Chapter Thirty-Five
Mrs Casablancas raps hard against the door again, her voice piercing through the keyhole.
‘Fuck,’ River moans as I drop down from his embrace. He runs a hand through his hair so that it sticks up madly. ‘Ignore it.’
‘Mrs Casablancas will not be ignored,’ I grumble. ‘You know that.’
Squish starts barking in response to Mrs Casablancas’ knocking, skittering across the floor and jumping up at the door as if he intends to let her in himself.
‘Fuuuuuuucccck,’ I mutter under my breath as I shuffle out of the bathroom and open the door to Mrs Casablancas. River follows close behind me, jeans now, sadly, back on.
The first thing I realise is that Mrs Casablancas is holding River’s newly repaired Stetson. The second thing I notice is that she seems to have … embellished it. There is now a thick green ribbon around the rim and that ribbon is covered in green sequins and orange rhinestones.
My jaw drops.
‘Sensational, isn’t it?’ she trills, bustling into the flat.
She leans down to give Squish a pat, but he bolts back over to River instead.
River puts his arms out and Squish jumps into them on the first try.
It occurs to me that they may have practised that.
‘Oh, you have a new favourite, do you, Squish?’ she says before turning back to River.
‘I fixed the tear.’ She proudly hands him the hat.
‘But I thought it could do with a little brightening up. A little zhuzh! What do you think, River? Do you love it? I can tell you love it.’
River holds up his beloved Stetson, now twinkling like a Christmas tree at a disco on the Fourth of July.
His jaw tenses, all previous horn now firmly evaporated.
Shit.
He swallows, nostrils flaring a little.
‘It’s real pretty, Mrs Casablancas,’ he says eventually, his voice wobbling a little bit.
Oh God. Is he going to cry? Is this what it finally takes to bring down the great River Oakley?
Mrs Casablancas’ unsolicited bedazzling?
‘I …’ He scratches the back of his head, lips pressing tightly together. ‘It’s …’
‘Stunning?’ I suggest, because he clearly needs a hand here. ‘Splendid?’
‘Stunning and splendid,’ River manages to get out, his voice sounding much higher than the usual deep baritone. I realise then that the wobble in his voice is actually suppressed laughter. I feel my lips twitch in response.
Mrs Casablancas waves away the compliments, ambling over to River and taking an extremely resistant Squish from his arms. ‘It’s what I do, honey.
Don’t forget to bring over the jeans when you have a moment.
I have plenty of ideas for them. No need to pay me for the hat today, okay?
We can settle the bill once the jeans are done too.
’ She throws us both a benevolent look before marching out of the house and back into her own apartment, humming happily to herself and to Squish as she goes.
As soon as she’s left, River covers his mouth with both hands, eyes big circles. He immediately cracks up into laughter, bending over at the waist, shoulders shaking. ‘Wha-ha-ha-hat has she done?’
‘Shhh,’ I giggle. ‘Oh my God.’
I race over, stand on my toes and take the hat off his head. We inspect it together. In between the green sequins and orange rhinestones, there are shiny little black beads in the shape of love hearts.
River runs his hand over the felt fabric. ‘She actually did a great job on the tear.’
‘Ah look, the bedazzling is only on this ribbon!’ I point out. ‘Phew! You can take it off when you leave and no one need ever know what happened here today.’
River snatches the hat from me and drops it back onto his head. ‘Now why would I want to do that? You don’t think I can pull off a little zhuzh?’
He twirls then, hands on his hips, gap-toothed grin on full show. I laugh and when he catches my eye his smile slowly drops, my laugh fades away and the tension from just moments ago in the bathroom returns full throttle.
‘I think maybe we should, um, pick up where we left off,’ I say, my voice already trembling with desire. ‘That is, if you don’t mind?’
A slow smile spreads across River’s face. He trails his hand across my throat, dancing his fingers across the bare skin of my collarbone. Then he leans down and whispers into my ear.
‘I’m gonna work those good manners right out of you.’
