Chapter Eighteen #2
We both wanted it. I could feel that now. It was building, this tension between us. And I wasn’t the only one who felt it. It would be so easy.
It could be right here, on the futon couch.
Abel was a man who could have any woman he wanted at any moment and I had no doubt he would be confident, proficient and sexy as hell.
The moment stretched, like time had stopped.
Like the world beyond us had ceased to exist. I saw the divide, where, in one version of my life, I brought the hands that were twisted in mine onto my hips and invited the next step.
And the other version, where I collected myself and regained my focus on why I was here, what I needed to do: study; finish my training; go back to Mum and Ebony.
I hadn’t even called to check they were okay since I’d been back in reception, and my belly twisted in a guilty way.
Even with my whole body and brain screaming, This man is perfection, I still couldn’t shift the doubt in my ability to make good choices.
It was too soon. Who’s to say I wasn’t completely delusional and this would be another judgement error?
I’d been so firm in my decision to break my attachment to Felix – break my addiction.
Was I now swapping heroin for cocaine? All those thoughts scrambled for real estate in my brain, but the loudest impulses were much less sophisticated: I. Want. This. Man.
‘Maybe you should go now,’ I whispered, barely audible, as tentative in volume as it felt in intention.
‘Okay.’ His voice was equally unconvincing, his ability to communicate verbally with any level of sophistication diminishing with mine.
I don’t know what possessed me, what gremlin inside me thought that it would be a good idea. But I just couldn’t resist the temptation to inch my hips in a tiny circle. Like some juvenile who couldn’t contain their urge to pop a bubble that was blown, perfect and shiny.
My movement was met with the sharp intake of Abel’s breath and a low growl that came from somewhere deep and hungry and brilliant inside him.
‘Mary.’ A warning.
I was nearly gone. He was nearly gone. In a moment, we would be past the point of no return.
His gaze was so intense I felt as if I was burning under it, and that was more than I could take.
I lowered my forehead to his, our noses meeting.
I closed my eyes and just let myself feel him.
Beneath me. Fingers in my fingers. Breath against my breath.
I felt myself sigh into him as we twisted slightly so our faces found the grooves of one another, his mouth a whisker away from mine.
‘Mary.’ The movement of his lips brought them in contact with mine. The heat was blooming in my groin, overwhelming me.
‘Abel.’ My lips moved, just for the feel of him against them.
A brief uncertainty flickered inside my chest, questioning my judgement. I swallowed. ‘I don’t … trust myself right now, Abel. There’s a lot going on with my exam and …’ Even to my own ears, my argument sounded weak, lacking conviction.
Neither of us moved. I tried to think about all the reasons this wasn’t a good idea. All the reasons I needed to get off the couch.
‘Do you want me to let you focus?’ he managed, as though it took all the restraint in his body.
His hands had found my hips without my needing to invite them and mine rested on his forearms. His hands squeezed, tight and strong, pulling me down, pressing me onto him, and I nearly threw my head back at the feeling, the growing hardness right where I ached for it.
‘You need me to let you focus?’ he repeated, raspy now.
‘Yes.’ A croak. No, my body screamed. No. No. No. No!
He exhaled. Closed his eyes for a moment and swallowed. ‘Okay.’
And then, as if needing protection against the magnitude of it all, he gathered me to him. His arms twisted tight around me, face against my neck, and I hugged him back, because I didn’t know what else to do to sidestep this overwhelming eventuality.
‘Mary, Mary, Mary,’ he whispered into me with an anguished sort of high-pitched laugh. ‘Your discipline is made of fucking steel.’
I couldn’t say anything, but something giggled out of me too. Rich and shaky. Adrenaline fuelled.
I don’t know how long we stayed there, arms around each other as though holding on until we rode out something huge and destabilising.
‘Okay?’ he asked after a time.
‘Yeah,’ I whispered back. ‘Nice. Really nice.’
He gave my butt a pinch, not enough to hurt, but enough to make me startle and shift even tighter onto him. ‘Yeah. Really fucking nice, Mary.’
He went back to holding me. Then, commandingly, he said, ‘Give me your number.’
‘No.’
‘Just so I can check up on you.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘I won’t use it inappropriately, I promise.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Give me your phone then,’ he insisted.
‘It’s in my pocket.’
He reached into my jacket, wedged between our bodies, and pulled it out. His hand in my pocket set the skin beneath my clothes alight.
‘Unlock it,’ he demanded.
I did. I’d have done anything at that point. A part of me wished he was demanding more. Demanding me to take my top off. Demanding me to unbutton his trousers. But he was too respectful for any of that. I’d put the stop sign up and he’d obeyed the signal immediately. Dammit.
I let him take the phone from my hand and I don’t know what he did, but my belly rushed at the way he took control. God. How he’d take control. I could imagine it. It would be other-worldly. It would life-altering.
When he’d finished with my phone, I heard the soft sound of it dropping on the couch beside us. Then his hand swept over my butt with a final squeeze that made me shiver.
‘I’m going now, before I can’t make gentlemanly concessions around focus.’ He shifted me back onto the couch and placed a kiss on my cheek. ‘Bye, sugarplum.’
And then his shoes were on and he was out the door.
And I was left sitting on my purple velvet futon like a goddamn sexually frustrated bonobo.