“Fine. I will.” He yanks me closer. Impossibly closer. Presses against me, hard and insistent. “Is that the proof you want of how much I need you?”
“It’s not too bad. But maybe give me a little more,” I say, flirty now because all is forgiven and has been since he said he was sorry.
“I’ll give you everything I have,” he says as he squeezes my ass then grinds against me, letting me feel how aroused he is. “Ever since I returned, I can’t stay away from you. I can’t stop thinking about you. I can’t stop touching you. Because you and me, Presley, we have something,” he says, his voice fierce and full of passion, part of his proof of how much he wants me.
I want to be wanted.
But I’ve heard words like this before. I felt the same way long ago. “We had something before too,” I say, the words ripped from my throat.
“I know. Don’t you get it? I know.” He clasps my face harder, like he won’t let me go. “And this is what I regret. Because I’m not over you. Not one bit.”
I don’t trust myself to speak. If I try to form words, I’ll blabber impromptu love poems, haikus like I miss you so too; take me tonight and always; have me, I am yours.
He slides a hand through my hair, sighing, just sighing, like touching me is all he needs to live, to breathe. “Don’t you get it?” His voice is soft again, but just as strong. “I’m not over you, and that something we have means I don’t want you talking to other men. That something means I want you all to myself. And that something means if you say yes to me right now, I’m going to take you to your bed and make love to you all night long.”
I’m speechless, lit from head to toe with flickering desire. I’m shaking, I want him so badly. Yes, he’s leaving again. No, we’ve made no promises, and even if we did, those promises could be broken.
There aren’t a million reasons why sleeping with him is a bad idea—there is one. My heart.
I want to protect it.
But I don’t know if I can anymore.
Or if I want to tonight.
Maybe I’m going to let my heart break again, because right now, that feels like a chance worth taking.
He’s a chance worth taking.
I answer him with a strong and certain “Yes.”
He scoops me up in his arms and carries me like a damsel, and I laugh. “This is ridiculous.”
“It won’t be so ridiculous when my face is buried between your legs in about ten seconds.”
Well, that’s probably true.
He sets me down on my bed, and in two seconds, he yanks off my pajama bottoms then tugs off my panties.
His big hands come up, spreading me. I’m open for him, my knees falling to each side as I make my intentions clear.
Touch me, fuck me, love me.
“Beautiful, so fucking beautiful,” he says, like he’s praying at an altar.
I moan, and it sounds like his name. It sounds like falling, like getting lost in sensations that start with stubble on the soft skin of my thighs, that turn into a nip of teeth right there where I’m so damn sensitive, then transform into a delirious lick.
I’m unraveling, turning from woman to liquid desire to pants and moans to wild, spectacular sensations.
He licks and kisses.
Flicks and sucks.
But that’s not all.
He eats.
He feasts. He devours.
He’s loud, moaning and murmuring as he works me over, groaning as he kisses me like he’s going to die if he doesn’t get his whole mouth on me.
I arch and bow, my hips shooting up, my voice rising high. He spreads me farther, taking me there, and I fall apart, coming undone over and over against his face, his mouth, his glorious tongue.
I can barely see straight. I’m not sure I can think. When I open my eyes, it takes a few seconds, but I register the gorgeous sight.
Hunter stripping for me.
“Take it all off,” I say, and it comes out in a purr as I sit up, ravenous. I reach for him, unsnapping the button on his jeans, unzipping them and freeing his erection.
My mouth waters, and I’m so eager for him. I want to taste him, touch him, feel him. “Let me return the favor.”
“No,” he says, tossing his shirt to the floor, kicking off his jeans.
“Why not? You always liked my mouth.”
“I fucking love your mouth, but Presley, I need to be inside you, and I need it now.”
I shudder from the heat, from the savage need. “Then fuck me and make love to me.”
He moves beside me, his mouth grazing across my earlobe as he whispers, “Honey, I’m clean.”