And with that sentence shooting straight to the top of my list of hottest things I’ve ever heard, River grabs a fistful of my dress, impatiently lifting it above my head and tossing it onto the sofa.
His hands move swiftly over the fabric of my bra.
He unhooks it expertly and buries his face into my breasts, making a noise that sounds like pure relief.
When he steps back and undoes his shirt, I inhale sharply.
There he is, in nothing but his jeans. Just like he was on the first day he appeared here.
How could so much have happened since then? How could so much have changed?
River takes me in slowly, deliberately studying me like I’m a work of art he’s admiring. ‘You’re fucking beautiful,’ he murmurs, breath hitching slightly.
I think about my left boob that is slightly bigger than the right.
The two matching scars on my lower belly from my endometriosis surgery six years ago.
The fact that my knickers aren’t lacy or sexy, just plain black cotton from M&S.
But River is doing a fine impression of a man who means what he says.
I glance down. The thick strain beneath his jeans shows me he means what he says.
The last time Henry and I slept together – about twenty-two hours before he told me he wanted us to go on a break – I remember realising that something was amiss.
That curl of nerves in my stomach that just knew something was off.
In the bedroom we’d gone through the motions, me trying to do something more interesting with my body, wearing pink crotchless underwear because he’d recently talked about wanting life to be a bit more exciting.
And I had gathered that by life he’d meant me.
He’d snickered a little when he’d seen me in the lacy underwear. I’d laughed along too, because who did I think I was? We both knew I was not the sexy type. I never had been. Yes, I could get the job done, but I wasn’t some femme fatale. It was weird to think I ever could be.
But the way River’s eyes are feasting on me …
He scoops me up easily, carries me over to the bed, lays me out on the sheets and gazes at me like he wants to devour me in one swift gulp.
He presses his hands down onto my thighs and squeezes the flesh with a groan.
‘Tell me what you need,’ he sucks his bottom lip in, eyes blazing. ‘I want to hear you say it. Out loud.’
No one’s ever asked me that before. What I need. I’m not sure I’d even know the answer if they had. Except I find now that I do. I very much do know the answer.
‘Use your mouth,’ I pant, raising my voice so that he can hear my words amidst the other noises I’m making without quite believing that it’s me, Gertie Bickerstaff, who is making them.
‘Fuck, yes.’
He growls as we scramble to slide off my underwear. When he finally presses his lips hungrily against me, flattening his tongue and licking rhythmically like I’m ice cream and he’s a man dying of heat exhaustion, I lose it.
‘Faster,’ I breathe impatiently. ‘Firmer.’
He obeys, curling his tongue into a flick with each quickening stroke.
He pulls back for a moment. ‘Fucking beautiful,’ he says again. ‘Truly.’
And then, just as I’m about to ask, he slips his fingers inside of me, eyes fixed on mine.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘That. Oh God, that.’
‘Yeah?’ He curls his finger in and out, a slow, deep, come-hither motion.
‘Yes. Yes.’
He nods slowly as he watches me writhe beneath his touch, jeans straining, The Torso torso-ing in high definition. He grins then. It’s warm and open and completely present.
‘Gertie,’ he groans, and his voice is so low, so toasty and so full of genuine desire that I laugh out loud. My toes squeeze in time with the movement of his fingers. His fingers move in time with the beat of my heart.
‘Oh God,’ I moan. ‘Oh my fucking God.’
And then it’s happening. I’m travelling somewhere else. I’m outside of this world, outside of this room, but still with River, him watching me hungrily, me watching him as he moves in and out of me, a virtuoso playing an instrument.
‘Gertie,’ River says again. ‘Sweetheart.’
My belly tightens and my whole body stiffens, white hot heat starting to spread though my limbs.
With trembling hands I reach for his belt buckle, unclasping it and unbuttoning his fly. He pulls off his jeans, no longer able to be contained. I gasp at the sight of him. He is beautiful. Thick and certain and hard and hot and … beautiful.
I’m not sure my body has ever been this hungry for anything in my whole life. I want him. I need him. It’s a brand-new sensation. I feel wanton and bold, but somehow completely, utterly me.
