Chapter 22 #2
“Meanwhile, my career really took off. So at least I could support us in New York, but it was a struggle for her. She started teaching dance classes eventually. But she really loved Ryder. He became the axis around which we revolved, but there was this growing tension between us as a couple. Anyway, at a certain point it became clear that I had to move to LA for work because there were just so many opportunities. Plus, my parents are out here. Her parents were never around to help out, but it was really hard for her to leave New York. She did, though. And things fell apart almost as soon as we’d moved into our house here.
Not my house—I let Nova have the other one.
Ryder was four. The marriage lasted longer than anyone expected it to, mostly because I was so stubborn and didn’t want to give up on it… Not unlike you with your guy, perhaps.”
She straightens her arms out in front of her, to the center of the A-frame, and I reach for her hands.
“Well, you had Ryder to think about.”
“Yes. And ultimately, the best choice was for him to not have to be around that kind of tension.”
“And you get along with her now?”
“I do. We’re a lot better at co-parenting than we were at being married.”
She stares at our entwined hands. “And are you… How do you feel about marriage now?”
“After being divorced?” I stroke the knuckles of her hands with my thumbs.
“I’m optimistic about the possibility of being married again, to someone more stable.
As long as it works for Ryder too.” I let go of her hands and walk around to her.
She turns to face me. “I mean, as we’ve learned from A Christmas Carol—we must live in the past, present, and future. ”
She removes her glasses, carefully places them on one of the ladder steps, and then takes a step back, sliding her hands into her front pockets, and I take a step closer to her.
“We can learn from the past, but we can’t let it prevent us from experiencing what’s right in front of us.”
She keeps walking backwards, slowly, her shining eyes locked with mine, and I keep moving with her, my hands in my back pockets.
“And we must strive to make the future better for everyone.”
She’s backed up against the wall, between the two rows of heavy stage curtains.
“Wouldn’t you agree, Miss Stiles?”
She nods.
She shivers.
I press one hand against the wall, above her shoulder, and drag my fingertip along the exposed skin just above the scooped neckline of her T-shirt.
She shivers even more.
“Is it okay for me to touch you like this now?” I whisper into her ear.
She nods.
The skin of her neck is fragrant and smooth and radiating warmth, and I cannot resist it. I press my lips against her neck, behind her ear, and then lower, and lower, and then back up to her cheek. “Is it okay for me to kiss you like this?”
“Oh shit,” she whispers. “Yes.”
She grabs my face and kisses my mouth hungrily, and as soon as her warm tongue touches mine, I unfasten both clasps of her overalls and the heavy denim drops to the floor around her ankles.
I don’t think she even notices that her gorgeous bare legs and those same damn panties she was wearing at the observatory have been uncovered, because she’s so busy kissing me.
Or maybe she does notice, but she doesn’t stop kissing me as she takes one of my hands and slides it up her flat belly, pressing and holding it against her breast.
Fucking hell, Miss Stiles.
“Is it okay for you to touch me like this?” she asks, her voice all breathy, but I can still hear the sarcasm.
I squeeze her ass with my other hand and caress her tenderly, just beneath her breast, along the side of it, kissing along her jaw, her cheek, and only when I can tell she’s dying for it, I graze my thumb across her hard nipple.
She starts doing something amazing to my earlobe with her tongue. and I let out a groan.
“You are trouble, aren’t you, Miss Stiles?”
“Nuh-uh,” she says as I feel her hand on my crotch. “Better hurry up before I come to my senses and realize I’m not this kind of girl.” She captures my earlobe between her teeth, tugging on it.
Jesus.
I move her hand away because I am not going to pick up my kid at my parents’ house smelling like I just came in my pants.
I reach into her panties, and Jiminy Christmas, I don’t know what’s hotter—the way she moans and bites her lip or the warm, wet slice of heaven between her legs.
She arches her back and clenches around my fingers immediately.
“Whatever you are, you’re my kind of girl,” I grunt. “You know how wet you are for me?”
“Yes. Always.” She bears down against my hand, squeezing her thighs together, rocking back and forth.
“You’re always this wet for me?”
“Yes, Mr. Vega.” She grabs on to my biceps, squeezing hard.
“Do you even know how fucking hot you are?”
“Only for you, M-Mister…” She can’t even finish that sentence, she’s so close to coming.
Christ.
I turn her around to face the wall so I can massage her clit with my hand, harder and faster, from a better angle.
She pushes against the wall until her arms are straight, and I wrap my arm tight around her waist. Her head falls back, and forward, side to side as she presses her ass against the hard bulge of my jeans.
She’s breathing so hard and undulating and whimpering, and that’s when I massage her swollen breast and my fingers slip inside her again and I use the palm of my hand to stimulate her while I fuck her with my fingers.
She cries out in surprise and pleasure.
Her sweet voice echoes around the empty auditorium.
She catches her breath, and I can tell she’s self-conscious now.
She tries to hold herself still and tight around me.
“You aren’t running away from me this time.”
She shakes her head.
“You better not.”
She shakes her head again, and I feel the waves again.
“You gonna come quietly for me, Emilia?”
“Mmmhmm.”
I curl my fingers and find the small, rough spot inside her, and her startled gasp tells me that I’m probably the first to find it, and Jesus, fuck, that’s hot.
“Oh my God, Alex.” She goes limp before tensing up around me again, clenching and unclenching.
I fucking love the way she’s contracting and writhing around and groaning quietly like she’s in pain, but she’s still trying to fight this, and goddammit I want this woman to come hard for me, more than I want anything else in my life right now.
I grab on to that messy bun and pull. I am nearly blind with lust, but I feel her silky hair cascade around my hand, and she comes undone when I tug on it. That’s my girl.
“Alex,” she cries out, just once.
The sounds that escape her lips are a sweet and sexy symphony of infinite possibilities within specific restraints, and I hold my hand flat against her clit until she finally collapses back against me, her breaths so heavy and loud, absolutely fucking divine.
She rests her head against my shoulder and reaches her arms back around my neck, heaving and gorgeous and limp and mine.
This woman is mine.
I want to do all the things, with and to and for her.
Into next year and beyond.
I kiss her cheekbone, and she sighs.
There isn’t one more thing that either of us needs to say to each other tonight.
The end of this semester will be the beginning of something we’ve both wanted ever since the summer.
I know this.
Just as I know, without looking, that the phone in my back pocket is vibrating with a notification from my mother, asking why I haven’t come to pick Ryder up yet.
And I know that I’ll have to wait until I’ve put my sleeping son in his own bed, and closed the door to his room, to go to my own room and re-live this until I get my own sweet and quiet release.