“Me too. I’m on the pill.” I scoot up the pillows and he moves back and hikes my leg up, opening me. “Just like that. Fuck, just like that.”
I shiver, waiting, and in that span of seconds where his eyes drink me in, scanning my whole body, I burn hotter for him. “Please.”
“I just need to look at you,” he says, practically gasping at the end of his sentence, like he can’t believe I’m here with him, naked and waiting and needy. “You. Just you.”
Then he’s pushing inside, only there’s no push involved. It’s all slide. A delicious, intense slide. I’m so ready for him that he fills me in no time, and when he’s seated all the way, there’s a moment when we both stop breathing.
When life becomes distilled down to this instant.
To me, to us, to the togetherness of us in bed again.
This connection.
“Take me, Hunter.” I know what he wants. He wants to have me. He wants me like I’m his adventure, his journey, and I want to be the path he explores. Even if it means I’ll be alone when it’s over. It’s worth it for this perfect moment.
He moves, slow and luxurious like he’s rediscovering me. Then a little faster, like he’s found a rhythm, and the pace is so delicious it sends shock waves of pleasure to my belly, to my breasts, between my thighs. I am electric everywhere. I feel amazing in every cell.
As he rocks inside me, deeper and farther, I’m nothing but sensation, nothing but white-hot bliss as he finds just the right angle. Then he slides his hand between my legs, and I cry out.
He’s murmuring my name and calling me “honey,” and there are other words, words like fuck and yes and come for me and you, you, you.
He says that last one like he still can’t believe I’m here falling apart beneath him.
But I am falling into beautiful pieces as the man I once loved madly, the man I still want deeply, turns my body inside out in a way only he can.
It is utterly annihilating to have one person who can do this to you. But he can and he does, and maybe I do it to him too, because in seconds, as I squeeze his firm ass and I hook my ankles tighter around his back, my bare heels digging into those gorgeous cheeks, he loses his control.
It’s fantastic, the squeeze of pleasure. The exquisiteness of his desire. The way his eyes shut, his mouth parts, his breath falls.
He’s gorgeous as he comes for me, in me, because of me.
So gorgeous that I don’t care about anything except kissing him senseless and touching him, feathering my hands up and down his body.
When he’s hard again a little later, I take him in my mouth, thrilling at the velvet feel of his erection as I draw him in, having a field day with his body until he lets go in a string of filthy curse words.
We flop next to each other, spent, exhausted, and sated.
“Come with me tomorrow night,” he says, running his fingers down my cheek.
“Where?”
“I have to go to this gala. My mom and Vik invited me. A fundraiser. I want you with me.”
“Is that so?” I ask playfully as my hands travel down his chest, toying with the fine dusting of hair.
“Yes. You belong with me.”
“Do I?” I shiver at his possessiveness.
He props his head in his hand, his brown eyes brimming with passion. “You do. Say yes. Go with me.”
&nbs
p; “Yes.”
He kisses me again, soft and tender, and it feels like he’s thanking me for being his date.
He doesn’t need to thank me.
I want to be his.
And that terrifies me.
He pulls me closer and tells me he can’t wait for tomorrow night, and that he doesn’t want this time with me to end.
I don’t either.
Somewhere between the sweet nothings and We need to talk about this and What does this mean and I’m leaving again and I want to see you as much as I can and How will we do this and I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, we fall asleep.
In the morning, he shakes me awake.
“You’re so damn sexy, you made me forget what I came here to tell you last night. You seduced me in your pajamas, and everything else fell out of my head.”
“My jammies are pretty smoking. I can see how they’d induce temporary amnesia.”
“Your jammies, your face, and literally everything about you.”
“So what is it? Tell me now,” I say with morning gravel in my voice, wondering if it’s the answer to the clue.
A twinkle sparks in his eyes. “Did you know that next door to the Firelight PlayHouse on Forty-Fourth Street is a curiosity shop? It’s called Caribaldi’s Curiosities. It’s run by Jack Caribaldi’s son.”
