12. Nolan #2
My hands on her waist, spinning her, pulling her into me.
My mouth found hers before she finished the sentence.
Not the controlled kiss from the restaurant, not the tender one from my apartment where I'd laid her down on sheets that had never held another person.
This was different. Desperate. Graceless.
She grabbed me back. Her fingers twisted in my shirt, pulling, her mouth open against mine.
The anger converting into something hotter and more honest than anything we'd had.
I backed her into the door. The handle dug into her hip — she moved, I adjusted, my hands sliding down to lift her.
Her legs wrapped around my waist. Her fingers raked across my hair.
Her blouse came untucked. My shirt followed.
Her hands were on my skin — my ribs, my stomach, my back. Her palms flat, pressing, claiming territory with every inch. My mouth left hers and found her neck, the spot below her ear where her pulse hammered against my lips. She gasped, and the gasp turned into my name.
She pulled my shirt over my head. I let her.
Her eyes dropped to my chest, my shoulders, the lines of muscle she'd only felt through fabric until now.
Her hands followed her gaze — fingers tracing down my sternum, across my ribs, her touch slow and deliberate, mapping me.
With her full attention. Her nails dragged lightly across my stomach, and my abs clenched under her touch.
"Off," she said, pulling at the buttons of her blouse.
Her fingers were shaking. I covered her hands with mine and undid them myself, one by one, slow, my knuckles brushing the warm skin beneath with each button I freed.
The fabric parted. Black lace underneath.
She'd worn it today. She'd put it on this morning, knowing it would be under her clothes, against her skin, and my mouth went dry.
I pressed my lips to her collarbone. She arched into me. Her fingers dug into my shoulders, her head falling back against the door. The sound she made sent heat flooding down my spine.
I lifted her again. She wrapped around me, and I carried her to the desk, sweeping the papers aside with one arm.
Files scattered, a pen rolled off the edge and hit the carpet, and a binder slid and fell with a muffled thud.
She sat on the edge and pulled me between her legs, her thighs gripping my hips, her mouth hot against my jaw, my neck, the hollow of my throat.
Her teeth caught my skin, and I groaned.
My hands fisting in her hair, pulling her head back so I could find her mouth again.
The kiss deepened.
Her hips rocked against mine. My hands found the zipper at the side of her trousers. She lifted her hips without breaking the kiss. I pulled the fabric down her legs, and she kicked them free. My mouth moved down to her chest, the flat of her stomach, the dip of her waist.
She shivered. Her fingers twisted in my hair, guiding, pulling, her breathing turning ragged.
"Nolan." My name again. Two syllables stretched thin, the consonants dissolving.
I should have stopped. The door was unlocked. The building was her father's. The office belonged to a man whose financial records I'd been photographing for weeks. Every fact argued for restraint, and none of them reached me.
My hands were trembling. She took them, pressed them flat against the bare skin of her waist, and held them there until they steadied.
We moved together. Her back arched on the desk, scattering what was left — a stapler hit the floor, a coffee cup tipped over. The dark liquid pooling on the wood without either of us caring. My forehead pressed against hers.
Her legs locked around me. Our breathing tangled. Her nails bit into my back, and I drove deeper. She cried out, muffled against my shoulder, her teeth sinking into my skin.
It wasn't tender. It wasn't careful. It was two people who'd been making each other insane, finally letting the insanity win. Raw, urgent, reckless.
Her body arched against mine one final time.
Her breath caught, suspended, and then she shattered — a sound pulled from the deepest part of her, her fingers gripping my arms hard enough to leave marks.
I followed her over the edge seconds later, my face buried in the curve of her neck.
Her name was the only word left in my vocabulary.
For a long moment, neither of us moved.
I pulled back enough to see her face. Her eyes were closed. The cerulean paint stain on her wrist caught the light from the blinds. Her lips were swollen, her cheeks were flushed, and she was the most devastatingly beautiful thing I'd ever ruined.
Her eyes opened. Dark, warm, unguarded. She looked at me and pressed her palm against my chest.
I helped her down from the desk. My legs were unreliable. Hers too, apparently. She leaned against me for a second, her forehead on my collarbone, her laugh low and breathless.
My arm circled her waist, holding her steady.
We dressed in slow motion. She buttoned her blouse and got the third button in the second hole, the fabric pulling crooked across her collarbone. I reached over and fixed it without thinking, my fingers brushing the skin at her throat, and she caught my hand and pressed her lips to my knuckle.
I pulled on my shirt. She picked my jacket up off the floor and brushed it off.
We moved around each other easily, putting the room back together after dismantling it — papers restacked, coffee wiped, binder back on the desk. Everything in place except us.
We sank to the floor. She settled against my side, her head on my shoulder, her hand finding mine. Our fingers laced together on the carpet.
The afternoon light came through the blinds in gold bars across our legs. The building hummed around us — muffled voices in the corridor and the distant chime of an elevator.
She was quiet. The anger was gone. The distance was gone. What was left was simpler and more terrifying than anything I'd planned for. Two people sitting on a floor with their clothes in disarray.
Her breathing was slow against my collarbone. Her fingers traced the buttons of my shirt. Her touch was idle, absent.
"I have a lot to work through." The words came out without permission. No strategy behind them. "Things I can't explain yet."
She lifted her head. Her eyes found mine. The curl had fallen across her forehead.
"But I'm starting to believe," I said.
"Believe what?"
"That I can be happy again."