10. The Auction #2
We stop at the corner. This is where the professional boundary, which has been doing progressively less work since the will reading, makes its last technical appearance.
She turns toward me in the light of that intersection and looks exactly like the person she was in college before she became the person who holds everything together.
Two timelines converging. I do not say this. I do not move away.
One deliberate gesture: I move a strand of hair from her face, and tuck it back behind her ear. She does not step back. The full unguarded look she has been rationing since the first day in the sitting room at Seal Harbor. The corner holds still just before it changes.
A cab pulls to the curb. She does not get in.
"Come with me."
The math was done weeks ago. The answer has been the same every time.
"Yes."
The cab moves uptown and I am aware of every point of contact between us. Her knee brushes mine. The warmth of her through the sleeve of her coat. She is not looking at me. That is not indifference.
Her penthouse is on the forty-third floor, and the city spreads below on every side.
She does not turn the lights on. Neither do I.
There is enough coming through the windows, the amber of New York at this hour, the color of a city that never fully stops.
It falls across the space in long planes and finds her where she stands.
She reaches up and loosens the clasp at the back of her neck, then shakes her hair free. A small, private gesture. The kind you make when you have decided the evening has moved past performance. She watches me watch her. Neither of us pretends this moment is anything other than what it is.
Four steps. No version of this begins with hesitation, and I am not a man who hesitates when he has made a decision.
I take her face in both hands, with the care of something I have wanted carefully for a very long time. She tips her chin up and looks at me with the full direct look she has been keeping behind glass.
I kiss her like I mean it, because I do, and have, for nine years.
Her hands push my jacket from my shoulders, but I catch her wrists gently and guide them back down. “Slow,” I murmur against her mouth. “I want to feel every second of this.”
She smiles into the kiss, understanding.
Her fingers return to my shirt, unbuttoning it one by one with deliberate care.
Each button reveals more skin, and she leans in to press warm kisses along my collarbone, then lower, her lips brushing my nipples, as the fabric falls open. I shrug the shirt off and let it drop.
I reach behind her neck and slowly loosen the clasp of her dress.
The zipper follows, a quiet sound in the quiet room as I draw it down her spine, inch by inch.
The fabric loosens and slides over her shoulders.
I kiss the newly exposed skin, tasting the faint salt of her, feeling the shiver that runs through her as the dress slips lower.
She pushes the dress down her arms until it pools at her waist, then steps out of it completely, standing before me in nothing but delicate lace. Her eyes stay locked on mine as she reaches for me. Her hands slide my trousers down my hips with the same unhurried focus.
When they drop to the floor, her fingers trace the waistband of my boxers, teasing, stroking the hard outline of my erection through the fabric. She squeezes gently, then rubs her palm along my length, feeling me throb under her touch.
A pleased sound escapes her. “Hmmm,” she whispers, her voice low and warm. She tugs the boxers down slowly, freeing me. My cock springs up, heavy and aching. Alex wraps her hand around me, stroking once, twice, her thumb brushing over the sensitive head and spreading the bead of moisture there.
She gives me a slow, firm squeeze that makes my hips jerk forward.
I groan her name. She smiles, clearly enjoying the power she has over me right now, before she finally tugs the boxers the rest of the way down. I kick them aside, fully bare.
We stand for a heartbeat, skin to skin, the city lights painting patterns across our bodies with her hand slowly stroking me.
Then I lift her. She wraps her legs around my waist instantly, her left arm moves around my neck, and I carry her to the bed while she kisses me deeply, hungrily, still stroking slowly me in her hand.
I lay her down on the bed and settle between her thighs. She is already slick and ready, her body welcoming me. I push inside her slowly, inch by inch, savoring the tight, velvety heat that envelops all of me.
A low groan escapes us both as I sink fully deep, buried to the hilt. For a long heartbeat I stay perfectly still, forehead pressed to hers, letting her feel all of me, thick and throbbing, the whole length of me inside her. The squeeze of her around my cock is almost overwhelming.
Then I begin to move, long, rolling thrusts that rock her beneath me. Each deep stroke drags a soft, needy sound from her throat. She arches to meet me with each thrust, her inner muscles fluttering and clenching around my length, drawing me even deeper with each push.
The wet, intimate slide of her body grips me sending waves of sharp pleasure up my spine. I can feel how much she enjoys this. She tightens around me when I grind slow and deep, her hips lift to take all of me, her soft gasps turn into moans as I fill her again and again.
She arches into me, her nails dragging down my back.
Her legs tighten around my hips, pulling me deeper.
The city lights spill across her skin, highlighting the flush on her chest, her lips parting when I hit that perfect spot inside her.
I lean down and take her mouth again, deeper, hungrier, tasting her soft moans.
She rolls us over with surprising strength. Now she is on top, riding me with slow, deliberate rolls of her hips. Her hair falls around us like a curtain. I grip her waist, guiding her, watching her breasts move with each motion. My thumbs brush her nipples and she gasps, clenching around me.
“Max,” she breathes, her voice trembling with pleasure.
I sit up, pulling her closer so our chests press together. We move like that, slow and intense, skin sliding against skin, mouths barely apart.
The pleasure builds in deep, powerful waves until she tightens around me, coming with a broken moan against my lips. I follow right after, burying myself deep and holding her there as I spill inside her, groaning her name.
We stay joined for a long time afterward.
I roll us onto our sides, keeping her one leg draped over me so I remain nestled deep inside her.
The aftershocks still flutter through her soft rhythmic pulses around me.
Our skin is damp and warm where we press together.
I can feel every small shift, the slick heat between us, the way her thighs tremble faintly against mine.
My hand moves slowly down her back, tracing the curve of her spine, then lower, cupping her ass and pulling her even tighter against me. She sighs softly and rocks her hips once, very gently, drawing a low groan from me as I throb inside her.