The Apartment: The Complete Affair

by Amanda Black

  “You have a private collection?”

  “Of course. I have a number of pieces I’ve done through the years that I just couldn’t bear to part with. They are all in storage right now, waiting for the day I finally settle down in one place and can put them up in my studio or something.”

  “Are there any of me in there?”

  Ethan’s blush deepened. “There are two.”

  “Really?” she smiled. “So what made those two different from the walls of paintings you showed me tonight? Those all seemed fairly personal to me.”

  “Every painting is personal to an artist; each one is like a child you have nurtured and watched grow before your eyes. But if you want to actually make any money doing what you love, you have to learn to detach yourself as soon as possible so you can sell them. I have everything photographed and cataloged so that I can look at them whenever I want, but every once in a while one of them is just too hard to let go—or it was never intended for anyone else’s eyes but mine.”

  Lily nodded with understanding. “And the two of me fall into the latter category.”

  “Yes. When I did all of those paintings, it was like I couldn’t stop until every memory I had of you was documented in some way. And as many of the paintings in the gallery showed you, a lot of my memories were sexual. I tried to keep them tasteful, but there were two of them that I couldn’t handle showing anyone… and I didn’t think you would be comfortable having anyone else see them, either.”

  “I appreciate that,” she sighed in relief. “What were they of?”

  “They involved a bit more nudity. Nothing shocking for the art world of course, but more than I thought was appropriate without your permission. I tried to record the perfection of your breasts in one of them, but I can see now that I didn’t do them justice.” He leered at her cleavage, reaching out a long, slender finger to trace the edge of one brownish-pink areola that had begun to sneak out above the top of her corset.

  “And the other one?”

  “Hm?” He looked up at her as if breaking out of a trance. “The other one? Ah yes… well, let’s just say that the other involved… lube.”

  “No! Please tell me you didn’t show that!”

  “No, Lily, nothing so graphic. But the symbolism was there, and I knew what it meant. I couldn’t stand for someone else to buy that memory… and I wasn’t about to explain anything about it to people viewing it.”

  “Thank goodness for that!” she laughed. “So… will I ever get to see these paintings?”

  “Perhaps… one day,” he said absently, already lost in the valley between her breasts again. He continued stroking lazy patterns across her skin with his finger, watching as her flesh dipped and changed color under the pressure. When he finally dragged his gaze up to meet hers it was with great difficulty, and his eyes were dilated with lust. “It all depends.”

  It was hard to concentrate on everything he was saying between the touch of his fingers and the heat in his eyes, but she could tell from his tone that he was being playful. “On what?” she smirked.

  He did nothing but look at her for a moment, allowing the tension to build between them. When he finally spoke again it was with a gruff voice. “On how fast you can get up on all fours and show me that delectable ass.”

  Without another word, Lily scrambled to her knees. Turning around abruptly and bending over to brace herself with her palms, she arched her back dramatically and flipped her hair back to look at him over her shoulder. “Fast enough for you?”

  “Fuck,” he growled, standing up quickly behind her. “Spread your knees,” he commanded. Looking down at the sinful display in front of him, he had to swallow down the saliva that flooded his mouth. “I swear to Christ, Lily… I know I keep saying it, but you are the sexiest thing I’ve ever fucking seen.”

  “I feel the same… about you,” she panted, her breath becoming choppy with anticipation.

  Ethan stepped out of his boxer briefs, gripping his erection firmly before brushing the broad tip against her swollen sex. He watched as he swirled her moisture up and down the length of her silken folds, rubbing it more firmly over the hardened nub of her clitoris a few times before dragging it back up to her entrance.

  “I can’t get enough of you,” he whimpered, gripping her hips tightly. He met her eyes briefly as she looked back at him, and his expression was almost panicked before he pulled his gaze back down to watch as he slowly pushed himself inside her. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I just—I just can’t.”

