Chapter Fourteen
Fourteen
I stared at Alex’s text until the notification vanished, then I switched over to my text app to look at it again. Was this his idea of asking me out? What in the “u up?” was this?
I glanced down at myself before I typed. Screw it; may as well be honest. Same thing I had on before. White T-shirt and jean shorts. Yellow toenail polish if that gets you going. I hit Send and waited. Was he seriously going to try and sext me? And if he did, would I respond?
Thanks. I waited for a few moments, but no new set of typing bubbles appeared. Had I answered wrong? Was I supposed to have made something up? Something sexy? Jesus Christ, men were exhausting. I closed out of the text messages and went back to perusing dinner options.
I had just about decided on an order of garlic parmesan wings and extra-seasoned fries, to devour like an animal while I caught up on one of the many Love Island franchises, when the doorbell rang.
I looked from my phone to the door. I hadn’t placed the order yet; it couldn’t be here already.
Phone still in my hand, I opened the door to Alexander Wright standing there, all but glowing in the porch light, a half dozen white roses in his hand.
“Oh, good,” he said. “You weren’t kidding.”
“What the hell is this?” I looked down at the roses that he had all but thrust into my arms. They practically gleamed, creamy white against the more faded, heathery white of my old, comfy, stretched-out T-shirt.
White.
Like the pink rose waiting for me Sunday morning at Faire.
Like the green one in leather that matched his performance outfit.
I looked back up at him, then past him to his white van lifer/serial killer vehicle in the driveway. I nodded toward it. “You planning to kidnap me in your serial killer van?”
“If you play your cards right.” He shot me a smile as I fell back a step to let him in the house, something I should have done sooner but my brain was still a little stunned by the unexpected roses.
“Lulu and Dex’s RV is like twice that size, and I can’t imagine living in something that small.” I took one more look at the van before closing the front door behind us.
“You get used to it. At least that’s what I hear.” Alex headed to the sofa to give Murray a scritch behind the ears. Murray’s eyes closed in bliss, and I felt a tiny corner of my heart melt. Being good to animals was one of the ways to my heart, and Alex had found that immediately.
“And by the way…” He turned to me now, bending to kiss me. I made a soft, surprised sound as his mouth lingered, and his hand curved around my waist as though we had all the time in the world. “Yellow toenail polish always gets me going.”
Four days of wondering when he would kiss me again had been four days too many.
The scent of the roses wafted between us as the doubts I’d harbored this week evaporated and I curled one hand around his head, pulling him down to kiss me again.
Kiss me more. Kiss me forever. Behind us, Murray sighed from his place on the couch, the dog already on his way to a peaceful dream.
I could relate; kissing Alex in my living room felt like the best dream anyone could have.
“Did you eat yet?” I asked when I was finally able to draw breath. “I was just about to order takeout.”
“I was going to see if you wanted to go out…” He followed me into the kitchen so I could put the flowers in water. “But I could be persuaded to stay in.”
“Good.” Going out was great and all, but after a morning training a new Queen and an afternoon closing down the bookstore, and now with a very attractive man who brought me roses and seemed intent on kissing me, staying in sounded like a lot more fun.
I bumped on the kitchen light, where the conversation I’d had in here with Mom just a couple days ago lingered like smoke. I know what I’m doing, I’d said.
Hopefully I did.
Now, in that same kitchen, I put the roses in a vase I’d found under the sink, and Alex closed in behind me.
My eyes sagged shut as I savored the heat of him against my back, his breath against my neck, his nose nuzzling that soft spot just behind my ear.
Now I remembered another conversation, in this same kitchen with Alex.
Our hands tangled in the same towel. I’d like to know the woman you are now. If you’d let me.
I couldn’t imagine anything I wanted more.
“The house is so quiet. Where is everyone?” His words at my ear made a shiver break out across my skin.
“Out.” I gasped the answer as his lips touched the back of my neck. All thoughts of ordering dinner fled from my brain as I turned in his arms. I fisted my hands in his T-shirt, and his smile dissolved against my mouth. Everything I was hungry for was right here.
