Chapter Twenty-Two
Twenty-Two
Adrian texts me when he gets back to his office in the boathouse a couple of hours later.
I find him hunched at his desk wearing his recruiting uniform: a crisp button-down with sleeves rolled up to the elbows.
Through his half-open door, my eyes snag on the muscles descending his forearms. My fingers curl around the doorknob as I remember the way those muscles flexed under my fingertips.
I take a steadying inhale, trying to get a grip.
Adrian glances up. A cautious smile unfurls.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey yourself.” I bump the door open wider with a shoulder.
“I’m glad you came by.” His face is unreadable as he watches me press my back against the door to click it shut. “Your note…It was very you.”
“What does that mean?”
“I have no idea whether to be nervous or excited about this conversation.”
I lower myself into the guest chair and Adrian shoves aside a stack of books so our line of sight isn’t obstructed. As he waits, I press my palms into my thighs, trying to hide the fact that I’m wiping away a sheen of sweat.
“I don’t want to be cryptic,” I tell him, “but I think that depends.”
“On what?”
“Whether you’re up for…” I gesture a finger between us. “A next time.”
Adrian’s laugh unfurls with the ease of a ringing bell. “You had me worried there.”
“Is that yes?”
“Yes, it’s a yes. I would repeat last night”—he mimics my gesture—“as many times as you asked.”
My mouth erupts in an uninvited grin. I shove it back, though. We’re far from done with this conversation. “Right. Well, I have forty-six days until I leave for Pan Ams.” I keep my tone light even as I continue to choose my words carefully. “So, if we see each other every other—”
“We’re making another program here?” he teases.
“No. I’m just clarifying my intentions.”
“Your intentions?”
“About us.”
A line creases between Adrian’s eyebrows. “Go on.”
My fingertips start shaking slightly and I squeeze them against the armrests. I’m not sure why I’m nervous. If he says no, then I’m free to move on with my summer, unencumbered by this thing that’s grown between us.
“I would like this to be casual,” I say. “It can only last for the next month and a half—until I leave for Pan Ams. After that, I’ll hopefully get my spot back in Southern California and you’ll either stay here or take the junior development job in Florida—”
“I’m not getting that job,” Adrian says.
I have no idea why he believes that, nor why he seems to equate not getting the job with not wanting the job, but I guess this isn’t the time for a debate.
“Right,” I say. “Well, either way, we’ll be far apart. I can’t do long-distance.”
Adrian has his arms crossed against his body and his face frozen somewhere between a smile and a frown.
“That’s a lot to take in,” he says.
“I know,” I say. It’s a lot for me to take in, even though I’m the one saying it.
“Look, I want you to know that this would be new for me, too. For me it’s always been…
a serious relationship or nothing. And for a long time, it was nothing.
I never wanted to take a chance with dating because I knew it would just distract me from training.
And then I tried something serious, but look how well that turned out.
With you and me, I’m wondering if an in-between could work. Casual.”
Adrian’s eyes are dark and expressionless as his finger taps against his elbow.
My chair creaks under my shifting weight.
The wall clock ticks, counting down the seconds until his verdict.
He considers for so long that I convince myself he’s going to say no.
He’s going to turn me down and I’m going to deserve it.
I have no right to ask this of him and it’s unfair to both of—
Adrian’s expression shifts. He pushes out of his chair, rounding the desk until he’s standing in front of me. I have to crane my head back to look him in the eye.
He leans one hand against the armrest of my chair. “Tell me. What exactly do you mean by casual?”
My brain momentarily freezes before I can make out some words.
“I just think that since there can’t be anything long term between us, we should be up front about it.
” I try to remember what my mom said about being centered, finding focus.
Something about a yoga mat? It’s hard to remember with him this close.
“I want to be present for this—this summer. The now.”
Adrian lowers his other hand to the other armrest, cocooning me in citrus.
His pupils are so big they’ve nearly swallowed his irises, and he holds my gaze for long enough that I feel a flush rising across my cheeks.
He lowers his face until it’s nearly level with mine, burning through the space left between us.
That familiar desire for him edges back into my body like a ship gliding into its home port.
“I can agree to the terms of your contract,” he says.