  She groaned loudly at his intrusion. “Good! I don’t want you to ever get enough.” With that, she flexed her hips and forced herself back onto him more roughly, thus ending any further conversation that didn’t consist of grunts and moans.

  Ethan continued to thrust inside her, eventually pulling her up flush against his chest so that he could grab her chin and kiss her hungrily. Yanking the front of her corset down, he gripped and squeezed Lily’s breasts until she was sure that they would bruise, but she was unable to care at all. The only thing that mattered was the heavy drag and pull of him inside her.

  Feeling herself getting closer to the edge of oblivion, she fell forward onto her hands again, needing the support. Looking back over her shoulder until their eyes locked, she felt any remaining hesitation and shyness disintegrate.

  He would always give her anything she needed, and would never judge her for it.

  And she finally knew: This was true honesty.

  Not strangers in a dirty apartment, hiding away from the real world, but two people who knew one another’s flaws as well as their perfections, and loved each other even more for it.

  Two people who didn’t have to hide behind their anonymity to have the courage to ask for the things they truly desired.

  “Ethan,” she panted, “grab my hair!”

  He could only manage a loud snarl in response, fisting her hair tightly at the base of her skull and pulling until she had arched back as far as she could go. He pounded into her faster, causing her to bounce back and forth with the frantic rhythm.

  “God, yes!” she cried, her voice shaking from the force of his thrusts. “Baby… baby, I need you to smack my ass… oh God, please, baby.”

  “Fuck!” Ethan gritted through his teeth, the veins in his neck standing out sharply with his effort to hold on. Letting go of his death grip on her hip, he raised his other hand and brought it back down with a light slap on the swell of her ass.

  “Harder!” she begged. “God baby, please harder! I’m not going to break.”

  Raising his arm higher, he brought it down with a resounding crack.

  “Yes! That’s it! Oh God, don’t stop… I’m so fucking close!”

  Ethan kept up the spanking in time with his thrusts, not stopping through her cries of pleasure until he felt her body begin to seize up, gripping him tightly in an attempt to milk his own release from him. Letting go of her hair, he quickly grabbed her hips again for leverage, slamming and pounding into her so forcefully that the entire bed shook underneath them until he threw his head back and cried out his blinding ecstasy.

  After collapsing again in a tangled heap, they lay together for a few minutes catching their breath. “Fuck, I love you so much,” he exhaled loudly, rolling onto his back and pulling her with him. Brushing her sweaty hair out of her eyes, Ethan rose up and kissed her sweetly, an action that seemed so tame compared to his passion of moments before.

  “Likewise,” Lily whispered, her voice now hoarse.

  Stroking her shoulder lovingly, Ethan felt his heart stop when he saw a dark mark on her skin. Sitting up quickly, he pulled her up to inspect her, terrified that he had hurt her with his roughness. Once she was facing him, he saw that she was absolutely covered in the marks. They were all over her breasts, her shoulders, and her arms, and when he made her turn around he could see the outline of his fingertips on her hips where he’d held her, as well as a few random ones across her ass.

  “Oh God, are
these bruises?” he gasped, feeling his stomach starting to turn in disgust.

  “Huh?” she asked, a puzzled look on her face.

  “Look at you, you’re covered!”

  “Ethan, calm down!” She laughed, grabbing his hands and holding them up in front of his eyes. When he finally stopped panicking and looked closely at them, he noticed that they were covered in black smudges. “You never washed the charcoal off your fingers. I’m fine.”

  “Oh God!” he laughed nervously, dropping his head to his hands in relief. “Jesus, that really scared me.” He looked back up to see Lily brushing at a dark smudge on the slope of her breast. The more she tried, the more it smeared over her skin.

  “Man, it looks like I was dusted for fingerprints,” she giggled. “I don’t think you could defend yourself against this evidence, Mr. Foster.”

  “What? No way. You’re dreaming.” He looked down at her black smudged skin. “I barely touched you.”

  “Barely touched me? I look like a cheetah!”

