Chapter 44
I caught up quickly. Among the most influential people in the world—celebrities, politicians, and millionaires rich enough to buy a ticket—I only had eyes for him.
“Thank you,” I blurted out. Screeched to a halt, inches away from running into his back when he stopped at the first sound of my voice.
I couldn’t think straight, couldn’t hear much over the roaring in my ears and the pounding of my pulse.
I didn’t even think about the story-hungry journalists and photographers around us.
Elliot did, though. He turned, furrow between his brows, mouth opening and closing again, clearly unsure of what to say. How to feel. His eyes flickered through the crowd, and we were already starting to draw curious glances.
To be fair, we were standing in the middle of the hall.
Finally, he shook his head. Quickly. Incredulously. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I—” don’t know.
Elliot huffed, then made an impulsive decision that altered the course of the entire night. His hand curled around my wrist, and he pulled me down a side corridor, past a security guard he had to flash his all-access badge to, and into a room.
A library.
I’d be more impressed with the high shelves, filled to the brim with beautiful spines in all kinds of colors, if I weren’t so focused on him.
Alone, at last. His proximity was a little overwhelming.
Incredulously, he continued. “We don’t see each other for a week, and suddenly you mention me in interviews, run after me, and thank me, of all things?”
“Elliot—”
“No, sorry. I’m just wondering, was it the dress that finally made you think I was worth talking to again?”
I took a step back; it seemed like he needed it, but the door pressed into my back a second later, and I couldn’t possibly give him more space. He’d have to do that himself, and he wasn’t moving.
My eyes narrowed at the accusation. “Did you not want me to wear it?”
“Of course I did!” Elliot raised his voice, and I knew he hadn’t meant to when his hands washed over his face, through his perfectly-styled-but-not hair.
The put-together version of him we’d seen on the carpet was gone, and it had taken less than thirty seconds in a room with me.
“Since I left it on your door, all I’ve wanted was to see you in it.
” The look in his eyes softened, but only for a second.
His perfect facade hadn’t just cracked; it was crumbling.
Desperation peeked through it, anger and embarrassment that he didn’t know what to do with.
“It’s been hanging there for three whole days.
You’d have known that if you’d bothered to come home. ”
“I didn’t think you’d want to see me.”
“I always want to see you, Maeve. That’s half the problem.”
My next breath shuddered in my throat. “So, I’m saying thank you—”
“Because you feel guilty. Because I did a nice thing for you, and now you think you owe me—”
I made sure my voice was louder than his when I interrupted him. “Because I’m grateful—don’t look at me like that!” Sadness mixed with anger, and something else that suggested I couldn’t possibly be telling the truth. A perfect frown on his perfect face.
“You think I want to look at you like that?” Defeat with some anger still bubbled in the back of his throat.
“You don’t think I’d rather hate you for what you did?
For constantly making me feel guilty over being forced into this stupid internship, while you were the one playing dirty?
Playing me—” His voice cracked, and he hadn’t even raised it.
“I hate this, Maeve. I hate looking at you and feeling this way and—fuck, still thinking that maybe what you did isn’t so bad.
We didn’t know each other. I did have an advantage over you.
You were just trying to even the playing field.
All I’ve done in the past week is rationalize what you did. ”
Something cracked. In my chest, below my skin, into a million pieces.
“And I know that you’re sorry. I know—”
“The note.”
He nodded. “But sometimes I have to wonder whether I don’t. I don’t know you. I don’t know what you think or how you feel or what you want.”
You, I thought. I thought it so hard, he might’ve actually heard it.
“I don’t even really know if you’re sorry. I’ve just been telling myself you are so that I can stop feeling stupid about already having forgiven you.”
My eyes fluttered, but not as quickly as my heart was beating. “I am,” I insisted. “I shouldn’t have—”
His brows pulled together when he looked back at me, and I hated how hopeful he seemed. How such simple words that I should’ve said a week ago pulled so much from him.
“I am sorry. I don’t know why I didn’t say anything earlier.
I’m not good at this, which is probably why I avoided it.
