by R. S. Elliot
"I'll be it's not. You moved out to New York because...?"
"Because of a guy. A shitty guy, too. Classic, right?"
I chuckled. She had mentioned a guy before, but I hadn’t given it much thought at the time.
"We've all done stupid things for a significant other. Did the two of you at least have fun together?"
"Not remotely."
"His loss. And where is he now?"
She met my gaze with a resolve in her eyes I wasn't used to seeing. It made her look a bit older, but not in a bad way. Just more sure of herself.
"Gone, for good."
A little thrill of electricity coursed through my body, and I couldn't help but break my own rules about touching her. I laid my hand lightly on her bare knee under the table, running my thumb along the curve of her kneecap.
"Good."
Mia's small, warm fingers drifted over to cover my own, and I quirked an eyebrow at her. She smiled back, completely caught up in our private world. I wanted to say more, that I missed her, that I hadn't been able to even look at anyone else since I kissed her again. I wanted to ask her to come out to dinner with me or go for a drive in some private part of Upstate where we could talk without anyone around to see us. Instead, I asked,
"How are you getting home?"
"It's just a couple of stops on the subway line. I live pretty close."
I tossed a few dollar bills down on the table for a tip, much to the relief of the waitress loitering by the door. Then I pulled myself out of the booth and held my hand out to Mia.
"Come on, I'll give you a ride home. And before you say you'll be fine on your own, let me insist. It's late. I don't mind giving you a lift."
Mia looked up at me through her lashes in a way that made me weak in the knees. I wanted to hoist her out of that booth and wrap my arms around her and kiss her until she couldn't remember what day of the week it was. But I managed to restrain myself and stayed standing there, hand extended.
"You make a convincing argument," she said, taking my hand and standing. "I'll let you be a gentleman and escort me home since you insist."
"I appreciate it," I said, and didn't let go of her hand as we headed for the door. Her skin burned against mine as we moved, but she didn't pull away. If anything, she drifted closer, brushing against me as we walked to my Ferrari. She broke away right when we reached the car, not meeting my eyes as though that would disguise that we had just spent the last few minutes holding hands.
"I don't know why you insist on driving in New York City," she murmured as she buckled herself in. Her voice was light, but I could see in the soft neon glow of the outside lights that she was deeply flushed. "It's got to be a huge waste of time with the traffic."
"I avoid driving at the worse times of day," I said. "And call me crazy, but I find it soothing. Nothing like decompressing in your own car during your commute."
"You're crazy," she said with a soft laugh, her fingers spread out across her knees like she didn't know what to do with them.
"Maybe," I murmured. "But you're still here, so obviously, I'm not the worst company."
It was bold, but she didn't argue. She just gave me one of her private smirks and said,
"Do you remember how to get there, or should I direct you?"
I did remember, as it turned out, since it's easy to commit to memory nights spent running from the cops with an old flame. The tall, brown brick building was still drab and imposing in front of us as I wheeled into one of the only open parking spaces on the street, a small miracle within itself. That allowed me a few more precious moments with Mia since I didn't have to deposit her on the street corner without stopping.
"This it?" I asked, killing the ignition. The light from the streetlamps was falling in rays, landing across the car and lighting up half of Mia’s face. The other half was still in shadow, mysterious and inscrutable. It was hard to tell what she was thinking.
"This is it," she repeated distantly, like she was lost in thought. Those beautiful, slender fingers were lacing and interlacing themselves, working with a slow methodical pattern. Usually, that gesture was quick and agitated, letting me know that she was nervous. But now she seemed to be using it to soothe herself while she gazed up at her apartment. Then, she turned to me with a strange, soft light in her eyes.
"Walk me up? It gets dark in the building this time of night. It creeps me out."
I stared at her for a moment, taking in the curve of her lips and the unwavering gaze of her eyes. She didn't look scared. She looked sure of herself.
"Yeah," I said quietly, already unhooking my seat belt. "Of course."
