Chapter Twenty-Three
Max
I open my eyes and see a wooden door in front of me with elaborately engraved markings. They swirl from the bottom to the top, creating small flowers and stars, a moon and a sun.
“You got me a door! I love doors!”
I beam, glancing at him over my shoulder.
“Jesus, Max.” He’s exasperated as he takes my right hand and places it on the golden door handle. “It’s a push door, not a pull door, hopefully that’s to your liking.”
“Aw, I can’t accept this if it’s not a pull doo—”
He pushes my hand down and I laugh, “Okay, okay!”
I push the door open and take a step inside, my eyes adjusting to the dim lighting.
And my jaw drops.
It’s an office. An office that someone might have ripped out of my fantasies.
It’s the kind of office that stops you for a second when you walk in—not because it’s flashy, but because every single thing is intentional. And my eyes can’t stop bounding from corner to corner to log every little thing.
The ceilings stretch high, ten feet at least, just like Cal’s office, but unlike Cal’s office, this one has natural wood beams and soft gold accents that catch the light from a vintage chandelier overhead. It isn’t bright, just warm enough to make every corner feel alive.
Two velvet couches face each other in the center of the room.
I take a step towards them. One a deep eggplant purple, the other a dark teal.
A thick white knit blanket is draped over the arm of one.
Between them sits a low, ornate coffee table with curved legs and a smooth natural wooden surface, bare except for a small candle and a couple of large, vintage books.
On the far wall, an electric fireplace flickers behind a carved, natural stone mantel, the flame surprisingly convincing. Above it hangs an oversized gold mirror that reflects both the light and the quiet.
“Sorry, building code won’t let us have a real fireplace,” his whisper in my ear ignites something inside of me, and I spin to face him. “But you can’t keep working on a chair in the living room.”
I open my mouth to ask what this is; how he did this. But then I see it.
A natural wood desk anchors the other side of the room, its gold trim subtle and elegant.
Only a few pieces of paper are spread across the surface, the rest is empty, a clean canvas.
Behind it, a wall of shelves climbing to the ceiling, half-filled with large, beautiful books in deep, muted tones, half empty, waiting to be filled.
A cluster of LED candles glows softly in one corner beside a potted plant with long trailing leaves. More plants hang from gold hooks near the window beside the desk, their vines brushing against heavy velvet curtains that frame a flood of natural light.
I take a few steps past Cal to the desk and trace my fingers along the front. An arrangement of carved, gold-painted moon phases stretches across the desk’s face.
“The moon phases.”
“I tried to make it exactly like you described.”
I twist back around, and his face is inches from mine.
I think about the past two weeks and the random comments I made about the décor around the penthouse. There is no way he got all of this from the few comments about dark wood and plants.
“You used to dream out loud about your fantasy office before you graduated, you don’t remember?”
I’m speechless. Because, yes, I guess I do remember that, but I didn’t realize he had filed those dreams away for later.
His smile is small as he leans both hands on the desk beside me, caging me in. “How’d I do, Sims?”
I glance behind him at the magnificent space and laugh incredulously. “Is this like the syrups? You just did this hoping I’d show up one day?”
“No, this is a week and a half worth of busting ass to make a picture in your head a reality.” He leans forward and his breath skims the lobe of my ear.
“Whenever you had to get out of your head or out of whatever was going on in school, you used to say you’d escape to the corner of your mind that had velvet couches, dark wood, a big fireplace, lots of books, trailing leaves and—”
“The moon phases,” I finish for him.
He breathes out a laugh against my neck and pulls back to look into my eyes. “And the moon phases, because they feel ‘witchy and like something all the cool girls have somewhere in their offices.’”
I drop my head back with a loud laugh that echoes in the small space and then I throw my hands around his neck while the laughs continue to trickle from my lips.
He listened. He listened and he remembered.
No one has ever listened to me and actually heard me. Heard what I liked, what I dreamt of; listened to my literal fantasies and made them real.
My feet come off the floor as he spins me around in a circle before sitting me on the desk in front of him. I pull his face to mine with both hands and commit every laugh line, every eye crinkle, and every golden-green fleck of his irises to memory.
“Who are you, Callan Calogero Reed Renzetti?”
