With sultry fingers, I unbutton his shirt. With each one that comes undone, a hint of the velvety, bronzed skin of his taut stomach peeks out; I have to lean forward and run my tongue over it. Delicious.
Asher hisses as my palms join my tongue and his shirt, too, makes its way to the floor. Next, I unbutton the top button of his pants and slowly lower the zipper.
My heart is beating fast and my core begins to throb. I know how powerful it feels to have him inside me and I am thirsty for that feeling again.
My hand skims the elastic of his boxer briefs and his stomach pulls in at the touch. Thick, hard want is pushing through the fabric of his pants so I do what I can to relieve it.
I reach in and grab him.
“Baby, that feels so good. You, touching me . . . it’s . . . everything.” His are words breathy and filled with immediate need. I pump my hand up and down the hard shaft and let my thumb roll over the sensitive tip. My mouth finds his again, our kisses hot and wet. He pulls me in and holds me tight as I continue to touch and caress him.
Asher’s hands reach around the back of my dress and slowly pull down the zipper. When it hits my lower back, the dress opens up and starts to fall down my body, pooling at my ankles. Standing in a strapless bra and nothing else, I lean closer and let his shaft touch the burning skin of my belly.
“No underwear?” he murmurs in between kisses.
“Panty lines.”
“Lucky boy,” he says with a laugh and it reminds me of a time he said it before when we were on a speedboat in Capri. He flicks the clasp of my strapless bra leaving me completely naked and positively burning with lust and need to have him deep inside me.
Pushing him back onto the chesterfield, I stand above him, looking down at the man who knows my sins and my faults, yet wants to be with me just as I am.
His body takes over most of the sofa, with his muscular thighs parted and his beautiful chest rising and falling in anticipation. Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out his wallet, takes out a gold packet and places it on the cushion beside him. He then raises his hips and strips down. He is marvelous, magnificent really, and straining for me.
Asher takes my hand and guides me over him so I am straddling him with my knees on each side of his hips. He opens the foil packet and I watch as he unravels it down, over his thick, hard shaft.
When he is fully protected, his hands find their rightful place, on each side of my face; his so full of lust, of love, it takes my breath away.
“This is it for me. No more running.” His thumb skims over my lip and traces the outline of my mouth. His eyes glaze over. “I need to know you’re in this with me.”
My lips purse up and kiss his finger as it passes over my pout. I grab hold of his hand and kiss the inside of his palm and then pull it down into my chest over my heart.
“I’m here. I’m always here. I never left.”
Our mouths find each other again and I raise my body over his. My fingers splay through the hairs of his chest and my head falls into the curve of his right hand. Asher’s left hand drifts down my neck and gently caresses my back.
Our lips break apart as I slowly lower myself over Asher. We take a moment to adjust to the incredible feeling of, once again, being buried deep inside each other. I love the stretch and pull as my body welcomes him.
I gasp when he hits the most pleasurable spot of my being.
Those strong hands find a spot on each side of my waist and guide my body up and down in a powerful rhythm. With each pulse, he pushes up on his hips, allowing my throbbing core to rub against him.
We move as one but with each wave of pleasure I find my back arching further away from him, my hair falling down my back and my breathing louder, my moans deeper.
Asher leans forward and takes a nipple in his mouth. He nips and pulls, tugs and sucks on my breasts. I am near convulsing as he moves to the other and bites down, hard.
I lean forward and take his mouth in mine, massaging my tongue against his. Sweat trickles on the skin of my back as I work his body harder and faster.
Our arms hold tight onto one another and our kisses are deeper. Our bodies are so tightly drawn together I hope they never separate. I feel the buildup inside my body. If I stop I may lose it so I continue to pump and grind and build and burn until I explode.
Heaven and hell and everything in between open up as I writhe around him, coming hard and breathless. I don’t stop moving, trying to make this ride last forever.
“That’s my beautiful girl. Come for me, baby. Stay with me. Say you’re mine.”
Through heavy breaths and hooded eyes, I continue to move against him and utter the words against his lips, “I’m yours.”
He breathes out a cry and I know it’s his turn so I ride him gently to the end and let him find his release.
Our arms still around each other, our lips still attached, we breathe in each other’s air, coming down from our erotic experience.
Looking into his eyes, I see my beautiful Asher. My sweet Alexander. The man I fell down the rabbit hole for.
He leans back to look at me. His mouth curls up and he smiles so big and bright—that gorgeous illuminated smile I missed so much is back.
“I need you, Emma.”
“I’m yours.”
With my words, he leans forward and kisses me again and I hope he never, ever stops.
Alexander and I finally make it back to my bedroom. He looks around at the pale yellow walls and remarks about my favorite color. I love that he remembered.
He is walking around my room in his black boxer briefs eating a bowl of Captain Crunch cereal. Apparently, he worked up an appetite.
I throw on an old T-shirt and panties, crawl onto my full-size bed and sit Indian style. Asher looks down at the size of it and I know exactly what he’s thinking.
“I need a bigger bed. I’ll go out tomorrow and buy a new one.”