He swiftly manoeuvres us so that he’s sitting upright against the headboard and I’m straddling him. He cradles my hips and starts to slowly rub me over him, but it’s not enough. I don’t want to wait any longer. I position myself above him, my heart thrashing through my every limb.
‘Easy now,’ he instructs. ‘We got all night.’
I shake my head no. ‘I want this now. I want you now.’
His lips quirk upwards into a smile, a small groan of desire escaping him. ‘Well, then take what you need, Gertie.’
So I do. I slide down onto him inch by exquisite inch.
My God. I start to move, tentatively at first while I adjust to the size of him.
And then, with his hands trailing a path over my breasts, I move a little quicker, at exactly the rhythm I want.
I sigh as he reaches the hilt of me, filling me in a way I didn’t know I’d been missing until this very second.
‘Christ,’ River murmurs, rubbing his thumb over my nipple, sucking at my throat. ‘You’re incredible. I knew you would be.’
‘You know, I think we might be excellent at this,’ I pant as River leans back, watching me move over him, pupils huge and shining like he’s on drugs.
We look at each other then and smile like we’re in on a shared secret.
Sex has never felt like this before for me: somehow I feel completely at ease right now, completely connected.
And based on River’s reactions, the dazed look of disbelief on his face as I move above him, he’s never experienced it like this either.
He sits up, hands gripping my bottom. When he lifts me up at the hips, the brief absence of him makes me want to cry out.
‘Come on,’ I whimper, as he lazily circles his finger over me, eyes teasing. ‘Now.’
He angles his hips and when he plunges me back down onto him, I come undone. Totally undone.
‘Oh God, like that,’ I breathe, letting him take over the rhythm of our movements. ‘Exactly like that.’
‘You feel unreal, Owl,’ he rasps, hands everywhere like he’s playing a piano concerto, breath quickening, teeth scraping my lips, tongue and stubble dancing across the most sensitive part of my neck.
I run both my hands through his soft waves.
I throw my head back as we move ever faster.
We are a perfect concentrated tangle of limbs and lips, velvet, silk, sweat, heat, gasping and moaning and friction and—
‘Oh my God!’ I yell, a guttural sound right from my belly as my limbs start to bloom with pure electric pleasure.
River groans, his entire body rigid, clasping me tightly to him as we rock and curl against each other, an increasingly quick rhythm, lost in a single shared reality.
How? How can it feel like this? I don’t understand. River starts to deftly move his fingers in quick precise circles, exactly where I want them.
‘River! Oh God, River!’ I whimper, as the sensation in my body grows brighter, sweeter.
‘I’m right here with you, Gertie.’ He bites down onto my shoulder desperately. ‘I’m right here. Christ.’
We come, seconds apart from each other, his hardness pulsing inside me, my whole body a vibrato of sensations.
There’s a noise, a sort of guttural, jubilant yell and it takes me a moment to realise that I’m the one who made it.
I slowly open my eyes to see that River is gazing at me breathlessly, a half-smile lifting the corner of his lips.
Whoa.
Whoa.
It takes a few minutes for us to catch our breath because for some reason the pair of us suddenly can’t stop giggling.
Like two friends who just found out they won the lottery.
Like teenagers who’ve found a secret stash of booze in the neighbour’s house and are giddy about all the illicit fun they’re going to have with it.
Like interdimensional strangers who discover that they are very, very sexually compatible.
River grins at me, eyes wide with a wonder that I’m certain mirrors mine. He huffs a soft laugh of disbelief. ‘You know when you said just once?’
‘Oh, I was fully lying.’ I bury my head into his neck, nuzzling my cheek against him like a cat, running my fingertips across his broad back. I pull back. ‘You know when you said for curiosity’s sake?’
His eyes glint. ‘I’m afraid my curiosity has only been further piqued.’
‘Me too.’ I lean my forehead against his. ‘I think maybe further investigation is required.’
He swings both his arms around me and grips me tightly to him in what I think is the hottest, nicest hug I ever had. ‘I was hoping you’d say that.’