  “I think that’s a gross over-exaggeration,” he said with a deadpan expression. They both broke into sleepy laughter, and when they stopped, Lily couldn’t resist a loud yawn.

  “Alright, beautiful,” Ethan said, “let’s get you cleaned up. How about a soak in the tub?”

  “That sounds amazing,” she sighed, her heavy eyelids slowly blinking.

  “Okay, you stay here and rest, I’ll be right back. I’m going to draw us a bath.”

  Ethan disappeared from the room, and before long Lily had drifted off into a light slumber. When she awoke a little while later, it was to the gentle tugging of Ethan’s fingers on the laces of her corset. She slowly realized that he had already removed her shoes and her stockings while she slept and was lovingly unwrapping her like she was a priceless gift.

  Once her corset had been removed as well, he scooped her up into his arms and tucked her against his chest. “Come on, Sleeping Beauty,” he whispered as he carried her into the large bathroom.

  “Oh wow!” she gasped, holding her head up and looking around as they entered the room. “Ethan, did you just do this? It’s so beautiful!” He had moved and re-lit most of the candles so that the bathroom had a bright golden glow, and he had placed the untouched bucket of champagne on the marble countertop.

  “I thought it might be more relaxing than the harsh lights in here. I want you to be able to just soak and relax. It’s been a very long day.”

  “Mmm… with lots of physical exertion,” she purred.

  “Very true,” he smirked, setting her down by the edge of the tub. “Now, go ahead and climb in.”

  Lily stepped carefully into the huge tub, sitting down with a loud sigh in the warm water, laughing as the thick layer of bubbles rose up and tickled her chin before settling down lower around her chest.

  “God, this feels amazing,” she moaned, laying her head back against the edge.

  “I’m happy you like it, baby,” Ethan smiled, grabbing the bottle of champagne. A loud pop could be heard as he sent the cork flying into the other room, and he quickly filled two crystal flutes with the bubbly drink. Sitting them on the large rim of the tub, he tapped lightly on Lily’s shoulder. “Scoot forward for me.”

  Lily allowed him enough room to slip in behind her, sighing again as he pulled her back to rest against his chest. Handing her one of the glasses over her shoulder, he leaned down to kiss her neck.

  “I think I’ve died and gone to heaven,” she whispered.

  “Well, you certainly feel heavenly,” his gravelly voice vibrated on her back as he spoke. “But I don’t think it’s heaven.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because if it were heaven, at least my form of heaven, I wouldn’t need any time for my body to recoup. Feeling your silky wet skin slide against me like this is more like torture when I can’t do anything about it.”

  “Well, you’re the one who climbed in here to relax. How can you relax if it’s torture?”

  “It’s the best kind of torture,” he whispered against her wet shoulder. “And it is relaxing. I just need to shift my focus a little—which is hard to do when you wiggle your ass like that.”

  “Sorry,” she blushed. “I was just trying to get more comfortable.”

  “No worries, I’m only teasing you.” He paused to grab his own glass and raise it out in front of her. “Now let’s have a toast, shall we?”

  “A bathtub toast?”

  “Of course! Bathtub toasts are the most sincere, didn’t you know that?”

  “No, can’t say I did. I’m starting to think that you are making a lot of this stuff up as you go along.”

  “Yes, isn’t it wonderful?” he chuckled. The vibrations his warm laughter caused against her back were instantly her new favorite sensation. “We can make it all up as we go along now. There are no rules or boundaries, just a clean slate.”

  “Or a blank canvas,” she smiled.

  “Even better!” He held his glass closer to hers. “To blank canvases.”

  “To blank canvases,” Lily sighed.

  The clink of their glasses echoed lightly through the room. After sipping quietly for a moment, Ethan could see that her eyes were starting to droop again. “Okay, give me that.” He took her glass before she could drop it, then sat up a little higher in the tub and reached for a sponge. “Let’s get you cleaned up before you pass out on me.”

