Chapter 12
I stood in the doorway outside Beau's apartment, trying to convince myself to go in. I wrung my fingers. There were angry butterflies in my stomach, threatening to fly up my throat and swarm the hallway.
Oh, goodness. I was Sabrina Vela. I didn't show up early to a man's apartment and then stand outside his door, working myself up to knock.
Why was this so hard? It was just sex. Yes, I liked the man. He was kind, genuine, gentle, and attentive. He had one flaw. We weren't meant for each other, but I knew we were going to be good with our bodies. I knew it. I could tell.
That was why I chose this dress. It was a knee-length, deep red, soft jersey that hugged from rib to hip. The neckline was modest when I kept my shoulders square and embarrassing when I leaned forward. I chose heels I'd pulled out of the bottom of my closet and dusted off with a paper towel.
And because I knew it'd come down anyway, I didn't bother putting my hair up. It was odd to feel it past my shoulders, but it would do.
Pull it together, Sabrina.
I needed this. Needed this to take my mind off the grief.
I knocked.
The door opened before my knuckles came off the wood.
He was already there. His hand caught my elbow. He pulled me through the doorway. The door closed behind me with my back against it because his other hand came up to my hair and his mouth came down to mine. He was kissing me before either of us could even say hello.
His hand went to the back of my neck. His other hand was at my waist. His mouth pressed on mine and held. He wasn't asking. My hands were against his chest now. They were at my sides, and now they were against his chest.
He pulled back.
His forehead stayed against mine. His hand stayed at the back of my neck. "Were you going to knock?"
"I was getting there."
His thumb brushed the line of my jaw. He smiled against my mouth and let me go. He stepped back, and his hands came down to my elbows. "Are you hungry? I can make you something."
I shook my head. "No."
His eyes went past my shoulder, toward the kitchen. "You look like you need a drink." The corner of his mouth quirked before I could answer. "Sabrina."
"What?"
His eyes went to my hands. "You're wringing your fingers."
I looked down. I was. I didn't know when my hands came off his chest and went back to wringing. I made it stop.
He reached out, and he took my right hand.
I lifted my chin. "Actually, I'll take some wine."
He grinned. "There it is."
He turned, and he led me by the hand into the apartment.
There was a throw blanket kicked into a heap on one end of the couch. Books were on a shelf, on a side chair, and stacked on the floor next to the couch. A wool sweater hung over the back of a kitchen stool. A pair of running shoes was by the door, dirty around the toes.
I liked it. It was very Beau.
He went around the kitchen island. He took down two glasses. He pulled a bottle from the rack, set it on the counter, picked up the corkscrew, and looked at me over the bottle. "I can't believe I get to pour the one and only Sabrina Vela a drink."
I leaned my forearm on the island and laughed. "It would seem that way."
He shook his head, eyes on the cork. "Sabrina, the amount of restraint you're showing right now."
I narrowed my eyes at him over the island. "Don't push it, Cross."
He laughed, pulled the cork, poured two glasses of red, slid one across the island to me, and picked up the other.
I picked up mine. I took a sip. At least Beau knew how to pick good wine.
The lights were low. The kitchen was warm. He was on the other side of the island, holding his glass, the top two buttons of his shirt undone at the collar. His eyes were on my face. They hadn't moved down to look at the dress, not since he'd let me go at the door.
That was the problem.
If he'd been looking at me with want, I'd have been fine. I knew how to take a look like that and put it back in the drawer it had come out of.
He was looking at me — eyes on my face, not moving down — only now there was something else in it.
God help me.
I lifted the glass, took a slow sip, and held it in front of my face. He set his own glass down on the counter.
"If you've changed your mind, that's okay."
I looked up at him. He didn't move. I shook my head. "I haven't changed my mind."
He held my gaze. "Sabrina."
"I'm working up to it. Give me thirty seconds."
He nodded. "Take all the seconds you need."
I looked at him over the rim of the glass. He still wasn't looking at me with desire.
What's wrong with you?
You came here to do this. You picked the dress and shaved your legs. You agreed to the deal. Get out of your head, Sabrina.
I put the glass down. I walked around the island.
He set his glass down and turned to face me. But didn't move toward me. I walked the four steps between. I stopped a foot from him, stood on the tip of my toes, put my hands on the front of his shirt, and kissed him.
He was still for a beat. Then his hand came up to my jaw, and his other hand went to the small of my back, and he kissed me back slowly. He had all night with me.
He pulled back.
"Sabrina. We don't have to…if you're not…we don't have to do this if…"
"Shhh… don't say anything, Mr. Cross."
I kissed him.
His hand at my jaw moved to my hair. His hand at the small of my back became his arm around me, lifting me a half inch off the floor, and I locked one arm around his shoulders to let him.
He walked us backward — the corner of the island grazed my hip, and he turned us, his mouth not leaving mine, and we were in the hallway.
There was a button on his shirt that my fingers were currently working on. The button wasn't cooperating. He laughed against my mouth.
"Let me."
I smacked his hand away. "No."
"Sabrina, I can —- "
"I have it."