I was out of the car before I had time to think about whether or not this was a good idea, moving around to her side of the car and opening the door for her. Mia's hand found my own silently, her thumb sliding over my skin, and I held her tightly as she led me across the street towards her apartment. Her steps were steady and measured, and I clung close to her like a shadow, glancing over my shoulder to make sure that there was no one here to see what she was doing. Why did I suddenly feel watched? I never considered myself a paranoid person, and it was beyond unlikely that anyone from Carrier would be out on this street late at night to see me walking hand in hand with my employee.
Mia slipped a key out of her pocket and let us into her apartment building, which was indeed dark and drafty at this time of night. It was an older building, with a creaking door and not much in the way of security. The row of pewter PO boxes winked at us in the few seconds the streetlights swept in through the front door, but then we were wrapped up in darkness again. Mia's presence to me in the lobby was quiet and close, her breath audible in the stillness. I stood frozen, looking down at her as she hesitated at the foot of the stairs.
"Mia?"
She looked over her shoulder at me, taking me in with a sweeping glance. Her eyes flickered from my face to the ground and then back again, and I felt strangely exposed, like she was searching me from the inside out.
"Will you come upstairs with me? It's a bit of a walk." She seemed to realize what she was asking and bit her lip, looking a bit embarrassed. "You don't have to."
"No, I want to."
I stepped up on the stairs and let Mia lead me up to her apartment. I ignored the burn in my legs for the entire fifteen-story climb, savoring every second of this loaded journey. Mia's fingers were hot and latticed through my own, and whenever I drifted behind, she pulled me closer, as though she loathed to be more than even a few inches from me. I brushed against her often, feeling the pressure of her hips and thighs as we wound up the tight, cramped stairwell.
When we reached her shadowed door, she leaned herself against the wood and didn't move to go inside. She turned her body towards me but didn't lift her eyes, holding my hand in her own while she looked down at my feet. She opened her mouth, beautiful lips parting, but no sound came out. Whatever she had to say, she couldn't say it.
I knew what she wanted, knew it as well as I knew what I wanted in that moment. I could feel it vibrating through the air, making the atmosphere around us thick and heavy.
I took my hands out of Mia's grasp and brought them up to cup her face. Tilting her face up towards me, I looked into her eyes, letting myself fall deeper and deeper into all of that green. I didn't break the intensity with speech, and I didn't look away.
Mia let out a shaky sigh and rubbed her cheek against my hand in an encouraging gesture. I dipped my head and kissed her like I meant it. Like I didn't regret anything that had ever happened between us, like it was the first time.
She became pliant in my hands, melting into me as I wrapped her in my arms and pulled her in tight. She smelled amazing, like sweet flowers and vanilla and another musky resin scent that I couldn't place, but it was comforting and sexy and evocative of a bygone era. Her lips were unresisting against my own, and I drank in the taste of her with increasing hunger until her back was pressed against the door, and I couldn't remember how we'd gotten there. Her small
fingers threaded through my hair, and she urged me on with soft noises that made me want to pull her dress off right in the middle of the stairwell.
Eventually, I broke free of her, drawing away just far enough to press my forehead against Mia's. Her skin was flushed, hot to the touch, and all I wanted to do was explore her and see what other parts of her might respond so feverishly to my fingers.
"Mia," I said, speaking into her mouth and my lips ghosting over hers. "Mia, Mia..."
Her name was a prayer, my saving grace, and the only thing I could say to pull myself out of the mire of the last few weeks. Every day without her had been a slow, miserable death, and now I wanted all of her, or at least, as much of her as I could hold in my arms. I didn't want her to shrink away again, and I couldn't stand to go on pretending that I was uninterested in her, or anything less than enamored with her.
"Aiden," she said, clutching me tightly. She wasn't running away this time. If anything, she was pulling me in closer until I was almost smothering her while she fawned at my collarbone and kissed my neck with her searching mouth. She was as needy as I was, and I wanted to enjoy every moment of that with her to the fullest extent.
