"What?" he frowned at me, exasperated further at my interruption. Then he spotted the blood running down him arm. "I barely nicked myself."
"Are you arguing with yourself for bleeding? Really?" I raced for the counter and grabbed the towel. "You can be so fucking obnoxious."
"Will you stop sniping and help me?"
"Okay, hang on." I swallowed my squeamish fear and reached for his hand. "I swear to god, if you get even a drop of blood on me, I'm going to puke."
"Here." He snatched the towel and wrapped it around his hand. "I could have sworn I just barely nicked myself."
I suddenly felt lightheaded. The room blacked out around the edges, and everything in the center got fuzzy. My stomach gurgled, and I tasted bile at the back of my throat. "Whoa. I really don't feel good."
The plan was to stagger to the island and throw up in the bar sink, but I ended up just sitting on the floor and leaning my back against the cooler door with my eyes shut. Neil hurried over, as if he would try and catch me, but I waived him off. "Seriously, if you get blood on me - " I felt a dicey burp well up in my throat, and I turned my head.
"You really are going to be sick, aren't you? Over a little bit of blood?" Now he laughed softly, and I wasn't impressed.
"I'm sorry, I think blood should stay inside of a person," I snapped. "Besides, now that you're not dying, I'm mad at you again."
"I very well could be dying," he argued. "This thing is gushing, I hope I don't need stitches."
I made an only-slightly exaggerated retching noise.
"Sorry." He laid his non-bloody hand on my knee. "I hate that the decisions I'm making at work are troubling you. I hope you know that if anything ever did happen, I would find a way to make it up to you."
I thought of the "& Stern" part of his company's name, and the gossip Jake had passed along in the car. I didn't like the idea of a similar arrangement. "But that's not what I want. You're not obligated to make sure I succeed in life just because we had sex."
"I didn't think I was," he said, a little defensively. "But I wouldn't let someone I care about suffer from my mistakes. There's such a thing as being too independent, you know. I didn't get where I am entirely on my own steam. Every successful person I know had help somewhere along the way.”
I didn't respond. I couldn't think of anything to say. And it was remarkably difficult to not admire him a little for admitting that, which wasn't terribly helpful when I wanted to stay angry.
"Nothing is going to happen to Porteras," he said firmly. "But if it did, I would help you find another job."
"And I wouldn't be able to take a hand up from you. It wouldn't feel right." I shook my head. "I don't want people to think I'm with you because of who you are, or the money you have. And I don't want anyone thinking that any measure of success I might ever have is because I slept with you. I want to get by on my own merit, okay?"
"I know." He smiled reluctantly. "It's a very admirable quality."
"Then why argue with me? I mean, I suppose I can understand you not wanting to talk about business with me. After all, I'm sitting here saying, 'no special treatment because I'm fucking you,' but I'm wanting you to listen to me about how to run the company. I guess that's not terribly fair." God, I hated when my own parameters for something came back to bite me. I had to pick, one way or the other, and I realized I wanted Neil to respect this boundary more than I wanted to try and give him my take on how Porteras should be run. "But I don't want anything from you. I just want you."
"I know. And it’s rare that someone comes into my life solely under that pretense." He looped his uninjured arm around my shoulders, gave me a tight squeeze, and kissed my forehead. "I suppose that's why I love you so much."
Chapter Eighteen
Have you ever seen a nature documentary where a lizard will stand near something similarly colored and freeze out of pure fight-or-flight instinct? That's how Neil looked about half a second after he said he loved me.
I had the strangest thought that this might be the moment everything fell apart between us. That he hadn't meant to say it - okay, he obviously hadn't meant to say it - and now he couldn't figure out how to take it back, so he would be horrified and call everything off.
Before he could think too much about it, I asked, "Do you?"
"I, um." He looked pretty green around the gills, like I had a few moments before, I’m sure. "What I meant to say..." He wet his lips, made a sort of pained grimace, laughed, and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger as though he'd just gotten the world's worst headache. "I had planned to say that in a much different way. When I wasn't bleeding through a kitchen towel, for one."
I took his hand and slowly unwrapped it, steeling myself against the nausea that gripped me. The bleeding had finally slowed, though the cloth was alarmingly saturated. "Look. It's not even that bad. Just a little scratch."
