Chapter Thirteen
Thirteen
Without Alec, the hotel room feels enormous and eerily quiet. Daylight streams in, painting a band of gold across the bottom half of the bed. I straighten my legs, inching my toes into the stripe of warmth.
The windows are such good quality that they block out all the street noise outside. The sheets beneath me still smell like Alec’s soap from his shower last night. I roll into his pillow, placing myself in an Alec isolation chamber.
I tried to read for a while; I tried to write.
But I’m unfocused, antsy. Why didn’t I pull him over me last night?
Why did we bother to sleep? I need to start working on a new story between the bursts of new information from Ian, need to fill my days better.
Being in this suite without Alec all day long is going to leave me itchy and impatient.
I run my hand down my stomach, wishing it was his.
The Batphone buzzes on the mattress next to me.
My heart pushes against my ribs, and I bring it to my ear, answering. “You’re not supposed to be done until late.”
He hums. “What’re you doing? You sound drowsy.”
“You just busted me relaxing in this huge bed.”
He laughs and then groans.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble. “I’m a dick.”
“Why on earth are you sorry?”
“Because you’re running all over Los Angeles,” I say, “and I’m lounging in your hotel room in the middle of the day.
” If memory serves, Alec got up at three for a satellite interview for Good Morning America, drove to Burbank for a taping of James Corden, and then had a full-cast Vanity Fair photo shoot before some gala dinner.
“It’s your room, too,” he says, “and I would lounge in bed in a heartbeat if I could.”
“Exactly.” I laugh. “That’s why I’m sorry.”
“Come on. With everything you’ve had going on the past few weeks, you must be exhausted.”
I stretch, limbs shaking with euphoria. “You aren’t wrong.”
The line falls quiet and still. I miss you, I think.
“You’re doing okay today?” he asks. “I’m sorry I couldn’t check in until now.”
Rolling over onto my side, I stare out the expansive window.
As expected, every big feeling is so much more manageable in daylight.
I’d be embarrassed about my meltdown last night but maybe that’s Alec’s superpower.
He doesn’t make emotions feel like a dirty word.
“I’m good.” I adjust the pillow under my head.
“I’m glad you called. I was just missing you. ”
“Yeah?”
“Wishing I hadn’t just gone back to sleep last night. Feels like a wasted opportunity.”
The line falls into a tiny pool of silence. “You’re in bed thinking about me,” he says, half question, half realization.
His tone has changed, dropped, quieted. And in an instant my body is awake. “I am. Where are you?”
“Walking to a car,” he says. “One place to the next.” Another pause and then a playful, “Are you wearing anything?”
I look down at the terry cloth twisted around my midsection. “I finished up work and then showered, thinking I’d climb into bed for ten minutes. So,” I say, “I’m half wearing a towel.”
“And nothing underneath?”
My hand slides up over my stomach. Tight anticipation builds under my palm. “No.”
I can just hear his quiet groan over the sound of him walking, the clatter of a cart.
“Are you alone?” I ask.
“For now. Walking out to the back of the building to meet my driver.”
“Ah.” I bite my bottom lip, imagining his long, purposeful strides as he moves down a hallway, along a back alley to a private car.
I remember what he put on this morning: black trousers, a simple white button-down shirt.
Three-quarters asleep, I’d watched him check his reflection in the mirror, hands in pockets, hands out.
“When you’re alone,” he begins, breaking into my thoughts, “alone and… turned on… what do you think about?”
I grin, and my cheeks heat. “Really?”
“Really.”
I close my eyes, thinking. “I haven’t really done that in a while.”
“Then think about me,” he prompts quietly. And then adds, “Tell me about the time you liked the most.”
“That is an impossible request.”
“Pick one. Don’t think.”
His full mouth flashes in my mind. “The first hotel room in LA.”
“Why that one?” I can hear his smile, like he already knows the answer.
My hand slips over my breast. I was still a little mad at him, full of heat and sharp edges.
I remember his kiss on the swell of my breast, the way he groaned.
The wet, placating circle of his tongue on the peak.
And then the obliterating heat of his lips trailing down my body. “You put your mouth on me.”
I hear another man’s voice greeting him and then a car door closes. “In the car now,” he says quietly. Formally. “You’ll need to walk me through this from here on out.”
My hand stills on my breast. “I—” I open my eyes, blink up at the ceiling. “You want me to get myself off while you just listen?”
“Yes.”