I blink, my mouth falling open. “Are you kidding me?”
“Found it on Google. Sometimes the obvious answer is the answer. All the clues were spelled out in the letter, as it turns out. The next part of the tale might require you to find a curiosity near the boards with the greatest of ease. You know where all the best ones are in a particular district. The shop is in the theater district. Near the boards. It’s connected to the circus friend. It’s full of curiosities.”
Thirty minutes later, we’re dressed and knocking on the green wooden door of a vintage shop on a quiet Saturday morning along the Great White Way.
Caribaldi’s Curiosities.
I hold my breath. Tension floods my cells. I don’t know what to expect, but I want to get my hands on another letter. I want to devour Edward and Greta’s words. I’m an addict already.
The door creaks open, groaning from the years, as a bell jingles overhead and a truck carting newspapers trundles by.
With the door cracked, a pair of eyes flicks from Hunter to me and back. The man pushing eighty, maybe more, shoves his glasses up his craggy face, his blue eyes sharp and piercing. “Who are you?”
“I’ve heard great things about your shop. I’m Hunter Armstrong.”
A grin tugs at the man’s lips but disappears just as quickly as it surfaced. “Come in, then. I’ve been expecting you.”
25
Hunter
I’ve never seen so many skulls packed so densely.
I’ve traveled to the catacombs in Paris, but they have nothing on this curiosity shop. This tiny, stifling shop is a model of the thimble-sized options in Manhattan real estate. It’s like someone said, “Hey, let’s see exactly how much crap you can jam into a couple hundred square feet in this city.”
Voilà.
You’ve got a shelf full of skulls.
Another one is stuffed with taxidermy mice next to old . . . are those handcuffs? Maybe shackles?
Another shelf holds jars and bottles like you’d find in an apothecary shop, eyedroppers and stoppers and antique bottles for beard products, and one bottle with calligraphy etched on green glass proclaiming the contents inside are some kind of mysterious pills. Above the grooming and “feel better” supplies is a display of insect curiosities: spiders in amber, illustrations of bugs, a compact with a butterfly.
In my travels around the globe, I’ve visited many curio shops, and this collection of sundry items seems to be on par with them, but my thoughts are on long-ago lovers rather than bones, bugs, and bottles. All I can think about is the remark the man made when he opened the door. I’ve been expecting you.
How the hell was he expecting us? I part my lips to speak, but Presley jumps in.
“Excuse me, sir. Did you say you were expecting us?” she asks, evidently reading my mind.
The old man dodders past a skull, patting it on his way. “Hi, Freddie.”
I cast a sideways glance to Presley, mouthing, Freddie?
Presley shrugs back, whispering, “No idea.”
The man doesn’t answer as he shuffles toward a wall display of vintage signs, some in Spanish, others in French, still more in English. Street signs, road signs, and shop signs advertising moon pies for five cents and Coca-Colas for a dime.
I shake my head, trying to process the oddities in here and, frankly, the lack of circus paraphernalia. At the very least, I figured there would be a crystal ball, maybe a turban for a fortune-teller.
“Excuse me,” Presley tries again as the man says good morning to Freddie’s compatriot Martha.
As if in slow motion, he turns around. “You were looking for something? Skulls? Martha is for sale, but Freddie is a family heirloom. Found in the Amazon.”
A flash of light.
Now we’re getting somewhere.
“Where in the Amazon?” I ask, my fingertips tingling with possibility.
He waves a hand airily. “Just some lost city. Truth be told, his name probably wasn’t Freddie. But his chin reminded me of my cousin, so I named him that.”
“Was the skull from an expedition there?” I press on. I have a laundry list of questions.
He rolls those sharp blue eyes so hard I bet it hurts. “Of course. How else would I have gotten it?”
“Is it from the Lost City of the Sun?” Presley puts in, and her voice catches with eagerness at the end.