Anticipation flutters through me, like a little breathless bird.
“But before you start outlining a calendar,” he adds, voice low, “I have one amendment.”
“An amendment?”
“Mm-hmm.” His breath traces a warm path down my neck. My eyes close. “There will be no schedule.”
And then his mouth is taking mine and my hands are pressing into his pecs and he’s lifting me out of the chair and my legs are wrapped around his torso.
Heat vacuums through my body as I grab hold of his neck, push my fingers into his hair.
Adrian spins us until my butt lands on his desk, sending a scatter of papers and books off the edge.
I try to drag him closer, to pull his weight on top of me as I lie back, but he pushes a hand to my collarbone and holds himself upright.
“I have something for you,” he says.
Despite the fluttering in my chest, I raise an eyebrow.
He laughs in a low rumble. “No, not that. Well, yes, that. But also this.”
He reaches into a drawer by my hip and hands me a folded paper. Propped on one elbow and still lying almost prone on his desk—which is not the least awkward position I’ve ever been in—I unfold it.
It’s Adrian’s recent health records.
Above me, his green eyes catch mine. That familiar electric crackle erupts through my middle, shuddering down my spine in rippling waves.
“I thought you’d want it in black and white,” he says. “In case you decided there would be a next time.”
Something unlocks deep inside my chest. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt this accepted, this well understood. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this safe.
I want to say thank you. Or to pull up my last tests on my phone. Or to tell him I’m as religious about my birth control as I am about my sleep logs. Or to find some other—better—way to express my gratitude, but there are too many thoughts jostling through my mind.
What falls out of my mouth is “How do you know me so well?”
Adrian smooths a thumb across my forehead, down my cheek, until he’s cupping my face in his fingers. “You’re easy to know.”
“That’s not how people usually feel about me,” I say.
“And yet it is how I feel about you,” he tells me.
It hits me deep—a stab of pleasure straight to my chest. My head goes light and I flutter my eyes closed, overwhelmed with the paradox of him, of us.
This simultaneous feeling of being completely unsteady even as I feel so safe, like I’m sheltered in the warm cabin of a sailboat tossed at sea.
I arch myself into him, and Adrian meets my lips with his.
His fingers find the back of my head and my mouth falls open.
This kiss is new. There’s a depth to it, an openness from both of us that I don’t think we’ve ever given each other before. It feels like I’m unlocking a part of myself and he, in return, is opening a new part of himself to me.
Tongues entwining, our lips move in a harmony. My knees fall open wider and I lock myself into him, bringing our chests together until there’s no space left between us. So close I can feel that he’s hard. Heat gathers between my legs. I’m almost breathless and probably wet.
I’m buzzing with impatience. We have only a handful of weeks left. How can I wait even a minute longer?
“Adrian,” I say against his mouth. “This is a next time.”
“It is,” he agrees.
“No,” I say, pushing a hand to his solid chest, forcing him to look into my eyes. “This is a next time.”
His pupils dilate. He swallows. Hard. “Is my desk on the pre-approved list?”
I drag my teeth across my lower lip and Adrian’s eyes follow the movement.
“I think,” I say softly, “that we should throw that list in the trash.”
He inhales. “Damn.”
I try to press back up into him, to draw him down on me with my knees, still hooked around his torso. But he closes my wrists in one hand and holds them tight above my head, pinning me down on the smooth desk.
“Are you sure?” he asks.
Am I? On the one hand, it’s terrifyingly new. But on the other, all we have is the rest of this summer. And if this is what being present means, then I’m all for it.
“All I want is to take every moment with you that I have,” I say.
Adrian closes his eyes and I wonder if what has crossed his face is physical pain. But then his mouth is on mine again and there’s urgency and desire so deep and furious that every swipe of his tongue against mine feels harder and more desperate than the last.
He pushes at my shirt and I tear away his. Our bodies run against each other, skin brushing like silk on silk. One hand on the back of my neck, Adrian gathers one of my nipples in his mouth and runs his tongue over the surface. I gasp as tingles race through me.
He smiles against my skin, and uses his free hand to pry my pants loose, pushing them into a heap at the base of his desk. Even though he’s still clothed from the waist down, the heat gathering between my thighs is throbbing so intensely it’s almost painful.
