Chapter XII
XII
I round the island and come to stand in front of Reid. With him on the stool, we’re about eye level. I cradle the sides of his face in both my hands. I feel my body sigh in relief, finally making contact with his skin. His eyes flutter closed as he tilts his head to rest in my palms.
“I like this.” I run my fingers through the silver in his hair. “I like the gray.”
“If you like the gray, I like the gray,” he murmurs.
“We should check on the girls,” I say, trusting that he understands the secret second meaning in my words—we need to know how much time we have right now.
“Gracie texted me on our way over here.” His hand glides across my hip, and I lean into his warmth. “They’re heading to Chinatown. Dim sum. I think.”
We consider each other for half a second, and in that window, it’s like we come to a silent, mutual agreement: Don’t waste the time we’ve been given.
And when his arms circle my waist, when our lips scramble to meet in an insistent, deepening kiss, when his hands grab at the hem of my top and pull it up over my head, I am right back to the way I was magnetized to him in the basement of the bookstore so many years ago, how some unspoken law dictated we come together.
I am stunned by the familiarity of the way he tastes and the feel of his mouth against mine—that my sense memory reaches back over so many decades feels like a drunken form of déjà vu.
He hooks an arm around my back, spreads his fingers wide, and comes to a stand, levering me off the ground on his way to his full height.
I lean my chest into his and wrap my legs around his waist. My desire spirals, and I begin to move rhythmically against him, desperate for the friction of his belt buckle, the muscles straining beneath his shirt.
I feel him hard underneath me and instinctively slide my hand to his crotch.
Our mouths still locked together, tongues pushing greedily into each other, he backs us into the living room and lays me down on the couch.
He stands over me for a moment, his eyes glazed as he surveys me, like he’s gathering himself before he begins some methodical, satisfying work. There’s no trace of the heaviness I’d seen in him just a few minutes ago, and I take in, bask in, his reprieve.
He gazes at me expectantly, and I realize—he’s waiting for my permission.
I run my fingers underneath the hem of his T-shirt. “Take this off.”
He makes a quiet, pleased sound of approval. In a single movement, he reaches both hands behind his back and pulls the shirt over his head, leaving his hair unkempt.
I lift myself to sitting so that I’m eye level with his belt buckle.
Slowly, deliberately, I unlatch it, delighting in the sound of the hardware coming undone, then even more in the noise Reid makes low in his throat, somewhere between a growl and a sigh.
He runs a finger under my chin, lifting it so that our eyes meet.
I’m momentarily self-conscious about the way I might look to him. I’m happy in my body, but I’m not delusional: This is not the same body I had when I was nineteen. I wouldn’t want it to be. But—
“Lili,” he says softly. The way Reid says my name, a spell as always—it immediately puts to rest whatever is going on in my head. Time breaks, and I exist only inside the sound of his voice. I would let him do anything he wanted to me as long as he asked in that voice. “You’re so fucking hot.”
I touch a palm to his chest and press the pads of my fingers there.
Then we both turn impatient. His hands push through my hair, and my fingers shake as I unbutton his jeans and tear down his fly, as I run my thumb down his thickening cock. My mouth floods, ready to have him, and I shift onto one heel to press into the pulse building between my legs.
“Fuck,” Reid says, as I trace my tongue down his stomach, slide my fingers inside his waistband, then push his briefs down just enough to free his length.
Before I can get any further, he drops down to his knees, maintaining a gentle hold on the back of my head, like he doesn’t want to let me go. I can’t read the look on his face as he pulls me in for a kiss. It’s softer this time, lingering.
“Am I going too fast?” I ask when we pull apart. Something inside me threatens to shutter. I worry I might be taking advantage of his vulnerability. Of mine. I sense I shouldn’t have abandoned my instincts like I did, should have maintained my self-control.
But he just laughs, then runs his thumb between my brows. “No,” he shakes his head. When he reaches down to undo the button of my jeans and release my zipper with maddening control, whatever fears I had melt away again.
His mouth runs across my cheek, over to my ear. “I just needed to get to you, before you got to me.”
He leans me back, tugs my jeans over my knees, and kisses across my stomach, along my thighs.
Then he dips two fingers in his mouth and slides his hand down my stomach, into my underwear, between my legs.
His breath turns heavy as he runs those fingers along my seam.
It feels so young to have his hands on me like this, on my couch with my pants half on.
My knees open wider for him, my hips lifting to meet him, to coax him into me.
“You feel so fucking good,” he says, more to himself than to me, as he dips inside me and begins to move with the cadence of my hips, his thumb teasing my clit in steady circles.
I feel my senses rearrange around that single point of contact, and I have never needed anything more than I need this: Reid’s head buried in my neck, his strength contained and focused on me, his satisfied moans that echo my own.
“Reid,” I plead. I tighten my hold around his neck, seeking an anchor as his fingers find that spot against my front wall and my vision blurs and splinters.
