Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
ariana
Boston slides out of my room in the middle of the night. I walk him to the door, kissing him the whole way. We spend another ten minutes trying to let each other go, our hands roaming, our mouths exploring.
“I have to go,” he whispers against my mouth.
“Then go,” I say, sliding my tongue into his.
His hands cup my face, mine slide around his back.
I love kissing him, if you hadn’t realized.
Really nice lips. Love the subtle scratch of his full beard.
Love that he knows how to use his tongue, and that I don’t have to teach him a single thing because he’s already good at everything.
For a man so quiet, he’s an expert with his lips.
“Mmm,” he mumbles, pulling away. His thumb brushes my cheekbone, green eyes scanning mine. “Get some rest, sweetheart.”
“That won’t be happening.”
His eyes ignite, satisfied that I’ll be tossing and turning while thinking of him. That I’ll be chaining myself to the bed to stop from running across that hall and launching myself at him again. He smirks, leaning up to press a little kiss to my nose.
My heart flutters. I mentally scold it.
“Think about me when you touch yourself, then.”
I glare at him for that one, kissing him one last time as he finally turns the handle of the door. “You better do the same.”
Boston smiles. “Goodnight, Ari.”
He hesitates, and I feel it. That weird heaviness in my chest and throat, like I’m scared I’ll never see him again once he leaves this room, like I want to keep him here forever, in this moment, because things will never be the same again.
I lean against the door, smiling tiredly up at him, dressed only in his shirt that I’m going to have to figure out how to give back under the radar.
“Night, Boston Black,” I say as he crosses that hallway and I let him go.
He tosses me a grin over his shoulder at the way I say his name, slides his keycard into his own door, and faces me before he closes it.
I blow him a kiss, my head still pressed against the side of the door.
He rolls his eyes, but reaches up to catch it, pretending to put it in the pocket of his sweats for later.
We close our doors at the same time, because I think we have to. I think if we don’t, neither of us will do it first. If we don’t, we’ll keep crossing that hallway to each other, for one hundred last kisses.
My body is aching in the best possible way and as much as I want to savour the feeling, I don’t have the luxury of time.
I hop into the shower with tired bones and wash him from my skin, even though I’d much rather smell the trace of his cologne on my skin all night.
I need every trace of him gone if I am going to lie to the world—and to my brother—in the morning.
I still toss his shirt back on when I climb into bed, though.
I spend hours staring at the ceiling, thinking about his smile, his laugh, and the way his voice softens when he looks into my eyes.
I think about every man who came before him, and how the ones who follow will forever be doomed to try to live up to him.
I think about how it’s brutally unfair that this thing between us can only exist for a weekend.
With sleep nowhere on the horizon, I admit defeat. I grab his number from the group chat Penny started at the beginning of the week and punch it into my phone, sending him a text at nearly five in the morning.
Me
This bed feels too big without you in it.
I’m surprised when those three dots appear less than thirty seconds later.
Boston
This one feels cold.
I smile, stunned that I wasn’t immediately turned down.
Me
If you were still here, would you kiss me again?
Those three dots appear, then vanish, and then appear again. It takes over a minute for him to respond, and I know it’s because of the internal warfare that he puts himself through.
Boston
Everywhere.
I groan, rolling into my pillows and kicking my legs under the blankets like a lovestruck teenager.
Stupid, smooth-talking, prick. It was much easier when he didn’t flirt back, when I was talking to a wall.
Now, I’ve tasted what I can’t have. I’ve been served a steaming platter of his charm, and I can’t cope with how I want a second, third, and fourth plate before I’ve even finished the first.
I want more.
Me
Great. No sleep for me.
Boston
Sorry, sweetheart.
A few minutes pass. I stare at the phone, knowing that this conversation needs to end here, but it shouldn’t. We’re too good at being with each other. We’re too good at flirting. We’re too good at secrets hidden behind hotel room doors.
Me
I know we said it ends tonight, but since it’s technically still ‘tonight’...do pictures count?
Boston
Fuck pictures. Come to the door.
I’m out of bed before I can think. I swing open the door and he storms in, cupping my face, smashing his lips to mine as he kicks it closed behind him. He’s hard against my stomach, and I moan in relief. I need this. I need more. I need him.