Letting myself feel anything other than hatred for you, I mean.
Everyone told me how awful you were and that you’d do anything to win against me, and .
. . I mean, I thought I’d have to be quicker than you. Smarter than you.”
“You are.”
“I thought I’d have to scheme and deceive and make you trust me and—I didn’t think I’d actually like you. As a person, you seemed completely obnoxious. Not my crowd. But you make me laugh, and you’re sweet and you’re kind, even to your ex-girlfriend, who probably doesn’t deserve it. I’m sorry.”
He took a step toward me, his lips parted, but I wasn’t done.
“I’m sorry for the coffee and the mean looks and tricking you into liking me, I guess.”
Elliot tilted his head. “I think that just happened all on its own.”
“For tipping off The Goss and being a jealous goblin.”
“Maeve,” he said, shaking his head. “I forgave you the next day. For better or worse, I meant it when I said that I can’t bring myself to be mad at you. The only reason why I left you alone was because I don’t think I could’ve taken it—hearing you say you don’t want this. Me.”
I swallowed thickly, but the lump in my throat remained. The guilt lodged in my windpipe made it harder to breathe. “I’m sorry,” I repeated. “Most of all, for underestimating your ability to so easily make me—”
He kissed me. Roughly and impatiently, with his body pressing mine against the door, one of his hands resting firmly beside my head, while the other clutched me for dear life. It felt like he was punishing me with one swipe of his tongue and forgiving me with the next.
“You don’t get to say it before I do,” he muttered against my lips, breath heavy and grip tight.
My stomach flipped. My cheeks were burning. I was jelly in his hands; glad his body was there to keep me upright. The emotional stress falling away made me just as unsteady on my feet as his lips, still on mine.
I smiled against them, despite myself. “I don’t get to say I love—”
Short kiss to shut me up, and my confused hesitancy didn’t even bother him. “Nope.”
It was the least I could do, though, right? After everything I’d put him through, after everything I didn’t do, the least he deserved was my vulnerability before he gave me his. The assurance that he wasn’t alone in this, and I’d fallen way before I could’ve verbalized it.
But Elliot was as persistent as he was persuasive.
“As the more experienced party in every sense of the word.” He smirked, kissed me again, and it felt too good, too right, to hold on to my confusion any longer.
“I haven’t even taken you on your first date.
There’s a strict timeline with these things. You’re into that, aren’t you?”
I hummed, pretending to think, my restraint finally snapping when he burrowed his face in the crook of my neck. “Strict timelines?”
“Yes,” he muttered, exhaled deeply against my skin. Maybe because my hands had fallen to his belt buckle. I hadn’t quite noticed it either until they started playing with it.
“I think I might want to approach this thing not overprepared for once.” My head fell back against the door. “Someone said to me once that there are misunderstandings waiting to happen when you do a lot of research but don’t actually talk to the other relevant party.”
“Someone sounds smart.”
I shrugged, and he bit the spot behind my ear teasingly, lovingly.
“Rude,” he gasped at my dismissal of his intelligence, in sync with the buckle of his belt finally opening. “You were just talking about how you underestimated me. Did my brain not make that list?”
I was distracted, so all I teasingly whispered against his skin was “No comment.” Then, “I know you didn’t want to sleep with me—”
Elliot brought just enough distance between us to look at me, both of his hands on my cheeks, making sure our eyes stayed locked. “You misunderstand. Wanting was never the issue.”
“Okay, well, you didn’t. Because . . .” I hesitated.
“Because?”
“You think I want it to be special? In a hotel room with rose petals on the bed and candles lighting the way? Because I shouldn’t lose my virginity in a meeting room against the table or on a chair or . . . ?” I stopped talking because I was all out of examples.
Elliot snickered, then kissed the tip of my nose. “I think you’re old enough to decide when and where and how you want to have sex, Maeve.”
Hope fizzled in my core, thick and hot. “But you—”
“I just didn’t want you to regret it. Me.
” His head shook against mine. “I don’t think I could’ve taken it, watching you leave, the way everyone else ends up doing.
