back to make room for her fingers as she copied what he had done and coated her palm with her own shimmering arousal. Her fingers wrapped hesitantly around him, and he let go to put his hand over hers and guide her until her caress became confident. She ground against him harder, her thighs tightening on his and her hips began to move in earnest as she chased her own release.
He grabbed her hip with one and urged her on as she rode his thigh, his other hand coming up to squeeze her breast. His lips found her throat again, tasting the soft flutter of her pulse and the slight tang of sweat on her skin. She was breathing harder, hips jerking erratically, and he knew she was getting closer as he leaned down and captured her nipple between his teeth.
“Come for me,” he commanded. “Baby, please.” He was desperate, his own orgasm creeping up as she tightened her grip on him.
The words seemed to be all the encouragement that she needed, and she came with a husky shout, her head tossed back and her body convulsing with the strength of her climax.
The sight of her coming apart in his arms was enough to snap his own restraint and he came before he could warn her. He pulled her in close, his teeth sinking into the soft rounded slope of shoulder as he spilled over them both, coating her hand and his stomach in hot waves. “Sorry,” he mumbled quickly, trying to shift her off of him so he could clean the mess off of her, worried that she’d be disgusted or angry.
“It’s fine,” she said softly, clinging to him as she gathered the fabric of her skirt and used it to wipe them clean, first her hand and then his stomach. She curled against him when she was finished, her lips finding his for a lazy kiss.
“Are you okay?” he asked, rubbing his jaw on her hair and breathing in the floral scent of her shampoo. He’d wanted to go slower, to focus more on her pleasure this first time, but she’d taken him by surprise with her enthusiasm.
“Better than fine,” she said with a giggle. “But I think we’re going to have to wash your jeans before you can wear them shopping tomorrow. I’m going to have to put them in the laundry downstairs.”
“I would help you but …”
She giggled again. “I don’t think my neighbors are quite ready for the sight of you naked in the laundry room. You could make dinner, though, while I toss them in. There’s ramen in the pantry so we can clean up and then take care of all that.”
He followed her into the bathroom and then watched as she stripped off her clothes, a blush creeping over her cheeks. The shower was barely big enough to fit them both and the meager water pressure delivered a spray that was mostly cold, but he rubbed the soap into her skin and helped her wash away the slickness between her legs.
“I’m sorry,” he said, running his hands over the marks his teeth had left in her shoulder.
“Don’t be.”
He’d been with women that had much more sophistication, but none that had ever looked at him like she did. Like he was something precious and valuable. Stains that he’d thought were permanently embedded in his soul seemed to fade away when she looked at him like that.
He wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight in the shower as the cold water poured over them.