"Invite me in," I said, more a plea than an order.
"Please, will you come inside?"
"God yes," I said.
I gently turned Mia around so she could let us into her apartment, running my hands up the curve of her waist and the swell of her hips as she did so. Her fingers trembled and she almost fumbled the key when I kissed the nape of her neck. With a turn of the key in the lock, we were inside, wrapped up in the private darkness of Mia's apartment, and I was kissing her furiously once again.
I barely saw the inside of her apartment, I was so focused on Mia. I was lost in the sensation of her, in her small moaning noises of need, and all I could think about was how badly I wanted to undress her. I slid my fingers beneath the hem of her dress and ran my thumb along her panty line, grinning when she gasped in delighted surprise. A moment later, I was palming her, feeling her heat and wetness through the thin cotton, and she was arching up against me, her breasts pressed into my chest.
"Will you show me the bedroom?" I asked, barely making the words out because I was so intent on pleasuring her, and so pleasured by it myself. She nodded deliriously, then mewed in frustration as I intensified the pressure of my petting for an instant before pulling away.
Mia tugged me into the bedroom with surprising force, and we toppled onto the bed together in a tangle of limbs and labored breaths. Every instinct was screaming at me to take her that very moment, to lose myself in her until we had both reached a desperate climax, but I wanted to enjoy this. I wanted to savor her, to taste her skin and feel her breath, and to eat up every moment we had together since nothing beyond this moment was guaranteed.
"Aiden," she said, wrapping her legs around me and pressing up against me. "Are you sure?"
I brushed my nose against hers and smiled, nipping playfully at her bottom lip. The last time we had asked each other something like that, we were nervous teenagers hooking up for the first time in my childhood bedroom. At the time, neither of us had any idea what we were doing, but we were committed to enjoying each other, or at least not getting it wrong. Now, I was less concerned about making a fool of myself and far more concerned about making Mia writhe with pleasure, about seeing her face rapt with delight and feeling her body underneath mine. I wanted to bring her to the edge and back again, dissolving into the inviting embrace of her body.
"I want this more than anything else in the world. I've wanted you since I saw you in that diner, and before that. I've never been able to get you out of my head, Mia. Do you want this?"
Mia nodded rapidly, wet lips shining in the single ray of moonlight streaming in through her mostly-closed window.
"Yes. Please, Aiden. I want you, just like this." The already high color in her cheeks deepened to scarlet. A little bit of scandalized embarrassment, even as I was unbuttoning my shirt and rifling around in my wallet for a condom. "I want you to, um..."
"Tell me, baby," I said, dipping down to kiss her again and again until some of the tension melted from her shoulders. The endearment came too easily, and I meant it too much. It didn't feel like the flippant, anonymous sweet talk I threw out with hookups. It felt like her name, like a title she had earned. "Tell me what you want. I want to make you feel good."
"I want you to fuck me. Just like before, please. Like when we were kids."
The words sent a thrill down my spine that went straight to my cock. As if I wasn't already rock hard for her.
"You want me on top of you?" I asked, voice rough and wanting. She was grinding her hips against me in anticipation, rubbing that heat against my hardness, and it took every ounce of restraint in my body to keep from tearing her dress off. I shimmied it up over her head instead, exposing her small, perfect breasts and lace-trimmed panties. I palmed her in steady circles, running my thumbs across her nipples while she groaned.
"Yes."
"You want me inside you, Mia? Just like when we were in high school?"
I dipped my head to take one of her nipples in my mouth, and she swore loudly. When she spoke, it sounded like she was on the verge of ecstatic tears.
"Please, please, yes."
I didn't need to be told twice. In an instant, I had slipped out of my slacks and was laying her back on her bed, kissing her mouth, her jaw, her throat. She raked her short nails down my back and urged me on with her body and her words, so pleasured and soft they were almost nonsensical.