Before he can answer, I connect my lips to his. Unlike the past few times we have touched, these kisses are soft, not devoid of passion, but full of gratitude, without even considering the feeling of his body against mine.
Gratitude for hearing me, gratitude for seeing me.
I feel a burning in my eyes as they well up with tears as he peppers kisses across my lips and cheeks.
“Thank you, Cal.”
I look in his eyes again and push my fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck. It curls tighter right there, and the smooth strands tangle between my fingers as I pull him gently to press our lips together again.
His hands frame my jaw like I’m breakable or might slip away. My laughs haven’t stopped, and still live in his mouth when he kisses me again and again.
But they’re slower now, more certain. He tastes like the kind of dare I always said no to, but will never deny again.
“Tell me what you want, Sims,” he murmurs, breath warm against my cheek.
“You,” I say, a little ridiculous, but the heat trickling up my body is limiting my ability to find more words.
“Already yours.” He grins, thumb sweeping across my lower lip. “More specific.”
Heat roars to life in my stomach. “Touch me.”
“Do I get to pick how I touch you?” His lips brush from my jawline to the sensitive spot on my neck right below my ear.
“Well, you are the boss, Renzetti.”
His responding laugh is a deep, throaty sound as he runs his hands down my ribbed tank top and over the soft fabric of my sweatpants that are still damp from the spilled tea. But he continues to drag his hands all the way down to my toes.
From my seat atop the desk, I watch as Cal peels my fuzzy blue socks off like they’re priceless artifacts, setting them neatly on the teal sofa behind him. He turns back to me, placing a kiss to each ankle like a vow to put the fuzzy socks back on later, and I let out the smallest laugh.
Not because it’s funny, but because it is truly dumbfounding how he can continue to make me feel like the most beautiful, worthy person in the world.
My pulse goes haywire when his palms slide their way to bracket my knees and continue their course up, slow enough to almost make my patience falter.
He tugs me closer to the desk’s edge, my ass balanced there as he holds me, slipping the blue sweatpants down my legs even slower than his hands made their way up.
The backs of his fingertips leave trails of heat as they slip down, down.
Internally, I scream. Inside my head, Max is running in circles screaming into the void because he is moving much too slow.
But on the outside… on the outside, I am propping myself up on my elbows to watch every deliciously slow movement this man makes between my legs. And he is watching me watch him, those golden-green eyes never leaving mine.
My thighs rest against the cold wood desk and the chandelier hums softly overhead; the fireplace flickers in my periphery. I could live inside this moment. Hell, I’d even pay rent.
Sweatpants discarded somewhere, he places his own hips between my open legs and presses one long kiss against my lips.
“You’ll tap me if you want me to stop,” he says, looking up, waiting for my nod. I give it, throat tight, and legs still wide open.
Then he leans in and does exactly what I asked.
I lay myself back on the oversized desk and stare at the ceiling.
It’s got little delicate gold streaks and stars like a night sky painted across it, and I trace each line as his tongue traces the inside of my thighs.
Each time my eyes find a new swirl, a new star, there’s a new favorite spot Cal’s lips have touched, a new swirl of his tongue to match.
And as my eyes land on the mirror across the room reflecting the light of the chandelier, he slides his tongue up, finding the bundle of nerves that so badly craved—no, needed—his attention.
I clutch the lip of the desk, the wood biting my palms, breath stuttering at the first press of his mouth against my center.
The world narrows to warm and ‘yes’ and ‘please,’ to the way he listens with his hands and learns me like a language he was always meant to speak.
He is unhurried and focused, obscenely attentive, every hum a promise, every pause a question he answers by finding the place I’m already aching for.
His hands burn their mark into the sides of my hips, and I prop myself up again, fighting every muscle in my body that begs me to lie down and just enjoy this moment. But I have to see him.
And then I do. The brown curls, the golden-green eyes full of heat staring back up at me. And the almost imperceptible pause in his movement as he undoubtedly makes absolutely sure I’m okay so he can continue.
But if I had my way, he’d never stop.
As he sucks gently, I throw myself back on the desk, tipping my head back; the lights above us blur; a sound I’ve never made before shakes loose from somewhere deep inside of me.