by Noelle Adams
“What? Doing a cheesy dance with you at a wedding reception? I think I can tough it out.”
So Sean and I walked to the dance floor. He was still holding my hand. An over-the-top rock ballad was playing through the speakers—one of my sister’s favorite songs as a teenager—and Sean put his arms around me and pulled me toward him.
I’d never been much of a dancer, but it really didn’t matter in this context. Sean got us moving to the right rhythm, and the song was slow enough that we could just sort of rock together.
I’d have enjoyed it more if everyone hadn’t been staring at us, but I did like the look in Sean’s eyes. Amused. Teasing. But also almost... fond.
He seemed to be enjoying himself as much as anyone could in such a situation.
I wasn’t going to fool myself though. Not again.
Sean might have been the perfect date to my sister’s wedding, but that didn’t mean we’re anything more to each other than we’d ever been.
We still had a contract.
After today was over, we were likely to go right back to where we’d been before.
Meeting every other Wednesday night.
Nothing more.
I was wanting more. No point in denying it. But that look in Sean’s eyes wasn’t a promise of a future.
It was just Sean Doyle being himself.
I WAS QUIET ON THE way home.
It was dark by the time we were finally able to leave, and I was exhausted. I also felt a bit rattled, and it worried me. I didn’t want my emotions to be confused where Sean was concerned. It was simply too dangerous. But I wasn’t sure how to help it.
We had to drive almost an hour to get back to the city, and my place was in a suburb on the other side. I’d changed into leggings and a long top, so I was comfortable physically.
But only physically.
I felt bad about Sean having to drive so far, but he was the one who’d insisted.
We were approaching the city when Sean murmured into the silence, “You okay?”
I straightened up and looked over at him in the dim light of the dashboard. His eyes had been on me, but now they turned back to the road. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little tired.”
“You’re quiet.”
I was quiet. I knew I was. “Yeah.”
“Anything you want to tell me?”
I sucked in a breath. “What do you mean?”
“About why you’re quiet,” he explained, his voice as soft as before.
I had no idea what he was getting at, but I wasn’t about to tell him how I was feeling. Soft and confused and excited and a lot of other things that would be mortifying to admit.
So instead of telling him the truth, I said lightly, “I think it’s just the letdown. After months of stress and planning over the wedding, it’s finally over. You know what I mean?”
Something flickered briefly on his face—something akin to disappointment—but it was gone before I could register it or read it accurately. “Yeah. I know what you mean.” He cleared his throat. “Do you mind if we make a stop on the way to your apartment?”
“Sure. Where did you want to go?”
“My grandmother’s. I wanted to give her the piece of cake. It’s right on the way.”
“Of course. No problem at all.”
Now I was even more flustered. Surely he didn’t mean he was going to take me in to meet his grandmother. That would be... unbelievable.
Maybe he was just going to have me wait in the car while he ran in to give her the cake.
That would be fine.
That would be no problem.
That wouldn’t make me feel like my head was about to explode.
Sean had been telling the truth. His grandmother lived in an established neighborhood of old row houses in what once would have been the edge of the city, before Boston had grown up past it. It wasn’t much out of our way, and it didn’t take very long to get there at this time on a Saturday night.
He parked the car in the narrow driveway and unbuckled his seat belt to reach back and get the little box in which he’d put the cake. He drove an expensive dark blue SUV, far nicer than anything I’d ridden in before.
When I just sat there, he frowned at me. “Are you coming?”
My heart jumped into my throat. “Uh. Yeah.”
I guess he was expecting me to come inside after all.
SEAN’S GRANDMOTHER was a tiny woman with salt-and-pepper hair. Her accent wasn’t quite as exaggerated as the Irish brogue Sean had used when he was describing her to me, but it was close.
She was wearing a heavy bathrobe that zipped up the front, but she’d obviously not been asleep because the television in the kitchen was blaring.
She appeared delighted to see us as she hugged and kissed Sean and then hugged and kissed me.
She kept up a nonstop running commentary as she told us to come in and split the piece of wedding cake with a cup of tea.
When we went into the warm kitchen with a big table crowded into one corner, she muted the television and put water in the kettle.
“So you’re Ashley,” she said with a smile at me.
My shoulders stiffened, and I darted a look over at Sean, but he wasn’t looking in my direction, and there was no way to tell from his face whether this was just something his grandmother said or if she’d actually heard my name before in conversation with her grandson.
Surely he wouldn’t have told her that he got together with me every other Wednesday for sex.
That wasn’t appropriate grandmother conversation.
“Tell me about your people,” she said, pulling mugs off a shelf above the counter. “With that lovely red hair, you must have some good roots.”
Good roots to her probably meant having Irish in the family. Since I did, I explained to her that my grandfather on my father’s side came from an Irish family, but the rest of me was German and French.
I was afraid she might be disappointed in my watered-down bloodline, but she just smiled and nodded in interest.
She poured hot water into the mugs and brought them over to the table with a box of tea and the cream and sugar. I started to take care of my own cup, but Sean put a hand on my knee under the table.