I pressed inside her slowly at first, groaning as she took every inch of me. I told myself I was going to take things slow, but she was ready and wet and begged me for more. Soon we had picked up a vigorous, merciless rhythm, and she was crying out in ecstasy as I squeezed her breasts. I covered her mouth in kisses, drinking her in and becoming drunk on the sounds of her need, and she tightened her legs around me and pulled me in tight. We melted together at the point of contact, losing ourselves in that perfect friction, and soon she was telling me with breathy, hitched cries that she was on the edge, that she was going to come for me. This pushed me over the edge. I dug my fingers into the soft flesh of her hips as I exploded inside her in spurts of pleasure, letting out a low groan.
After it was over, I lowered myself on top of her gently, careful not to topple over despite being entirely spent of all my energy. She was catching her breath with a red and flushed face, little flyaway hairs sticking to her forehead. I thought she had never looked so beautiful, and I smoothed her bangs back as I leaned down to kiss her softly on the mouth.
"God," she breathed once she had regained her capacity for speech. "That was...intense."
"Good intense or bad intense?"
"Good, very good."
She snuggled down against me, and I smoothed my fingers across her hair, holding her close. Her breathing had lulled to a slow, steady rhythm that soothed me. My eyes were already heavy, and I realized how comfortable her bed was, how cool the sheets were against our bare skin. She made a little content noise, and any resolve within me not to fall head over heels for her again shattered. This was all I wanted, silence and privacy with Mia, skin to skin, satisfied and close.
This had gotten way out of hand. It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way. I had promised myself to guard my heart against any sort of lasting affection for any one woman.
Even worse, I didn’t want to fight against these feelings in the slightest.
Mia was tracing an idle circle on my chest with her fingers.
"I should probably go," I murmured, not wanting to move at all. Mia snuggled down against me even more, pressing her cheek to my chest.
"Just stay a few more minutes? I just...want to enjoy this."
"Sure, baby, I’ll stay," I said, wrapping my arms around her. I told myself that I was only going to stay for a few minutes, as promised, and that soon I would slip out of her arms, dress, and let myself out into the night to retrie
ve my car. But I didn’t want to move from that spot, and I couldn’t bear to be apart from Mia for even a moment.
So I leaned back against the pillows, relaxing into the embrace of her narrow bed, and before I knew it, we had both fallen asleep.
Chapter Sixteen
Mia
I had never been one to sleep in, but I had a hard time pulling myself out of the deep, satisfying sleep that sex with Aiden had lulled me into. His presence beside me was more comforting than I could have imagined, more comforting than Jack's had ever been, and it was impossible not to lose myself in that sense of absolute security. The sun was already streaming in through my window when I stirred awake, and I was grateful that I wasn't working that day. If I had been, I definitely would have been late to the office.
Aiden was asleep beside me, one arm wrapped around me, the other thrown over my head. While he slept, all the harshness and cunning was gone from his expression, and he looked just as young as he had many years ago when we had first gotten together. His hair was mussed over his brow, and his slightly parted lips looked full and inviting. They were warm against my skin when I kissed him gently. He muttered something but didn't wake.
I looked at him for a long while, lost in the dreamy atmosphere. He was the most beautiful man I had ever seen, and he was in my bed with me. Part of me was concerned that Aiden had probably dozed off without meaning to and would undoubtedly have a score of tasks on his to-do list begging for his attention that morning, but another part of me was glad. I was grateful for a few more minutes with him and thrilled that I could divert his attention from work long enough for not just dessert, but sex and cuddling and a long, restful sleep. God knows he needed it. Word around the office was he hardly got any sleep at all.
I kissed his chest gently and then slowly, and careful not to wake him, I reached across the bed to pick up my discarded dress off the floor. I was pretty sure I had left my cell phone in one of the pockets and should probably check the time to make sure I hadn't slept through anything important. I was also sure it would be Aiden's first question upon waking.