Heat floods my cheeks. “I don’t usually talk.”
“I honestly can’t tell you how thrilled I am about this collaboration,” he says with a laugh in his voice.
“Shit.” I laugh into the phone. “You’re serious?”
“Very much so.”
I swallow audibly. “I feel a little self-conscious.”
“That’s fine,” he says. “Take your time.”
Am I doing this? I close my eyes, letting the calm resonance of his voice bring me to a place where I can begin to pretend my hand is him, that he’s not in a car somewhere, listening to my every sound.
“Do you remember how I sat on your lap that day?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“I made you stay still so I could kiss you all over your face.” He hums in acknowledgment. “I think I wanted to convince myself you were real.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. And you let me. But you slid your hands up under my shirt.”
He pauses. “I recall.”
“I love the way your big hands hold me.”
“Hold what part, specifically.”
“My breasts.”
“That’s right.” His voice is so measured and professional and somehow it makes my skin heat.
“You rolled over onto me,” I say, teasing the peak. “You love my chest.”
“I do.”
“Why?”
He clears his throat. Right.
But then he answers anyway. “It’s the ideal proportion.”
I laugh into the phone. “That sounded porny. I bet the driver is listening now.”
“I doubt it.” Alec laughs quietly. “Go ahead.”
“You like the taste of my skin?”
A deceptively even: “Very much.”
My hand moves lower. “I wish you were here kissing me.”
“Where are you in the script right now,” he says, “if I may ask?”
“Your mouth is kissing down my stomach.”
“Okay. Continue.”
I reach lower, and suck in a breath. “I’m wet.”
He can’t stifle a quiet groan.
“I haven’t done this in—” I pull in more air, imagining him feeling this. “Since before London. Before you.”
“That’s right.”
“I imagine what you feel when you touch me here.”
He’s quiet on the other end.
“How soft it must feel.”
“Very.”
“If you touch me here, do you immediately want to push into me?”
“Yes,” he says with an edge, repeating more quietly, “Yes.”
I arch my neck, stroking. “It feels good.”
“Explain, if you don’t mind?”
“I’m imagining you kissing me here,” I say, and my skin grows warm, humming. “And how you started with just kissing but then licked me.”
“That sounds like a good progression.”
I love the deep rumble of his voice. “You were so sweet,” I say. “But when you put your fingers in…”
He’s quiet, but I can almost hear how he strains to hear every word.
“You just,” I say, pleasure climbing, “you fucked me.”
“Georgia.” A sharp, breathless reprimand, but it only makes me moan.
“So hard,” I whisper. “You were wild.”
“I know. I was.”
“Oh God, you liked it, didn’t you? How many fingers?”
“You tell me.”
“Three.” My fingers circle; tension builds in my spine. “I couldn’t spread my legs any wider.”
“I know.”
“Are you hard?”
“Without question.” A car door slams, I hear his short, broken gusts as he walks. Very quietly he manages, “Use your other hand to touch your breasts.”
I do, and my eyes roll back, another sound escapes. “I’m close.”
“Not yet.” He’s moving through a building. I hear him murmur a quiet thanks to someone.
“It feels so good,” I whisper.
“Continue.”
“But not as good as you feel.”
A quiet laugh. “I’m very glad to hear that.”
I’m reduced to this pinpoint of focus, breathing in, and out, imagining his head between my legs, his silken dark hair sliding through my fingers. “I want to grab your hair.”
“I would agree to those terms.”
“I want to move against you. Fuck your mouth.”
He laughs again, breathlessly. “I wish you would.”
“I’m so close.”
A quiet beep and then, “Not yet, Gigi.”
But I realize the beep echoed; I’m hearing it two places.
Through the phone… and here.
Awareness sinks just as the door slams, and a second later he appears, rounding the corner into the bedroom. Alec is already tugging the button of his shirt open, finding me on the bed, legs bent and open.
Doing exactly what I’ve been describing.
“Holy—” He yanks his shirt off and comes over me, kissing me, mouth open and groaning. Pulling back, he stares down our bodies, reaching to keep my hand from moving away. “Show me.”
He watches me touch myself, reaching to unbuckle his pants.
The belt slaps my thigh as he struggles to get his button undone, his zipper down, before pulling himself free.
With my free hand, I pull his head to mine, wanting his tongue in my mouth, his sounds vibrating down my throat.
The movement brings our bodies closer, and his fist bumps against my hand as he strokes himself faster—