He undid the next two buttons of his own shirt with one hand, which I'd have admired more if I hadn't been busy with the first one, and then he undid the rest while I was still on the first one.
Then he stopped helping me, put both hands back on me, and let me have my pyrrhic victory over the cuff link.
His shirt came off.
I took a moment to appreciate the half-naked, well-defined sight of him.
He looked ethereal as if God took his sweet time sculpting each part of his body.I spread my hands over his chest. His hair was soft, chest full and defined.
Abs as clear as day. He obviously worked out.
He was obviously delicious. My mouth and other places watered.
We made it through a doorway. My back hit the wall, his hand in my hair, my dress halfway up my thigh because his hand took a detour there.
The red dress came up the rest of the way and over my head. His mouth came back to mine before the dress hit the floor.
He turned me around and put my front against the wall, the cool of the paint surprising the breath right out of me. His hands were at my hips, and his mouth was at the back of my neck, and his skin was hot against my back. I didn't have any room in my head for anything that wasn't him.
His mouth went still at the back of my neck.
"Sabrina."
"Mm-hmm?"
His hands stilled at my hips. "Are you sure?"
I let out half a breath against the paint. "Cross, if you ask me one more time, I'm going home."
He laughed against my neck.
I moaned when he slid into me. His other hand found mine against the wall. His fingers laced through mine.
I was very far from words. My forehead was against the wall.
His forehead was against the back of my head.
His chest was against my back. The wall was cool under my palm, and his hand was warm on top of my hand, and there was nothing in my head but his rhythm behind me and the sound of my own breath against the paint.
He gripped me — his arm around my waist, tight, then tighter — and the world narrowed down to a circle six inches across, and the circle held for three or four seconds, and then it broke.
We finished.
His weight came down against my back. He didn't move for half a minute. I didn't move either. Our breaths were coming in fast, and his arm was still around my waist.
He turned my chin with two fingers. He kissed the corner of my mouth. He turned me slowly until my back was against the wall again and my front was against him.
His hand started to move.
His thumb went across the side of my breast and stayed there for a beat. His palm went down the line of my stomach. Then lower. His mouth was at the side of my neck. I couldn't, just then, remember how I'd ever managed to have a thought about anything else.
I put my hand flat against the wall and let him.
When I came back to myself — both feet still on the floor, somehow, the wall against my back, my hands flat on his chest — I let my head fall against his shoulder and breathed into his collarbone for half a minute.
He held me up.
His hand was at the back of my head. The other was at the small of my back.
We were standing against the wall outside his bedroom in some state of undress I didn't want to inventory, and he was holding me up, and I'd just — I'd just done something I'd told myself I wasn't going to do, which wasn't the sex, the sex was on the deal.
It was something I hadn't budgeted for —
I shut down the sentence.
I wasn't going to finish that.
I lifted my head off his shoulder. "Cross."
"Mmm…"
"Why did you change your mind?"
He went still.
His breath under my hand stopped for a second and hand at the back of my head didn't move. He took a second too long to answer, and when the second was done, I knew the answer wasn't going to be the one I'd thought I was about to get.
His mouth moved against my collarbone. "My dad died yesterday."
I went still and came off the wall.
I turned. My hands found his chest again, my arms went up around his neck, and his head went down into the side of my neck. I held him — actually held him, both arms — and his arms came up around my back and held me back, and we stood like that.
"I'm sorry."
He didn't answer right away.
"I'm so sorry, Beau."
His mouth was against my collarbone. "Yeah. Thank you."
He pulled back. He didn't let go of me, but he pulled his head up. He gave me a smile.
"It's okay." He breathed in. "I'm okay."
He wasn't okay. His eyes were tired around the edges in a way I'd never seen on a person before. I let him have it.
His hand went up into my hair. He held the back of my head. He let it go slowly through my hair, down to my shoulder, across my shoulder to the curve of the top of my back.
He didn't speak.
He didn't need to. The hand was the speaking.
It went from my back to my hip and stayed there, fingers curling around the bone, and the intention was in the curling. He was — I'd thought I could read him. I'd thought I had the man read. Tonight had taught me I hadn't yet learned what he looked like when he was using me.
I let him.
I let him for the same reason he was doing it.
I'd agreed to this. I'd stood in his hallway in a dress I hadn't worn in two years specifically to agree to this.
The agreement had been, in plain English, that we'd do this and not call it more, and that on a night when one of us was unequal to the world, the other would be the body that the world could be replaced with for an hour.
This was that night.
For him.
For me, too. I wasn't going to say that part out loud.
I put my forehead against his collarbone.
I made my voice small — quieter than I'd said anything to him in any of our nights — and I said it into his chest.
"Promise me you won't fall in love with me."
He didn't answer right away.
I waited.
His hand stayed at my hip. His other came up to the back of my head — slow and gentle — and he held me there.
"I wouldn't dream of it."
I closed my eyes.
It was, I knew, a lie.
I closed my eyes a little tighter.
It was a lie I'd be willing to believe for as long as he was willing to keep telling it.