  He dipped the sponge down into the bubble bath, bringing it up to squeeze the warm suds over Lily’s shoulders. Scrubbing lightly at the charcoal smudges, he watched as her porcelain skin became clear again. At one point she accused him of paying extra special attention to the marks on her breasts, which he wholeheartedly denied, only to continue doing.

  After everything was scrubbed properly multiple times, they both rinsed off and dried each other with enormous towels. Ethan sent her to bed while he blew out the candles and drained the tub, and when he slipped in next to her she was already fast asleep.

  Pulling her to him in the dark, he wrapped his arms around her possessively and kissed the top of her head. Looking back on the day they had shared, Ethan wondered if it could have possibly been any more perfect.

  Sleep claimed him moments later, and it was the most peaceful he’d had in years.

  Chapter 17

  When Lily woke the next morning, it was to the sound of something being wheeled into the room. She opened her eyes to see Ethan looking groggy and disheveled, his already wild hair sticking up in different directions as he pushed a food cart toward the small table near the bed. He was wearing one of the hotel robes, and it had parted enough that she could make out a decent amount of bronze chest hair.

  He looked positively delicious.

  “Morning, sleepyhead.” He smiled down at her when he saw that she was awake. “I hope you don’t mind, but I ordered us some breakfast. I didn’t really feel like going out just yet.”

  “Why would I mind?” she said around a yawn before sitting up to stretch her arms. “This way we can stay buried in our cozy sex cocoon until it’s time to check out.”

  “I see we think alike,” he laughed. “Did you want to eat in bed or sit here at the table?”

  “Table’s fine with me. I’m just going to run to the bathroom first.”

  When Lily was finished she splashed some water on her face, trying to rid herself of the last remnants of sleep that made her eyelids feel puffy and heavy. Finding a matching robe hanging on the back of the door, she threw it on quickly and joined Ethan at the small breakfast table he’d arranged.

  “You better watch out,” she teased. “I could get used to all of this spoiling.” She lifted the cover off her plate to find a large pile of eggs, bacon, sausage, and toast. “Mmm… yes, I could definitely get used to this.”

  “Good,” he mumbled around a large forkful of food. When he’d swallowed, he reached over and grabbed her hand. “You need a little spoiling. I’m looking forward to spoiling you for the rest of my life.”
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  Lily ate in silence for a while, the only sign that she’d heard him showing in the pink hue of her cheeks. In reality, she couldn’t stop her heart from pounding in her chest at his words. She knew how she felt about him; there hadn’t been any doubt in her mind that she had found the one for her. But to hear her own thoughts of forever spoken back to her so easily—she thought her heart might explode right through her chest from the happiness.

  The look she saw in his eyes when they finally met across the table mirrored her own. They didn’t speak any further about it after that, switching the topic to less important things. It was silently understood between them that they would be speaking of it again in the future, because they both knew that their futures now belonged to each other.

  And in the same way, she knew without asking that he wouldn’t be returning to his family’s home when they went back to Aledo. His home was with her now.

  When they finished breakfast they decided it would be a wonderful timesaver to shower together. Ethan told her to think of all the water they would be saving as well, and Lily was fully on board to do her part for the environment.

  That is, until they began sudsing each other up under the hot spray.

  For some reason, they lost track of the time they were supposed to be saving, and ended up wasting twice as much water than if they’d showered separately.

  Ethan pulled her closer to him, allowing his hands to slip and slide along her flesh as he washed her. He scrubbed her hair as she did the same to him, and when he asked her to lower her head so that he could apply the conditioner, she dropped to her knees in front of him.

  “Go ahead,” she purred, looking up at him from beneath her lashes. As soon as his hands began to spread the thick fluid through her hair, she took him deep into her mouth, bobbing up and down on his shaft, moaning loudly around him. He did his best to concentrate on the task at hand, nearly falling over more than once as she made him weak in the knees, and before long he was pulling her back to her feet frantically.