Chapter 6 #2
Between dessert and the check, he tells me about growing up in a small town outside Raleigh.
His mom had a half-acre vegetable garden of zucchini and corn, and he built a fence at ten for her because the deer were eating the corn faster than she could pick it.
His dad taught him to drive stick in an empty church parking lot at fourteen.
Made him release the clutch fifty times before letting him touch the gas.
I love the tone of his voice. I could listen to his stories all night.
“What about you?” he asks. “Family?”
“No siblings. My mom and dad had me late.” I take a sip of wine. “They sold their house three years ago when they retired, and they’re somewhere in Portugal right now. Last month, they were in Vietnam. They text me photos occasionally.”
“You don’t talk much?”
I shrug. “They text on birthdays. I text back. They’re not bad parents. They’re just having the best time of their lives in cities I can’t pronounce.”
What I don’t add is that moving often runs in the family.
He nods. He doesn’t push.
When the check comes, I don’t want to be done.
“Your place?” I say.
“If you want.”
“Lead the way.”
In the elevator on the way to his condo, he stands close enough that I can feel his body heat through my dress, but he doesn’t touch me. He doesn’t have to. The anklet hugs my skin every time I shift my weight, and that’s already touching me on his behalf.
I usually fill silences, but I stay quiet and just enjoy being close to him. This doesn’t worry me as much as it should.
His condo is beautiful, but it’s in the same way a hotel room is beautiful.
The Charlotte skyline spreads behind floor-to-ceiling windows.
A charcoal sectional faces the view. The kitchen is stainless steel with dark countertops, and I bet he rarely uses it.
The dining table seats six and has clearly never seated more than one.
It looks like a more expensive version of my apartment. The same vibe of nobody planning to stay.
“Water? Wine?” he asks from the kitchen doorway.
“I’m good.” I turn from the window. “This place looks like a magazine spread. Nobody would ever know you live here.”
He shrugs. “I like it clean.”
He crosses the room and pulls me into his arms. My body responds like he just hit the “on” switch, and my nipples tighten.
His voice is quiet. “I’ve been replaying yesterday in my head all day.”
My breath hitches in response.
“You saw me in considerable detail.”
“Considerable detail. Yes.”
His hand slides to my bare back, and he kisses me slowly. It’s slower than anything we’ve done in the office, and if my panties weren’t already a lost cause, they would absolutely be now. My clit is throbbing on principle.
When he pulls back, his eyes are dark. “Come to bed.”
It’s an invitation. He’s giving me a chance to say no.
I don’t.
His bedroom is as sparse as the rest of the condo, and it’s almost too quiet. There’s no intercom, no coworker fifteen feet away. Nothing to distract us.
He's in front of me and slides the straps of my dress down my arms. The champagne silk pools at my feet, and I step out of it and ditch the heels. I’m in a strapless bra, panties, and the anklet.
His eyes drop to the gold chain and linger. The thought I’ve been avoiding slips in. It could be a collar. A pretty day collar around my throat that would be impossible to pretend was anything else. I shove the thought to the side. Not tonight.
He turns me and gently kisses the back of my neck while he unclasps my bra and slides his hands around to my breasts. The fabric drops, and the cool air on my nipples sends a spike of pleasure straight between my legs. I lean back against him, my head on his shoulder.
He hasn’t ordered me to do anything, and my brain keeps tripping over the lack of command. I don’t know what to do with this version of him.
“Bren.”
“Hmm?”
“This is different.”
His thumbs circle my nipples, and his breath tickles my ear when he answers. “Yes.”
When he turns me around, his shirt is already open.
When did he do that? I press my palms flat against his chest and slide them up over warm skin and the dark hair that trails down his stomach.
No forty-something guy who works as much as he does has any business with a body like this.
I trace his collarbone and the ridge of his shoulder while wetness pools between my thighs.
We’ve barely done anything yet, and I’m already a disaster.
He walks me backward until the bed hits the back of my legs. When I sit, he kneels in front of me. Then he looks up at me.
I’m the one who’s supposed to kneel. That’s the arrangement. My knees and his office carpet are on a first-name basis by now. This is backwards, and his expression is so open I have to fight the urge to look away. There’s a word to describe that expression.
It’s devotion.
My brain short-circuits and my throat tightens. I can’t make a joke about this or brat my way through, not when I can barely breathe.
He hooks his fingers into my panties, and I lift up so he can drag them down my legs. His eyes stay on mine the whole time. I’m naked except for the anklet, and his fingers brush the clasp like he’s checking it’s still secure. My pussy flutters in approval.
He pushes me back and crawls over me, caging me against the mattress with his forearms on either side of me. Every muscle in me goes loose as the pressure of his body settles over mine. My legs fall open in surrender before my brain catches up.
I wrap my arms around his neck, fingers digging into his hair to drag him down. His mouth claims me, and his tongue slides against mine in a slow rhythm that makes my pussy clench in response. I’m imagining his head between my legs and him using that tongue to fuck me.
He kisses down my jaw and along my throat, pausing to lick at the hollow above my collarbone where my pulse is hammering at twice its normal speed. He’s taking his time. There’s no locked office door or a desk edge digging into my hips. This isn’t a quick fuck between meetings.
His mouth closes over my nipple. The wet heat of his tongue combined with the scrape of his stubble—holy fuck. Pleasure shoots straight to my clit, and I don’t bother muffling my moan. I dig my fingers into his hair and arch my back, offering myself up to him.
He gives the other breast the same attention, sucking and licking until I’m whimpering. It’s a good thing I don’t have to talk because only moans would come out.
His lips trail down my ribs and over my stomach in an unhurried pass that makes my muscles tremble. When he kisses my inner thigh, my legs spread wider.
His warm breath ghosts over my pussy. I’m so swollen and sensitive that even the air feels like a touch.
Then his tongue is on me.
I moan loudly. There are no coworkers walking down the hall. No reason to be quiet as his tongue slides through my folds. My hips buck off the bed when he takes another lick.
He’s tasting me like he has all the time in the world. His hands grip my thighs, holding me open while he circles my clit. The pressure builds easily and builds higher.
I’m losing my mind, and the scary part is how much I don’t want him to hurry.
“Oh god. Bren—”