—
“For the record…” he said when we finally came up for air. “This wasn’t what I came over for.”
“It wasn’t?” I tried not to sound disappointed, but it probably showed on my face. Had I assumed too much? Was I the one moving too fast this time?
But then I took a good look at Alex. He looked wrecked: his hair mussed, his cheeks pink. His mouth was kiss-swollen—I’d done that—and his eyes looked dazed. No. This wasn’t something to be sorry about.
“No. I…I don’t want you to think that my intention was…
” He was having trouble stringing together a sentence.
I’d done that too. “You know…coming over here, bringing you flowers…” He touched me while he talked, his hands moving across my back, gathering the fabric of my loose T-shirt between his long, nimble fingers.
“I wasn’t trying to get you to…what was it you said? Put out?”
“Who cares what I said?” I didn’t want to argue about that. I didn’t want to argue about anything, because he’d dipped under my shirt now, his palm hot against the bare skin of my lower back. “That was so long ago.”
“It was last weekend.”
“Like I said. Ages.” I tugged him closer. “Shut up and kiss me.”
He obediently dipped his mouth to mine, kissing me deeply, as though my kiss gave him strength.
“God.” He pressed his forehead to mine. “All this time, whenever I thought of you…I knew you’d never…
and I never wanted to push. Even though I wanted…
” His sigh gusted out in the space between us.
“I wanted you so much, but you were so young. I wasn’t about to… ”
A pang tugged at my heart. I’d been so overwhelmed by my hurt all these years, I’d never realized he’d been carrying his own guilt about our time together.
That he’d missed me this much for this long.
“You never pushed me,” I assured him. “And I appreciated that. But, Alex…” My hands still clutched his shirt and now I pulled, bringing our bodies flush.
I could feel him, hard against me, and everything inside me went liquid.
“Yeah?” The word came out strangled as Alex’s hands went to the kitchen counter, clutching hard at it, bracketing me between his arms. His chest heaved against mine, his breath coming out in soft pants. He bent his head, his lips parted, hovering a breath away from my mouth.
“We’re both older now,” I said. I tilted my head to brush my lips along the side of his throat, and now his breath escaped in a rush. His skin was warm against my mouth as I kissed my way up to his ear, and I nipped at his earlobe before whispering, “Hesitating isn’t really my thing these days.”
His breath shuddered in his lungs as I acquainted myself with the taste and feel of his throat, and he clutched the edge of the countertop so hard I thought it might crumble in his hands.
When he’d had enough of my teasing he bent down, catching my mouth with his, stopping me, distracting me with his mouth, his tongue.
His mouth took mine, and I let myself sink into the heat of him, the taste of him.
I was going to enjoy this, the way I never would have been able to before.
No offense to Teenage Caitlin, but this would have all been wasted on her.
“How long,” he gasped against my mouth, barely able to stop kissing me to get the words out. “How long until everyone comes home?”
“It’s just Mom and Mitch.” Talking was equally hard for me.
Using my mouth for speech was a ridiculous waste when Alex had started to rock against me, the ridge in his jeans hitting me in just the right spot.
I moved a little, my legs parting enough to fit him more snugly against me, all the breath leaving my body when he rocked harder, sharper.
“They’re going to be a while,” I said weakly, forcing my brain to stay on topic for just a few more seconds when all I wanted to do was move with him, chase that orgasm that I could already feel building.
“Dinner and a movie, it’ll be a late night for them.
” The rest of the sentence came out in a rush and I grabbed for his hips, pulling him into me as I stretched up to kiss him.
I was hungry, but Alex was hungrier, his tongue stroking mine in a steady rhythm that matched the slow, rocking roll of his hips.
I felt him everywhere, and we hadn’t even taken our clothes off.
My breasts felt heavy, swollen, my nipples hardened into sharp, almost painful peaks, while everything below my waist felt molten.
I felt shameless, like the horny teenager I’d never allowed myself to be as I rubbed myself against him.
I wanted to climb him; I wanted to wrap my legs around him and ride him to a climax through our layers of clothes.
I all but throbbed from wanting him. If he felt this good, just dry-humping me, how was he going to feel inside of me?