” Allegra cheated. His grandfather cared more about business decisions than his grandson’s well-being.
“There’s never been a lot of love to go around in my life; it’s always this .
. . conditional transaction expiring once I don’t live up to some perfect billionaire heir fantasy.
I wouldn’t have survived sleeping with you and not having the certainty that you’re mine afterward. ”
My heart was threatening to beat out of my chest when I asked, “Is that what I am? Yours?”
His eyes trailed to my hand still between us, resting on the waistband of his pants. “God, I hope so.”
When he looked back up, something in his gaze had shifted. Pupils dark, breathing a little heavier. The possibility of it really happening, right here and right now, in a library at the Ashwood Annual, was dawning on him.
“Logistically—”
But I shook my head. “Here. Now.” I couldn’t possibly wait another second. Not just because of that pulsing need between my legs, always present when we were in the same room, but because of his sweet words and the vulnerability in his confession.
I wanted him so badly it hurt. “Please.”
Our mouths collided again, and it felt different this time. Sure. Steady. Deep. His lips traveled down my neck, across my collarbones, and his hands trailed across the fabric of my dress until they slipped below it, and Elliot was on his knees.
Smirked sheepishly.
Disappeared under the skirt of the dress.
Pulled my panties to the side.
It was all going terribly fast, and I couldn’t thank him enough.
He let his tongue lick all the way up to my clit, deliciously slow. In the same way he’d kissed me that first time in the elevator.
You’d think that with just a wooden door between us and everyone, Elliot would want to continue moving quickly. We’d gone from vulnerable confessionals to him between my legs within minutes.
But once there, he took his sweet time. Brought me close to orgasm and stopped just before that point of no return. Let me squirm against the door, let me grab his hair through the fabric, let me get close over and over again before finally emerging from below my dress.
Blond hair tousled, red sheen on his cheeks, with the expression of a man who’d gotten everything he’d ever wanted in life.
“You’re sure?” he asked, kissing me again, holding me gently, and playing with the few strands framing my face.
My laugh was hoarse, full of disbelief and impatience. “If you’re not inside of me in the next three minutes, I’m going to die.”
“It might ruin the dress—”
“Elliot,” I hissed, just to get him out of his head. “Have me. I’m begging you.”
His breath hitched, his hands on me tightened, and he very nearly swallowed a groan. “I don’t know why I’m so nervous,” he admitted, laughing, still unzipping his pants anyway. “Maybe because I love you.”
It didn’t feel like news, but confirmation of something I already knew. I’d felt loved by him for a while, and had loved him for just as long.
“Hey!” My arms wrapped around his neck, eyes narrowing. “You said we’re not allowed to say that.”
“Stupid of me.” Another laugh shared between our lips before I felt them on mine again, and he somehow led us to the middle of the room. My legs hit leather, and he sat me down on one of the couches. “But I like that you listened.”
Then, the buckle of his belt finally hit the wooden floor. The metallic zing of it sent goose bumps down my entire body.
I was below him the next second, watched him produce a condom out of nowhere and put it on. You’d think I’d be nervous, but I was so sure that this was right, good, exactly where we should’ve ended up, all I could feel was excitement.
I felt him throb against me, and again, all I could think was Finally. I’d never had someone this close and wanted them closer.
When he first slipped inside, it couldn’t have been more than an inch. Still, the blue in his eyes darkened.
“Okay, fuck,” he said. Another inch, another groan. “This is going to be harder than I thought. I didn’t think you’d—I mean, I expected you to feel good. But this—” Deeper again, finally forcing a low moan out of the back of my throat.
My head was spinning, my vision blurred, and I think I had tears in my eyes.
It seemed like the feel of his every twitch inside of me would linger for a lifetime.
Unforgettable, surely, the way he’d whispered and moaned against my skin when he was finally fully inside of me.
The way he felt, and how he’d tried, until his very last stroke, to keep himself together for as long as possible.
How he’d failed quicker than he would’ve liked, but had taken me right over the edge with him, thanks to his fingers and his kisses and the words “I love you.”