Meeting my eyes, he gave the slightest gesture of his head toward his grandmother, clearly indicating that she was supposed to prepare the tea herself.
She fixed our tea, asking if I wanted cream and sugar in a tone that made it clear she expected me to drink it like that. I said yes, of course, and happily drank what she prepared for me.
Then she cut the small square of wedding cake into three pieces and passed them around.
“So Sean always brings you wedding cake?” I asked when the conversation had hit a lull.
“Oh yes, he does. Ever since he was thirteen years old.”
Sean was smiling at his grandmother, but I thought he looked just slightly tense. I wondered why.
“How did that start? I asked, genuinely curious.
“When he was thirteen, he had to go to a second cousin’s wedding, and he was in a kerfuffle about it.”
“I wasn’t in a kerfuffle,” Sean muttered dryly.
“Yes, you were. You didn’t want to go. You thought it would be dumb and boring and you’d be the only boy your age there. You’d been told you’d have to dance with a pretty little cousin, and you were dreading it. You complained about it for weeks. You were in a kerfuffle.” She gave her grandson a chiding look as she spoke.
Sean let out a huff of amusement. “All right. I was in a kerfuffle.”
“I’d broken a hip, so I wasn’t going to be able to go. So I told him he was responsible for bringing me a piece of wedding cake. That gave him a mission, see?” She patted Sean’s hand fondly. “Sean has always needed a mission to feel comfortable.”
Intrigued by this, I studied his face. He was staring down at his teacup, not looking at me at all. I thought he appeared a bit self-conscious, although I’d almost never seen Sean lo
ok that way before. “A mission?”
“Yes, a mission. Something to accomplish. A structure and purpose to the way he approaches the world. Otherwise, he gets very upset by all the different things he feels.”
“Grandmother,” he muttered under his breath, slanting her a look.
The old lady was completely unaffected by the warning in his expression. She laughed and reached over to pat his hand on the table. “Don’t be embarrassed by it, boy. You feel very deeply. You always have. There’s nothing wrong with feeling a lot and occasionally being scared because of it.”
For some reason I was feeling a lot too, and it had something to do with seeing Sean in this new context. He wasn’t the master of the room here. He wasn’t completely confident and in control.
He was a grandson. A regular person.
Not all that different from me.
“Ever since that wedding, he’s always brought me a piece of cake. He’s never forgotten his old grandmother.” She smiled at Sean affectionately. “He’s a good boy.”
“I’m thirty-eight years old now, you know,” Sean murmured. He didn’t sound bad-tempered, but he did sound a little stiff.
“What does that have to do with anything?” His grandmother turned to give me a very speaking look. “He’s a good boy. He never forgets me, no matter how big he’s gotten to the rest of the world. He doesn’t always know how to talk about it, but he does know how to love.”
I froze, my mug halfway up to my lips.
For a moment I literally couldn’t move.
It felt so much like she was trying to tell me something, but it couldn’t be what I was thinking.
Surely she couldn’t think that Sean...
Surely she wasn’t assuming that he...
Maybe she was assuming that. After all, he’d brought me in to meet her. She wouldn’t know that our relationship was bound on all sides by an ironclad contract Sean had no interest in revoking.
I wasn’t going to be an idiot.
Not twice in one year.
It was so easy—too easy—to read what you wanted into a relationship, into what felt like clues and undercurrents that were all pointing the way you wanted them to. And then you ended up with a broken heart or broken pride or both.
I’d done it with John. I wasn’t going to do it again.
“Okay,” Sean said, firm authority in his tone that broke through my muddled thoughts. “We should probably get going.”
I didn’t really want to leave. I wanted to hear more about what his grandmother had to say about Sean.
But she was getting up and pulling Sean into a big hug, so it was clear our time here was over.
His grandmother said something into Sean’s ear after she hugged him, but I couldn’t hear what it was.
As we were walking back to the car, Sean murmured dryly, “Sorry about that.”
“Sorry about what?” I asked, pleased that my voice was composed and natural. “That your grandmother acted like a grandmother? You don’t have to apologize for that. You put up with my family today, so it’s only right that I reciprocate. Anyway, I liked her.”
Sean’s shoulders relaxed, and he smiled at me, so I must have said the right thing.
WHEN WE GOT TO MY APARTMENT complex, a car was backing out of one of the few guest spots, so Sean waited for the other car to pull out and then took the space. Without speaking, he got out of the car and walked me to my door.
I had my keys in my hand as I turned to face him, feeling shy and a bit uncertain. “Thanks for coming with me today.”
The corners of his mouth twitched up. “Of course.”
He stood about eight inches from me, and I wondered what he was thinking. His eyes had taken on a certain heat that I recognized very well, but there was more in his expression, more that felt too deep, too complex.
Not nearly as simple as lust.
I asked, “Do you... do you want to come in?”
“Do you want me to?” He was studying my face now, like he was trying to read my expression in the same way I was trying to read his.
“Y-yes.”
He must have heard my slight hesitation because he didn’t move. “We can just meet on Wednesday like normal, if you’d rather.”