He takes another bite of cereal and a small bit of milk pools at the side of his mouth. Using the back of his hand, he wipes it away and looks back at me. His brow wrinkles. “Why would you buy a new bed?”
I tilt my head at him, my hair falling down my shoulder. “It’s too small for the two of us.”
He takes another bite of his cereal and swallows. “Yeah, but we won’t be sleeping in it.” His tone is matter-of-fact.
Okay, so I get how he thinks we’ll be having massive amounts of sex on the bed but I hope he knows he has to sleep over. I’m not one of those girls he can sleep with and then leave before the sun comes up. If he thinks that’s going to happen then he’s not nearly as serious as I thought and everything he said is just—
“Why won’t we be sleeping in it?” My words come out tentative and soft.
He shrugs his shoulders, indifferently. “Because we’ll be sleeping in my bed.”
Oh.
When he sees my face, which I’m sure is confused, he puts the bowl down on my dresser and walks toward me. Stopping at the foot of the bed, he looks down at me, his hands at his side. “You’re not living here anymore, Emma.”
My brows shoot up at him. “What?”
Alexander climbs on the bed, up to the place next to me, stretching out along the top of the comforter. His feet hit the very edge and his arm curls up around the pillow and leans his hand on his head, propping it up. “You’re moving in with me.”
My heart stops for a beat and I have to remind myself to breathe. This is an unexpected turn of events. “I am not moving in with you.”
“Yes, you are. My girl is not sleeping in a ground floor apartment in downtown Manhattan every night by herself. It’s bad enough I’ve been following you home every night just to make sure you’re home safely. I want you with me, in my bed, every night.”
“You’ve been following me?” I ask and he nods as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. I push the hair back from my face and down my scalp and look down at the floral design in my comforter.
Move in with him? It’s so very sud
den. I thought he liked me, and then I thought he hated me. Now, he’s falling for me and this is all within just a couple of months. I like my apartment. I’m proud of the life I’ve made here and the woman I’m becoming inside these walls. I never planned on staying here forever but to move out now, and for him?
“This is you being impulsive. I want this to work but we have to take it one day at a time. What do I do if in a month you realize you’re bored of me and want out? Then what? Not only will I be crushed and devastated but I’ll be homeless. I’m not taking that chance.”
Alexander’s mouth falls. He sits up and rises to his knees taking a position directly in front of me. He lowers his face so it’s even with my own.
I am still looking down at the large hibiscus flower on my comforter and playing my fingers along my thigh, trying to focus on anything but his brooding face. He does brooding well.
“Emma, look at me,” he commands.
Reluctantly, I lift my gaze. He takes his hands in mine and skims his fingers along my scar.
“I want to get bored of you. I want you to get bored with me. I want the ordinary and the mundane. I want the exciting and the extraordinary. I will never want you out because you and I are one. Isn’t that what you want?”
Damn him and his perfect words. I bite my lip and think of the predicament. He’s promising forever after a few hours of reconciliation. He wants me to give him all of me when I’m not ready to hand it over. And, despite what he’s saying now, I fear he will get up one day and decide he wants out. We haven’t known each other long and his track record is far from impeccable. It’s all moving fast and I need to gather the reins.
I want to be with him, though, more than anything in the world. “It would have been nice to be asked.”
He smirks and lifts my hand to his mouth. “Emma Paige.” Those plumb, beautiful lips kiss my knuckle. “Will you move in with me?”
I blush at his sweetness and give him a cocky smile. “No. I like my apartment.”
His face falls but he doesn’t relent. Instead, he looks around the room and resigns. “Well, it looks like I’m moving in here then.”
My head rolls back with a laughter. When his body crawls up my body, I stop laughing and let him get very, very serious.
With me.
On me.
In me.
“Are you sniffing me?”
I am nestled into the crook of Alexander’s neck. His arm is draped around me, holding me tight as his fingers play with the loose strands of my hair. It’s sometime in the afternoon. We haven’t left my apartment all day. Right now, we are lying in my bed, listening to music and enjoying each other.
My cheeks redden at being caught smelling my boyfriend.
Oh, God, that sounds so high school.
“Yes. In Italy you smelled of sea and soap. Now you just smell like soap.” I burrow my head back into its special spot along the side of his neck and resume playing with the light hair of his stomach. He never wears cologne. I tried to broach the topic in Capri but he skirted the issue. If we’re going to make it work he has to tell me everything.
“Who was she?”
His body stiffens beneath me. My head is so close to his pulse I can feel it elevate through his skin. Whoever she is, he’s not entirely over her. He doesn’t answer immediately so I push harder. “Was she the first or the second love?”
“The second.” He lets out a long breath and his pulse begins to taper.
“What was her name?”
“Does it matter?”
I look up and lightly kiss his tightened jawbone and take my spot back into the crook of his neck. “It matters to me.”
His breathing is deep yet controlled as if he’s trying to calm himself. Who ever she is, whatever she did to him, has scarred him deeper than the wound on my hand.
“Her name was Kathryn.”
Kathryn. That’s a really pretty name. I was hoping she’d have an evil name like Onyx or Lex. Instead, she sounds like a member of the royal family.
