7. Killian
KILLIAN
She's on her feet.
Not in bed, not pretending to have been sleeping—she's standing in the middle of the room like she was halfway to the door when I knocked, and now we're both just here.
The lamp is on low. The t-shirt she's wearing hits her at mid-thigh, one shoulder already slipping, and her auburn hair is down and her feet are bare and she is looking at me like she already knows every exit route she's not going to take.
I close the door behind me.
She crosses the room.
Not me going to her. Her coming to me, like she made this decision somewhere between breakfast and dinner and she is done making it.
Her hands come up to my chest and she looks at me—close, her mouth right there—and I can see the shape of her through the thin fabric, the shadow of her breasts, and I have been very deliberately not looking at that for two days.
"This is a terrible idea," she says.
"Yeah," I say.
She kisses me.
Both hands in my collar, pulling me down to her, and it is not tentative—it is two years of knowing exactly where the line was, and she is on the other side of it now.
I get my hands on her waist and pull her in and she makes a sound against my mouth, a low moan that I feel in my chest, and I pull her in tighter just to hear if she'll make it again. She does. Louder.
I walk her back to the bed.
She sits on the edge of it and I'm standing between her knees and I can see her now—properly, in the lamplight.
The t-shirt has slipped further off one shoulder.
Her nipples are pressing against the fabric, hard, and the hem has ridden up enough that I can see the cream of her thighs and I have to look at her face instead or I'm going to lose the thread entirely.
Her face is flushed. Her mouth is pink. She's breathing faster than she was thirty seconds ago.
She reaches for my shirt buttons. Gets the first one.
The second. Her fingers are steady in a way that mine are not, which tells me everything I need to know about who has been thinking about this longer.
I put my hand under her chin and tip her face up and kiss her again, slower this time, and she makes a small broken sound against my mouth—a whimper, soft and wanting—and her hands go still on the buttons.
I move to her jaw. Her throat. She tips her head back for me and I put my mouth below her ear and she makes another sound, sharper, her fingers clutching at my shirt. I memorize the spot. I memorize the sound. I have always paid attention to her.
"How long?" she breathes.
"February," I say against her throat. "Before that, if I'm being honest."
She whimpers. Just slightly. Like the answer did something to her that she wasn't expecting.
I lay her back.
She goes easy, pulling me down with her, and I get my knee between her thighs and settle my weight over her and she makes a sound—a real moan, full and low—when my thigh presses up against her.
Her hips tilt toward it. Her eyes close.
She presses herself against me and I go still.
I can feel how warm she is through the t-shirt.
I'm hard—have been since she crossed the room—and she notices it against her hip because her breath catches and her eyes open.
I'd be inside her in ten minutes if she let me. Bare. I've wanted that for two years.
She looks at me.
"Yeah," I say.
She pulls me down by the collar and kisses me open and hungry, her hips still moving in a slow grind against my thigh, and I get my hand on her side, up over her ribs, and find her breast through the fabric.
Her nipple is hard against my palm. She arches up into my hand with a moan that she muffles against my mouth—quieter now, remembering the house, remembering the walls—and I feel that restraint in my own chest, the effort of it, because every sound she's holding back I want to pull out of her.
My cock is hot and trapped against my jeans, jerking hard every time her hips roll up against my thigh. I'm not going to last long like this. I don't care.
I get my mouth on her throat and her hands go into my hair.
"You were watching me," she says. Her voice is not quite steady.
"Every Sunday. Every dinner where Ryan was looking at his phone while you were looking at my father's face when he talked about the vines.
" I lift my head and look at her—flushed, her auburn hair loose on the pillow, her chest heaving under my hand.
"You made a note in the margin of his rotation report once. February. Good note. He never saw it."
Her lips part.
"I knew you were watching," she says. "I told myself I didn't but I knew."
"I know you knew."
She pulls me back down. I go. Her mouth is hungrier now, both hands in my hair, her hips rolling up against my thigh with a rhythm she is not entirely controlling, and I slide my hand back to her waist and grip—she moans into my mouth, and the sound goes straight through me.
"I could hear you with him," I say, against her lips. "Through the wall. Before February. Every Sunday night. I sat on the other side of it."
She makes a sound at that—a small wrecked whimper—and clutches the back of my neck.
"What did you do?" she says.
"Nothing I'm proud of," I say. "I want to put my hands on you and not let anyone near you for the rest of my life.
I've wanted that since February. Before February.
" I press my thigh up and she gasps, her hips snapping up hard, her eyes screwing shut.
My cock jerks against her hip when she moves like that and I have to lock my jaw to keep from making a sound.
"I'm not going to pretend I'm sorry for wanting it. "
"Don't be sorry," she says. Breathless. "Don't?—"
She stops.
Her eyes open.
She's looking at the wall. The one between this room and the next. Her hand is still in my hair, not pushing me away—just stopped. Her chest is heaving. Her lips are parted. She's listening to the house, to the quiet, to thirty feet of hallway between this bed and Ryan's door.
Her face does something that I feel in my sternum.
"I can't," she says. Her voice has gone careful, the way it did at dinner when she folded something back and put it away. "Ryan?—"
She doesn't finish it. She doesn't need to.
I lift my weight off her. It's the hardest thing I've done in two years.
My cock is aching through the jeans and the friction of moving off her makes me grit my teeth not to make a sound.
I sit back on my heels at the edge of the bed.
I don't look at the place between her thighs where my thigh just was. If I look there I'm not getting up.
I don't say anything because there isn't anything to say and she already knows I know she's right. I knocked on this door knowing she was right. I knocked anyway. I'd been deciding to knock since dinner. The standing-outside was just for show.
She sits up. Pulls the t-shirt straight over her thighs. Looks at me—and I see the whole thing in her face, open and clear. Not sorry. Not confused. Not doing it like this.
She picks up the book from the nightstand. Stands. Goes.
Her feet quiet on the landing. The soft click of her door. The line of light under it—on, then off.
I sit on the edge of her bed.
The room still smells like her. The lamp is still on. My shirt is open. I'm so hard I can't sit straight. I can still feel where she moaned, the pressure that made her hips move, the small wrecked sound she made when I told her about the wall—and I'm going to carry all of that for a very long time.
I'm going back to my room. I'm going to do it again. It isn't going to be enough.
Two more days.
I'm not done.
When I do get there—and I will—I'm not using anything. Nothing between us. I want to feel every bit of it and I want her to feel it too.