I shook my head. “No. I do want you to come in. It just seems... different. Since this isn’t a hotel.”
“No,” he said, leaning forward and brushing his lips against mine before pulling back. “It isn’t.”
The kiss was all it took for me to decide what I wanted.
Of course I wanted him.
I reached out for him as soon as he’d pulled away, and I’m really not sure of the exact steps that happened after that. I must have unlocked my front door, and we must have gone inside my small one-bedroom apartment (which was fortunately neat since I’d straightened up a little that morning). We must have made our way to my bedroom and then taken off our clothes. And we must have lowered ourselves onto the bed.
I don’t remember doing any of that. Emotion and need and knowledge had exploded in my heart, in my mind, leaving a thick cloud of desire and feeling that blurred all the edges, blurred everything except him.
Sean. Kissing me. Touching me. Being with me.
Being Sean.
In my home and not some impersonal hotel room.
Before I knew what was happening—or how it had happened—we were under the sheets together, kissing and moving against each other, both of us completely naked.
With my nightstand and little brass lamp to the right of us and my favorite painting hanging on the opposite wall.
This was me. Fully me.
And I wasn’t with a pale, fluffy fantasy of a man. I was with Sean Doyle.
The real Sean Doyle. A real, living, breathing man. With family and wounds and insecurities and needs.
My heart was racing from far more than desire as he kissed his way down my body.
I was terrified as much as I was yearning for him.
We hadn’t turned on the bedroom lights, but light came flooding in from the hallway. I could see his face clearly when I lifted my head from the pillow and saw him raise his head from my belly.
He was panting as fast as I was, and his hair was slightly mussed. We held the gaze across my body.
Then he asked in a soft, hoarse voice, “Can I do you tonight?”
The words were vague and not particularly sophisticated. They felt raw, naked, rather than sexy.
I knew what he was asking. I’d never let him go down on me before.
And he wanted to. He wanted to please me that way. Even though I could feel the hard tension of arousal all through his body.
I heard myself saying, “Yes, please,” before another part of my mind could rear up in fear. His expression changed, softened, at my response, and he leaned down to press a soft kiss just below my belly button.
Then he kissed his way down.
I squirmed slightly, my arousal throbbing as his mouth got closer and closer. I didn’t understand why I felt so completely vulnerable, but I did. I was shaking slightly as he nuzzled between my legs.
“Sean.” I gasped, clutching at his hair. My legs were wide apart, bent up at the knees. He’d parted my outer lips and extended his tongue to give me a quick lick.
He glanced up again at my face. I can only imagine how I must have looked. But there was that same heat in his eyes that was made up of so much more than lust—possessiveness and need and affection and other things.
So many other things.
“Ash,” he murmured, his eyes holding mine. “Let me make you feel good.”
I nodded, my fingers tightening in his hair as he lowered his face again. I couldn’t speak, and I couldn’t hold my hips still, and I made a wordless sound of pleasure when his tongue got going again.
He’d always been good with his mouth, and there was no exception with this activity. He teased and played until I was whimpering helplessly, and then he slid two fingers inside me, curling them up, and he ga
ve my clit more focused attention.
I’d hooked my legs over his shoulders, having to fight not to squeeze his head between my thighs, and I was still grabbing at his head, his hair, rocking my hips shamelessly into his mouth.
I could feel my orgasm rising, but it wasn’t coming in one of those quick flashes. It was slower, deeper. I knew it was going to be good, and it felt totally out of my control.
Sean was making little sounds in his throat as he worked, and I knew he was enjoying my responsiveness, my complete lack of inhibitions. He had a handful of my bottom, holding me in place. With his other hand, he was still fucking me with his fingers, and then he started to suck hard on my clit.
All the tension in my body suddenly shattered, and nothing could contain my loud cry of pleasure as I rode out the orgasm against his fingers and mouth. My channel was squeezing hard around his fingers, and he pushed against the spasms. My clit was so sensitized it almost hurt as he gave it a few last flicks with his tongue.
I was boneless and gasping when he finally lowered my body and straightened up. His fingers and his mouth were both wet, proof of how much I’d enjoyed what he’d done to me.
For me.
I shook helplessly in the aftermath, naked on the bed, until Sean wiped his face with the back of his hand and moved up over me again.
I thought he would kiss me, but he didn’t. Instead, he pulled me into a hug. I clung to him, needing his strength and support as much as I’d needed the orgasm earlier.
“You okay?” he murmured into my ear after a few minutes. He was still aroused. I could feel his erection against my body.
“Yeah.” I took a deep breath and released it. “I’m good. That was... amazing. Thank you.”
He lifted his head and wiped away one little tear that had leaked out of my eye. I hadn’t even been aware of it. Then he leaned down to kiss me. “You’re welcome, baby,” he murmured against my mouth.
I wrapped my arms around him and kissed him back, and soon he was rocking his erection against me. We had to briefly separate so I could find a condom in my nightstand drawer and put it on him, but then we were kissing again, and he was easing himself inside me.