I tug at his belt and struggle with it for a moment before Adrian clicks open the buckle and sweeps down his zipper. He releases himself and my breath stills.
Well, fuck.
My eyes lift to his face and he’s gazing down at me, pupils blown out, breath hard. I reach for him and he grabs me, hitching my hips up, dragging me forward. He holds himself against me so that all I can do is arch into him, claw at his back.
“Still okay?” he asks as he settles between my thighs, holding back from the place that I want him.
With him this close to me—hovering, stalling—I can barely form thoughts, let alone words. But my mouth manages to verbalize my enthusiastic consent.
“Yes,” I say. “Please.”
Adrian cradles me from behind, guides up my hips to angle them higher.
Then he sinks inside me. Pleasure flashes through me so intensely I nearly cry out.
Instead, I rise up and sink my teeth into his shoulder, channeling every urge to scream into the press of my lips against his smooth skin.
My vision blurs around the edges as he moves deeper, and I nearly gasp from the friction.
Adrian’s hand finds the nape of my neck, long fingers digging into my hair. He tips my head higher and kisses me deeply, tongue sliding over mine. Our chests press together, heartbeats throbbing, and I relax, until it’s no longer too much.
I move once, twice. Sliding experimentally until we’re moving together, finding rhythmic waves.
Like somehow, even though this is our first time, we both know just how good it can feel and we’re racing each other toward the top of that mountain.
Maybe we also both know that—even without a schedule—there are only so many times we’re going to do this, only so many times in a summer that we’ll touch each other, taste each other, move together.
His movements pick up and this time I can’t help it—I cry out from the pleasure that’s coursing through my body.
If I’d known it was going to feel this fucking good I never would have had the willpower to resist him.
I would have peeled off that unisuit and taken him on one of the ergs.
Maybe I should regret all the days I spent not doing this.
But I’m too full of incandescent pleasure for regrets.
My legs coil tighter around his torso, like I can physically hold him so close that I’ll never have to let him go.
“Adrian,” I say.
He traps my wrist with a hand and catches my eye. His eyes are as bright and beautiful as the day I met him. But this time every part of him is mine—open and strong and so fucking good—and maybe I’ve known I wanted him like this every moment since then.
“More?” he asks, breath hard around the word.
“There’s more than this?”
He laughs as he presses kisses up my neck. “A bit, yeah.”
“Yes,” I say. When I’m with Adrian it feels like the answer is always the same. “Please. More.”
Impossibly, he sinks deeper. A gasp falls out of my lips. He’s been holding back. I have to force out a breath to relax again.
“Okay?” he asks, smoothing his thumb against my forehead, slightly sticky with my sweat.
“Not regular good,” I pant. “So good I could scream.”
He laughs again and then he’s gliding slow and purposeful.
I shiver in the wake of each movement, loosing little breathless gasps.
My fingernails dig into the expanse of muscle across his back.
He pushes and pulls, punctuating each movement with his lips against my throat.
My chest rises to meet his, spasms of ecstasy vibrating through us both.
“Adrian,” I say again, and this time I’m not asking for what I want right now—I’m pleading to drain every drop from him, to wring ourselves dry with every kiss, every breath.
He picks up the pace, and all I can do is hang on to him, lock my hands into the muscles at the back of his arms, hug myself tight to his shoulders.
I’m coming undone, unwinding, thread by aching thread. I want this. Not just now, not just today. I want this feeling again and again and again. Like I could never have enough of it. Like I could never have enough of him.
He lets his forehead fall against mine. I can feel tremors racing across his arms as I squeeze myself closer to him.
He moans, low, and with such intense pleasure and desire that my body seizes.
I’m unraveling, uncoupling, snapping loose from every one of my threads.
I feel myself contract around him, arch my back, and it’s enough to loosen him, too.
He pulses into me as we both ride the wave, cresting and breaking apart.
Tremors descend over my spine, my limbs, as the feeling ebbs and recedes. Adrian breaks away from me slowly, warms my neck with another kiss. His lips come away moist with my sweat.
“Holy shit,” I whisper.
It’s the only thing I can say. But what my brain—still in a liquid haze of confusion—really means is: I want to do this forever.