We don’t make it to the bed. He hauls me into the bathroom and hikes me onto the counter. He balls his hands in the fabric of his shirt, tearing it up my body, and positions himself between my legs. He fucks me hard and fast, and I cling to him, gasping in his ear, kissing down his neck.
“Fuck, no condom,” he grumbles, but it’s too late for me. I come, throwing my head back, my nails digging into his shoulders.
Irresponsible.
He groans, ready to combust in my wake, so he slides out and steps toward me.
I reach for him instead, taking him in my hand, giving him the last few strokes that he needs to send him over the edge.
He finishes with the hottest noise I’ve ever heard, all over my skin.
I let out a relieved breath as I slow my movements.
“I feel fucking insatiable,” he admits, bracketing my hips with his hands on the counter. His dark hair falls in his face, green eyes burning into mine. “Like I can keep doing this for hours. For days.”
I smile, reaching forward to push his hair back. “I’m highly addictive.”
He snorts, leaning forward to press his lips to mine. It’s slow. Different. Even as he reaches over to snatch the cloth off the sink, even as he turns on the sink to get it wet, he doesn’t stop kissing me. He cleans my body free of him and then winds his arms around my back, pulling me close.
And he…hugs me?
I slide my arms around his shoulders, letting my eyes flutter shut as his palms glide up my back.
“I’m going to kiss you goodnight now,” he murmurs in my ear, “and that will be the end of our sentence.”
“It’s technically morning,” I say softly, squeezing him a bit tighter. I don’t want an end to our sentence. I want a paragraph. A whole novel. I’m not ready to call this, not when it just started. We’re still on the first page, dammit. “And I’d prefer an ellipsis. A dot, dot, dot.”
“A kiss good morning and a single dot. That’s the best I can do.”
A period. The end of a sentence.
“Okay,” I whisper, but I don’t move and neither does he. “But what if I don’t want you to go?”
His hand slides up to my hair as he cups my neck. “Trust me, sweetheart. I don’t want to go anywhere. But I have to. We have to.”
But I’m not ready.
“You were everything I expected you to be, Boston Black,” I say as I lean back, keeping my arms wrapped around his neck. I smile warmly up at him, knowing my cheeks are pink with a post-orgasm flush, and that I look as tired as I feel.
He cups my face, green eyes melting into mine. He looks at me like I have the power to destroy everything he’s worked for. “And you were more than I could have ever imagined.”
My smile grows, and he leans down, slowly pressing his mouth to mine.
It’s sweet. Soft. Kind of sad. There’s a lingering yearning there.
A knowledge that this is the last one. That we’ll cut this off the second he’s through that door again.
That this will not come back to Pittsburgh with us, but will stay and live in this little town in Canada.
He’s half bent in front of me, shirtless and unravelled.
For me. I slide my hands to his jaw, tugging him back the moment he tries to pull away.
I expect him to laugh, to roll his eyes, maybe–but he doesn’t.
He leans into it, deepening the kiss, his hands rising to my hair, like he’s as insatiable as he said he was.
Like he doesn’t want to go back home in the morning, either.
Like he wants to live in this bathroom with me until we’re all that we know.
His tongue slides into my mouth, his grip tightens in my hair, and I want more. I want all of him. Again, and again, and again.
But he slowly pulls away, and this time, I let him. The sun is starting to poke in through the curtains, illuminating the carpet beside the open bathroom door. Boston keeps his face close, his breathing heavy, and I rest my forehead to his. His eyes flutter shut.
That’s it then.
“Good morning,” I whisper. “It’s a new day.”
He pulls back, suddenly unable to look at me. He hauls me forward, pressing a chaste kiss to my forehead. “Good morning, sweetheart.”
He leaves without looking back, and for some horribly unfair reason, my heart feels heavier than it has in years watching him go.
I stare at that hotel door until my brother knocks a couple of hours later.
I scramble, hiding Boston’s shirt in my luggage, and greet him and Arden with a tired smile.
I don’t let them in, too afraid that they’ll sense the sex, see the condom in the garbage, or feel the remnants of what was left of us all over the room.
I agree to meet them in the lobby when I’m done packing and take that time to make peace with what comes next.
We leave today.
I stare at Boston’s door as I close my own.
We’ll leave this here today. For good.