Chapter 21
I had an almost ninety-minute drive from Manhattan to East Norwalk to change my mind. To tell him I hadn’t been serious, that I’d ordered another drink and forgotten I’d sent the text at all.
But that’s not what I do.
I smile my reassurance with a quick apology, promising to reroute our destination toward home…
But then, I decide to be braver:
Me: You gave me the address to the garage?
Ro: Oh shit you really came!
A light flips on inside, illuminating a window over the lobby. My insides flutter and I roll my eyes at myself a little for it.
I beat Ro to the door, but after only a second or two, there’s movement behind the glass. He hasn’t turned on the lights, so he’s still mostly shrouded in black, but I know the exact instant he sees me. I feel it before I see it—his smile, setting the world on fire.
We study each other through the door for too long. Each of us giving the other one last chance to back out, but our eyes are locked, unwavering, and our bodies are still. The shake of his head is almost imperceptible as he reaches a decision of his own, turning the dead bolt to open the door wide.
With nothing separating us now, I lose whatever calm I’d been channeling. I’d felt so sure before, and I am, but I’m also suddenly very aware that I don’t know what to do with my hands.
Ro steps beside me to wave off the driver I hadn’t noticed still waiting in the lot.
My body trills with electricity. Awakening at how he’s taken the lead with that simple act.
There’s no going back now—and that had been Ro’s decision as much as it had been mine to come.
When his hand falls, he rests it at my back, ushering me inside.
His touch feels exactly the way I remember.
Almost unremarkable in its easy belonging.
Yet I’m certain that I could pick his prints out of a lineup for how his fingers brand me.
When he applies the tiniest whisper of pressure at my spine, I sink into his touch willingly.
“You coming?” he asks, his lips at my ear.
Tonight, Ro’s voice is gravel on silk. It leaves a mark. I’ve known his voice, but not like this. I’ve known this man, but not like this. Everything about this moment is new and yet, when I pull back to really look at him, everything is exactly as it’s always been.
My lips part as a breath bordering on obscene escapes them.
Ro’s dimple pops, and my chest and heart find their rhythm. In sync with his as always. Because for all the ways we’re new tonight, it’s still Ro Jackson staring back at me.
“You sleep here?” I ask, stepping deeper into the lobby.
Bathed in comfortable silence and the moon’s glow, this place feels even more magical than it does in the day. But my eyes are most impressed by the man locking the door in gray sweats and crisp white socks. He wears sleep well. Eyes and smile a bit lazier than usual, but no less radiant.
“Yeah,” he says, stalking me, but keeping his distance. I wish he wouldn’t. “There’s an apartment upstairs. I’ve been crashing up there.”
He nods upward, and my eyes follow till we’re both watching the ceiling, like we can see the future playing out on its tiles. Ro breaks his gaze first, his eyes boring into me now with a smirk playing at his full lips.
He’s going to make me say it.
I shake my head but fold like a paper crane. “Show me.”
Neither of us even attempts to conceal the smiles those words bring. His silently claims victory, but as long as he takes me upstairs, I’m winning.
—
Usually, by the time I’m in view of a bed with a man at my side, we both already know what it is.
I’d expected for Ro and me to be a tangle of breath and bodies by now, but he slinks away to pour a glass of water, and I’m left rooted to the ground at the threshold between the living space and his bedroom.
Hands tucked at my sides, like I’m waiting to punch my ticket for entry.
The lamp I’d seen from outside still glows on the nightstand, bathing his rumpled sheets in a soft light that makes the bedroom feel more intimate. It’s different than I’d imagined—softer. Everything’s different with Ro.
I’m not entirely sure I know how to do this. And apparently, I’m not hiding it well.
“We’re not having sex tonight, Kai.”
I jump, spinning away from the bedroom, at the sound of his voice and the knockout blow his words deliver to my fragile ego.
Ro’s leaned against the kitchenette counter behind me, watching me watch his bed.
Arms folded across his broad chest, the rigid planes of his torso barely concealed by his worn T-shirt.
“What?!” I screech. “No, I just—”
His eyebrow raises in an amused challenge. He knows why I’m here. We both do. And hard as I try, I can’t find the words through my disappointment to pretend otherwise.
“Well, why not?” My question is an admission.
The muscled bands of his forearms flex as he pushes off the laminate countertop. He pads across the floor almost weightless, despite his strength and stature.
He doesn’t stop coming for me until our toes are touching on the plush rug.