“She loved the smell of my cologne. She never told me. I knew from the way she reacted so I used to spray it everywhere for her. When she left, I couldn’t stand the smell of it anymore.”
I remember his words from last night so vividly. It’s not often the man you love tells you that you aren’t his first, or his second, but his third love. I find myself reciting the words he said about her, “You loved her for all the wrong reasons.”
His hand stops moving along my hairline. I can’t see his face so I don’t know what he’s thinking. All I know is his pulse elevates just slightly whenever I make a mention of Kathryn. When he resumes playing with my hair, he also resumes talking.
“She’d already given her heart to someone else. She was married.”
This time it is my turn to freeze. He was in love with a married woman? He was the other man in a relationship? Okay, I get it, he’s not perfect. But cheating is a huge deal breaker. I am a very closed-minded person when it comes to the sanctity of marriage. When I eventually make that vow it will be forever.
I sit up on the bed and turn around to look at Alexander. He is exquisite and masculine, everything a woman would fantasize about. I get how a married woman, any woman, would want to be with him. But at what cost?
I feel my face morph into a look of disgust. The skin between my eyes tightens and my mouth turns down.
Alexander leaps off the bed and stands in my small room, his presence taking over most of the space. He runs his hands along the back of his neck and paces slightly beside the bed. “Don’t do it, Emma. Don’t judge me. You asked me to be real. Don’t make me regret it.”
I cough back an exasperated noise. “Sorry if I’m letting you down with my reactions but this is a lot to take in. Did you know she was married when you fell in love with her?”
“Yes. I didn’t know she was a mother. That part hurt.”
A mother? I look up and his face resonates hurt as if he’s recalling the day he found out. The relationship they shared must have been powerful for her to forsake her family.
He releases his neck and looks down at me on the bed. His hand bangs on his chest in a dramatic gesture. “This is me, Emma. Yes, there were women before you. If I knew you existed I never would have been with any of them. I’m a grown man. You can’t fault me for having a past. And you certainly can’t fault me for thinking I was in love with someone. If that’s how you are going to react then you might as well leave me right now. Why wait until later?”
His eyes are ablaze, widening with his words. I have never seen him be more serious about something in the five months I’ve known him. He is like Jekyll and Hyde with his emotions. One moment he’s saying he wants everything with me, and the next he’s ready to call it off. His trust issues are deeper than I thought, which makes me realize they’re not trust issues . . . they’re abandonment issues.
“You’re right. I’m sorry. You’re right. I just . . . this is difficult for me. I can’t control your past and it’s hard for me to deal with.”
His body relaxes a bit with my words. We’re both adults yet we have a lot of growing up to do when it comes to relationships.
“I’m a grown man. I have a past. You are going to have to learn how to deal.”
I sit up on my knees and bring myself to his level. “And you’re going to have to learn how to trust I’m not going to leave you just because I don’t like a decision you made before you met me.”
Alexander nods his head and seems to accept my words. He has to learn how to trust that I won’t leave him. I pull him down back onto the bed and lie down with him, resuming our previous position. I had an easy, uncomplicated relationship with Parker for four years, and I’m glad it’s over. Here, I’ve had the most heartrending five months with a man so complex I may never truly break through.
And if it ends, I’ll be devastated.
The past two weeks have been amazing. Alexander, as I have become accustomed to calling him, has spent every da
y at my apartment and we settle into a little routine. Since my shower is too small for the two of us, he showers first and then I hop in. It works for me because I discovered a little secret about Alexander Asher: he sings in the shower. Turns out he’s a Bruno Mars fan. I found that very surprising.
Devon dropped off a small arsenal of suits and loafers. I placed them all in my small closet and wondered how we will make my small space work for the two of us. Alex goes to his fancy job uptown bright and early as I casually make my way into the school around the corner. Around three o’clock he arrives to teach his classes and then leaves at five to head back uptown.
When I get out of school at seven-thirty, he is outside the door waiting to walk me home.
He likes to eat out so we go to fancy dinners that are more than I am used to. I am no stranger to a five-star restaurant but a Michelin-grade private room on a Tuesday night is a lot, even for me.
Last night I asked him if we could go somewhere a little more laid back. When he asked what kinds of things we did back in Cedar Ridge, I said, “Bowling”—thinking he’d laugh at me. Instead, he obliged and as soon as we stepped into Lucky Strike, I knew why it was so easy for him to amend.
Lucky Strike is a bowling alley on crack. No, not crack. High-potency cocaine. The place looks like an exquisite nightclub with mood lighting, a DJ, a bar that rivals most high-end restaurants, and giant screens everywhere. He reserved a private room—yes, a private bowling alley room, just for us. We even had our own waitress. I just shook my head at the largess and vowed to figure out some way to get this guy to be a little more down to earth.
The sweet aspect of the night was that since I can only bowl lefty, he did too. He still beat me but at least it was on an even playing field. When we came back, he made his “famous” spaghetti Bolognese but was not thrilled when I took the leftovers upstairs to Mattie.
We still have a few kinks to work out in this relationship.
Reckless Abandon Page 24