The man shrugs impishly. “Perhaps.” He extends a hand to Martha, patting her cranium. “But this beauty? She’s from . . .” He whispers, lowering his voice, “Brooklyn. Found her in a garage sale.” He brings his finger to his lips. “Shhhh.”
“I won’t say a word,” I say conspiratorially, letting him know I’ll keep the skull-is-local secret, but I’d really like to know why this quirky old shopkeeper was somehow waiting for us to arrive early on a Saturday morning.
“Martha was Poor Yorick up on Forty-Second Street for quite some time.” He cups the skull in his palm, brandishing her like Hamlet holds the skull in Shakespeare’s greatest play. “A number of these were. She did her service for the bard.”
Presley flashes a smile as he sets it down. “Your collection is lovely. Is it a family collection?” She speaks with the practiced air of a pro, someone who’s used to asking careful questions to elicit delicate answers.
“Some of it is. Some of it comes from the Caribaldis, some from the Valentinas, and some from the garages of whoever’s home I find interesting.” He cranes his neck, regarding a moon-pie sign. “That was from a shop near Wall Street. Back in the day. Roaring twenties. My dad found that one.”
Presley’s gaze flicks to mine, her irises lighting up. The man is a walking, talking name-dropper.
“So you’re Jack’s son?” She practically radiates hope. “Jack Caribaldi, Jack the explorer, Jack the circus owner?”
“Well, he’s not Jack with the beanstalk. Yes, I’m Pat Caribaldi. Been running this shop for too long. Since I was a teenager, I swear,” he says, extending a hand. “But we own it. We have forever, and no one can take it away from us.”
I shake, and Presley does too, then I clear my throat, trying again to learn how the hell he knew we were coming. “You said you were expecting us, sir?”
His wrinkled brow furrows. “I did.”
“Why?” My desperation thickens the air. I need to know what’s going on. “Why were you expecting us?”
Slowly, he turns toward a grandfather clock then points to the time. “It’s not even nine. Every now and then, someone comes by before the shop opens. Pounds like a madman, like you did.”
“I don’t think I pounded like a madman,” I protest.
One gray eyebrow rises. “I b
eg to differ.”
“But that’s why you were expecting me? Because every now and then you have random visitors at odd times?”
He parks his hands on his hips, his lips curving down in indignation. “Was I wrong to expect you? You’re here now. So it seems I was right.”
I persist, despite the way he’s dancing around the question. “But why me? Why us?”
“Someone’s always looking for something.” He points a gnarled finger at me. “You’re looking for something, aren’t you? You came here looking for something you need badly. I can see it in your eyes. I was like you. Looking for something. Needing it badly. Sound about right?”
I don’t know what to say, now that he’s shifted from quirky shopkeeper to Yoda-esque philosopher. I don’t know what to make of him or the way he studies me, stares like he knows everything about me.
In the span of my silence, Presley takes a small step forward, setting a hand on my arm. “We do want something, Pat. We want it badly.”
The man smiles again, all wrinkled lips and crinkled eyes. “I thought so. I thought you’d want something badly. They always do.”
“Who’s ‘they’?” she asks gently.
“Those who come looking. Like you. Now, what are you looking for? A sign from the 1920s?” He gestures to the metal moon-pie sign. “A butterfly hair clip?” He points to a turquoise hair accessory. “An antique silver hairbrush?” He waves his fingers at a collection of brushes with silver handles blurred by time. “We have all the best ones.”
Presley smiles and says, “Thank you for the suggestions. They’re so helpful, especially since I’m a historian and we’re cataloging the Valentina estate. We’ve been researching the family, sir, and by extension, the Caribaldis. They’re fascinating, with such rich stories to tell, much like the items in your shop. They all seem like they must have elaborate tales behind them. Are there any that stand out to you? Any we should know about?”
Ah, so she’s trying a new tactic to figure out if he knows more than he’s letting on. I wait, watching her work.
“Of course they do. That’s why I have them,” he replies.
PS It's Always Been You Page 17