Chapter 20
TWENTY
ABBEY
Come home with me.
Come home with me tonight. Please.
He skipped right over the first date, although maybe you could count Ruh-Roh, or La Cuchara. Near-dates.
Wil’s words, low and raspy, and so, so sexy, loop on repeat in my mind as I walk back into the ballroom and the table where Cesar, Crystal, and Travis wait for the countdown with champagne. I sit next to Cesar and reach for a glass and a water pitcher.
I’m very, very thirsty.
“There you are!” Cesar says in a conspiratorial tone, shifting his eyes from me to Crystal and back again. “Where have you been? I made a bet with Crystal that you were in some dark corner backstage making out with Wil. Am I right?”
I nearly spit out the sip of water still in my mouth. “A bet?”
“Yes, and I take from your reaction that I’ve won. It’s about damn time!”
“What? No!”
“Pfft. You can run but you cannot hide, Abbey Rhodes.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Maybe not, but do you know what does? You and that hunk of a man Wil Wilshire. I knew that first night when you asked me about him that you two would end up bumping uglies.”
“Cesar! We are not bumping uglies!” I hiss under my breath. “Oh my god, who says that?”
“Will you two shut up?” Crystal says from across the table. Hopefully she hasn’t been able to hear any of this conversation.
“You owe me fifty bucks, Crystal,” Cesar says.
Wil and his family walk onstage while Ducky and his band hover in the background. Wil looks anxious and annoyed, and he searches the crowd until he sees me. One corner of his mouth turns up.
He’s smiling at me. Me. He likes me.
Mr. Wilshire steps up to the microphone and thanks the crowd. “Unfortunately, Bob Kaplan, the Hometown League’s chair, is unable to be with us tonight, but he sends his thanks to you as well and wishes you all a very happy new year. Cheers to 1997!”
The audience claps politely. Then, a woman dressed in a voluminous red gown steps forward and takes the microphone from Mr. Wilshire.
He kisses her on the cheek. She holds up a postcard and reads from it, stilted and awkward.
“I’m so pleased to share the lineup of incredibly talented musicians for next summer’s Hometown League Music Festival,” she says.
“We’re thrilled to announce performances by two of Minnesota’s finest, The Jayhawks and HollowPoint, as well as alt-rock singer/songwriter Matthew Sweet and blues legend J.R. Watkins!”
It’s Junior Watkins, not J.R. Good lord.
When Ducky Donahue finally gets the microphone back from Mrs. Wilshire and he announces that the countdown is about to begin, Wil turns and walks off the stage. He’s leaving before the countdown! I wonder if I can get to the coat check before midnight.
I stand and lean over to kiss Cesar’s cheek. “Gotta go. Happy New Year.”
Somehow, Wil’s already in the lobby, and he has my faux-fur stole. He drapes it over my shoulders.
“How did you get this?” I ask. “I have the claim ticket in my purse.”
“I busted my ass to get off that stage so I could get to you before midnight, and that’s what you’re worried about? Come here.”
He takes my hand and tugs me forward and as we approach the front door, I hear Ducky begin the countdown. Ten.
“Wait,” Wil says. “I can’t wait.” He pushes me up against the wall next to the door. Nine.
“Mmhmm,” I agree. Eight.
“This is happening,” he repeats. Seven.
“So you said.” Six.
“You feel it, too, right?” he asks. Five.
“Yes, since the very first night.” Four. I slide my arms around his neck. Three. “What changed?” Two.
“I stopped being an idiot.” One.
He kisses me dizzy and swizzly.
The ballroom fills with cheers and new year’s wishes.
My new year’s wish is coming true.
When he finally pulls away, I hear the faint strains of “Auld Lang Syne.”
“Happy New Year, Abbey,” he says. “Let’s go.”
Wil lives in a newer apartment building not far from the Woodlake store.
He pulls into the underground parking garage and into a spot with a sign that reads Reserved.
Tenant 508. After he puts the car in park and turns off the engine, he leans over to give me a chaste kiss on the cheek.
The entire way here, he held my hand. We listened to Junior Watkins and didn’t say much.
I can’t speak for Wil, but I’m nervous.
“Stay there.” He gets out of the car. He walks around to the passenger side, opens the door, and offers his hand to help me out, and doesn’t let go as we walk to the elevator. He pushes the up button, and my knees quiver in anticipation and weakness and lust.
He turns and backs me against the wall and then his lips are on mine, soft and hard, urgent and languorous, rough and so, so gentle.