“I got you,” he whispers back, and I think—I know—that I have never felt this way before, on the edge of finding a relief I didn’t know could be mine. I’m getting agonizingly closer with every stroke, and that’s exactly when we both hear it: two voices at the front door.
Two voices we would know anywhere.
We both stop abruptly, frozen in fear, our eyes locked in part panic, part disbelief, willing time to do us a solid and slow down again, the way it did earlier.
And when it doesn’t—when the voices grow closer, interrupted by the jangle of keys, then the slide of a key in the lock—we simultaneously move into action.
Reid launches himself off me, buckles his belt, helps me back into my shirt, and bounds into the kitchen, where I hear him washing his hands—a smart touch—and putting our champagne and whiskey glasses in the sink before coming back into the living room and handing me a glass of water.
I smooth my hair, wipe a smear of lip balm from my chin, and take a seat beside Reid on the couch, keeping an appropriate amount of distance between us.
Before the girls enter the foyer, all screeching laughs and tinkling purse charms, we have just enough time to trade a warily victorious look.
And then he risks it all by reaching out to tuck a lock of hair behind my ear, as if he can’t help himself.
I understand the impulse: It requires everything in me not to take that hand and press it to my mouth.
“Hi guys,” I say, my voice chipper. “We thought you were going to Chinatown?”
Emme startles, pressing a hand against her chest—the same thing my mother just did at lunch. Eerie.
“Shit.” She drops an armful of shopping bags on the floor. “Sorry, I mean, wow. We wanted to come back and hang for a second. I thought you guys would still be at lunch.”
She seems surprised, but not onto us. Gracie, however, does not seem to be so easily convinced.
She saunters into the living room behind Emme, arms crossed over her chest. I watch her survey the scene coolly, her face impassive as she takes in me, then Reid, then the rest of the room: the water sloshed over the glasses on the coffee table, the striped red pillow that must have fallen to the floor at some point.
Shit.
“Their reservation was, like, five hours ago,” Gracie says, her eyes still trained on that damning pillow. “It would be crazy if they were still at the restaurant.”
Then Gracie redirects her attention to me.
She gives me a smirk, but it’s not unkind.
It’s very possible that I’m still drunk on endorphins, but I think the look on her face is .
. . subtly amused? She clearly knows that something went on here, and a glance at Reid’s hair, uncharacteristically mussed, confirms that we did not do as good a job with the cleanup as we’d hoped.
Is it possible that Gracie approves of me?
Then my daughter, adorably oblivious to what’s going on here, plops down on the armchair across from Reid and me. “Maybe they did a bop,” she trills. “It’s a beautiful day for a bop.”
“We went to Nana and Papa’s—I texted you earlier,” I say to the one teenager in the world who never looks at her phone. “Then we did do a bop, around the park.”
Gracie squeezes in beside Emme, and Emme slings an arm over her leg with the casual affection of teenage girls. I’m a little surprised by how quickly they’ve bonded after the nightmare of their first encounter.
“Speaking of five hours”—Reid looks at his watch, no longer a scuffed Timex—“Grace, you and I should head back uptown if you want to change before Dirt Candy. Reservation’s at seven.”
Emme and Gracie exchange a look so subtle, I’m sure Reid didn’t clock it.
But I did.
“No!” Emme says quickly, grabbing on to Gracie’s arm with both her hands. “Don’t leave. Why don’t you guys stay for dinner? Mom and I were going to cook.”
I don’t remember any such plans, but I’ll go along with it if it keeps Reid here.
I catch a glimpse of his fingers around the glass, and I am suddenly, ridiculously wistful for just a few minutes earlier.
As much as I want to finish what we started, I also don’t want to be left to process what just happened on my own.
More than that, it just feels right for him to stay. And Gracie too.
“I just did a big grocery run,” I say, playing along. “Gracie, I can make a veggie chili, if that sounds good. I think we have some dairy-free cheddar in the fridge.”
“It melts just like real cheese!” Emme adds.
I glance over at Reid, who seems genuinely in the dark about whatever conspiracy the girls are scheming about. The man may be smart, but he’s never been a teenage girl.
“That is, if your dad’s OK with it,” I add. “I don’t want to make you miss the restaurant.”
“Sounds great to me,” Reid says. “Gracie?”
“Yeah, I’m getting sick of restaurant food.” Gracie unfurls herself from the chair, stretches her arms above her head, and makes her way into the kitchen, where I hear cabinets begin to bang open and shut.
I bite back a smile as Emme follows, leaving Reid and me on the couch. Reid runs a hand through his hair and gives me that upside-down smirk. I have to tense my muscles, force my body to stay where I am, not to climb into his lap and rub myself against him like a cat.
“You’re sure this is OK?” I ask. “I don’t want to impose.”
Reid laughs, quietly enough for the girls not to hear. “Lil,” he says into my ear, “you are never going to be an imposition.” The tickle of his warm breath sends a tingle down my neck.
Then he gives me a quick kiss at the corner of my mouth, stands, and holds his hand out to help me up.