“Because,” he starts, and the whisper of his breath on my cheek tightens muscles in my core that I didn’t even know I had.
“I’ve waited this long to touch you. When I finally do, I need to know it’s what you want too.
So I don’t have to wonder. So I don’t have to go slow. ”
A gasp is the only way I can bring air into my shocked lungs.
“It’s what I want,” I beg. He’s claiming he won’t touch me, but already I feel him. Everywhere. “I’m telling you now, it’s what I want.”
He fingers the curl at my temple, tugging at it so his hand just grazes the length of my cheek. “You smell like tequila,” he whispers, still eyeing the curl as it springs back into position.
Desperate and breathless, I ask, “Do you have mouthwash or something?”
Laughter explodes from his chest, breaking my trance. “No, Kaia. You don’t need mouthwash. You smell fucking great,” he says, stepping back from me. “But I don’t wanna be a decision you make at night and regret in the morning.”
He takes another step farther out of reach, and the chasm he creates between us is his decision made.
My face falls. My shoulders fall. My libido, though, remains firmly in place.
—
The T-shirt Ro gave me to sleep in smells like him. The pillow where my head currently rests smells like him. The bed, the room, this entire place smells like Ro.
What a fucking tease.
He’s quiet beside me, breath coming so steadily that I’m sure he’s long been asleep. But how am I supposed to sleep with the heat from his body crawling onto my side of the bed. Taunting me with his closeness.
My phone’s at my nose, blinding me as I scroll in an otherwise dark room.
“What are you doing?” His voice is thick with sleep.
“Sorry,” I say, locking my phone to bathe us in blackness again.
I turn so we’re knee to knee and nose to nose.
“But for the record, it’d been like twenty minutes from my last drink to when I left the bar.
Let’s say seven minutes waiting for my ride.
Then ninety in the car to get here, and you’ve been punishing me now for at least sixty or so…
so that’s what? A hundred and seventy-seven minutes. ”
He’s quiet as he waits for me to connect the dots. I do it eagerly.
“According to Google I could safely operate a construction crane or small aircraft by now. Pretty sure it’s safe for us to…” I trail off in hopes I’ve presented enough data for Ro’s restraint to give way.
His hand finds my waist below the covers. I toe his foot with mine. He pulls me the tiniest bit closer, and I think I’ve got him. Until laughter rumbles from his chest.
“That’s what you’re doing right now? Looking up the metabolic rates of tequila? You order a Breathalyzer off Postmates too?”
“No,” I say, poking his ribs till he squirms. “But I could totally pass a field test, you ass.”
He gently removes my hands from his body and rolls onto his back. “Okay then,” he says, pulling up on his elbows. “Let’s see it.”
I sit up, meeting his challenge eye to eye. “You want it straight up, or we doin’ the bump, bump version with the kick-ball-change.” I’m on my knees now, popping my hip like the drunk cowboy in question.
Ro stuffs the pillow behind his back to prop himself up and folds both arms behind his head to take in the show. “Actually,” he says, “gimme the kick step.”
I mirror his smirk before yanking his pillow away and smothering him with it. His muffled protests tangle with my laughter, but I don’t let up until his fingers dig into my ribs, tickling me into submission.
When he finally relents, Ro’s propped up on an elbow above me and we’re both breathless. His face hovers above mine, so close that if I lifted my head even slightly, our lips would be touching. So that’s what I do.
I take Ro’s bottom lip into my mouth and bite down the same way I’ve watched him do it.
It’s velvety and so lush that even this nibble feels sinful.
Gluttonous. A growl escapes him, and I swallow it whole.
When he parts his mouth wider to allow my tongue entry, I explore every bit of him.
This isn’t just a kiss, I’m inhaling Ro.
Taking him all the way in. And when our lips finally part, my greedy fingers find his damp mouth—tracing it, memorizing it, claiming it.
Ro watches me with an intensity I’d usually run from, but I’m here.
I wait for him to kiss me again, for his tongue to line the veins at my neck, for his fingers to seek out my nipples, budding beneath the thin fabric between us. Instead, he drops his head to the pillow with closed eyes and a heavy exhale.
The air that rushes to fill the space he’d just occupied is colder than it had been before he touched me. I want more of him, and when he was on me, I could feel that he wanted more too.
My chest rises and falls with unfulfilled want, but when his lips find my shoulder, I warm some. Settling into him with a sigh.
“Good night, Kaia,” he says, without removing his mouth from my skin.
And he keeps it on me, all night, as we sleep.