He makes a noise, a low rumble, and I moan into his mouth as his tongue slides next to mine.
He tastes like spearmint gum and rum. I grab his lapels and tug him closer, closer, I want to be closer, closest. I want to turn inside out for him, slip into his skin, be him.
His hands are everywhere—on my back, running down my arms, sliding around my waist, gathering up the fabric of my skirt at my hip.
The elevator door dings, and we break apart, breathless.
Once we’re inside, he pushes the button for the fifth floor, and then very slowly begins to caress my hand with his thumb.
I look down and marvel at how his fingers have wrapped around mine.
He loosens them, and I open my mouth to protest, but then he runs his index finger across my palm, my wrist, up the inside of my forearm.
I shiver at the touch as his finger barely skims the surface of my electrified skin.
I make a little panting sound, and he laughs, leaning in close to my ear.
I love this, the effort to tell me something so completely private, only for us, even though there’s no one else around to hear.
“Abbey,” he whispers hoarsely, “I’ve barely touched you and you’re losing your mind.
What’s going to happen when I do this?” He places his hand on my hip and grips the fabric of my skirt, bunching it up in his fist and slowly, so fucking slowly, lifting it enough that his palm slides over the bare skin of my thigh.
I hum, then close my eyes and bite my lip as he begins to press and stroke and caress, inching closer to the drenched scrap of lace between my legs.
“Your skin,” he breathes out. “So soft, so sexy. I want to taste it. I want to taste you everywhere.”
“Uhhh.” I’m not going to last very long if he keeps talking like that. “You sound… like… the serial killer from Silence of the Lambs. Buffalo Bill.”
Wil laughs. It’s as though this decision to act on his feelings instead of stuffing them down has loosened all his knots, sent all the bricks of the walls he’s built tumbling to dust at our feet.
I glance down at the scuffed elevator floor, half expecting to see the detritus of his restraint under my heels.
“I’m not going to kill you, I promise.” He lifts my chin with one finger and presses his lips to my jaw.
The elevator jolts to a clunky stop and I stumble into him. He removes his hand from beneath my skirt and wraps his arm around my waist to steady me as the door opens.
I follow him down the hall, turned on and shaking. Hurry, hurry, I think as he stands in front of apartment 508 and inserts his key into the lock, then the deadbolt.
He opens the door.
To his apartment.
He turns to look at me.
I bite my lower lip.
“Fuck me,” he grinds out, and in a split second, he’s pulling me into the apartment and slamming the door.
Then his mouth is on mine, hungry and overwhelming and fucking delicious, and I will never, ever forget this exact moment, the moment when Wil spins me around, unzips my dress, sweeps his hands across my shoulders, and slides the fabric down until it pools at my feet.
He trails one finger down my spine, and I jump at the sensation.
He lifts my hair to kiss the back of my neck, and I shiver.
He pushes his hard length against my bottom, and my knees shake.
I twist back around and launch myself at him. I need his mouth on mine right now. I need his mouth on me everywhere right this minute. I get my wish as he slides his lips down my jaw, my neck, my collarbone. He pauses at my breast, sucking and licking through the lace.
“Jesus,” he says as he pulls away, “where do you get something like this?”
“Are you really asking me where I buy my lingerie?” I’m breathless. “Parking lot that shit and keep doing what you were doing.”
He laughs and a swizzle courses through me.
I close my eyes as he swirls his tongue across my abdomen and then his knees hit the hardwood flooring.
I feel his breath on my thigh as he hooks his thumbs around the sides of my panties and slides them down.
He licks. He sucks. He moves his mouth and tongue so…
very… slowly… until it’s not slow, not any longer, and he finds a faster rhythm, a focus, and my head falls back against the wall with a thunk and I cry out as waves of sensation crash over me, again and again, and he stays with them, stays right there.
Finally, he moves his lips to my inner thigh and nips. “Mmm,” he murmurs against my skin.
I need him inside of me. It’s been a long time—and it’s never felt like this, so urgent, so necessary, so much. “Bed,” I manage.
He stands and blows out a breath, runs a hand through his now messy, even sexier hair, then takes my hand and leads me to the bedroom.
I try to loosen his bow tie but I must be choking him because he lifts his hands and helps me with a smirk.
Then I start on the buttons of his shirt, slowly and methodically, as his breathing deepens.
“Skin. I want to touch your skin. All of it.”
He laughs. “Now you sound like a serial killer.”