"Oh?" His voice cracked like a teenager's. It was kind of adorable. "Good god, here I thought I'd severed an artery."
I gently closed his fingers and pressed the towel back into place, trying hard to ignore how freaked out I was by all the blood. "I love you, too."
He looked over at me with a fleeting smile. "I'm relieved. I didn't say it because I expected anything from you. I knew what you wanted from this relationship from the very beginning, and I'm not trying to push - "
"I know, I..." Wasn't telling someone you loved them supposed to feel good? This felt like getting punched in the chest.
He studied my face, waiting for something. I could see the longing for reassurance in his eyes, and I hated myself that I couldn't give him what he needed.
"I must admit, I was hoping that some day, not today, of course, but some day I would tell you that I loved you, and you would... respond differently." He tried to laugh. It was a miserable try. He stood and went to the sink, dropping the bloody towel into it and rinsing his hands.
"I can't help how I responded, sorry." God, now I felt like an asshole. "I'm afraid."
"What are you afraid of?"
"If we're in love... doesn't that change everything we have?" I really wished we could go back to ten minutes ago, even though we had been fighting. At least then I knew where we stood with each other. I got to my feet, but I kept my distance. "Doesn't that mean we have to start spending all our extra time together and watch the same shows together and coordinate our schedules? Christ, I don't know, would I have to have holiday dinners with you and your daughter? Would I have to tell my mom about you? She’s seven years younger than you. She is not going to take this well! This was all so much easier when it was just about the sex - "
He had slowly approached me as I ranted, and now his kiss cut me off mid-sentence, which I would have normally been furious about. It helped at the time, though; I had felt myself emotionally escalating with every word that came out of my mouth. With his lips on mine, his hand in my hair, I felt considerably calmer.
Neil lifted his head. "Nothing has to change, Sophie. I love you. If this is finally happening, if we're finally going to be together, I'll take it. Even if it means you don't spend your holidays with me or introduce me to your family. If you never even want to keep so much as a toothbrush here." He kissed my forehead, and pulled me into his arms.
"I'm arguing with you about being in love with you,” I muttered, feeling foolish. “I was trying not to bring love into this. I didn't want to complicate things."
"Well, I'm sorry I'm so damn lovable." He tilted my chin up to smile down at me, then he kissed me. His undamaged hand cupped my jaw, his nose brushed against mine. It was the softest, most romantic kiss I'd ever had in my entire life. And that knot in my chest came completely untied. I was in love with someone, and he loved me back, and nothing bad had happened. The world hadn’t ended.
I was so relieved; I almost failed to notice what he'd actually said a moment before. I pulled back, frowning mildly up at him. "Um. Finally?"
He did the prey animal freeze thing again.
"How long have you been in love with me?" A thrill of trepidation curled through me. I ordered it away.
"Six years." Absolutely no hesitation on his part. His arms still encircled my waist. "I fell in love with you that night in L.A."
That freaked me out, but way less that it probably should have. "Are you kidding?"
"No. Not at all." He paused, his expression pained. "I could tell you the exact moment, it's that fresh in my memory."
I didn't say anything. I wasn't sure there was anything to say.
So, he told me, anyway. Looking into my eyes, his own full of raw emotion, he told me the exact moment he'd fallen in love with me.
"We were in the bar at the airport. And you shrieked in total outrage because I didn’t like William Faulkner’s writing.”
My mouth fell open. “Neil… that was like ten minutes after we met.”
"I know. And I’m aware that it sounds crazy. Better than love at first sight, you must admit.” He said the rest in a rush, as though he were trying to talk over the fact that he’d just admitted to loving me for six years when he hadn’t even known me for a full day at the time. “You didn’t hide a contrary opinion to impress me. You were so young… It amazes me now that I know just how young, and yet you were so self-confident. Here you were, a journalist - well, you let me think you were a journalist - and you thought I worked for a magazine, but you didn’t kiss my ass or try to network.
“And you were utterly fearless. You were flying to a foreign country for the first time in your life, to a place where you didn't speak the language and you didn't know a soul. And you didn't even have money for a hotel room. But you weren’t worried about that. You were more interested in defending Faulkner. I knew then that you were the perfect woman for me." He smiled sadly. "And that I had met you too early in your life to do either of us a bit of good. I wrestled with the idea of continuing a relationship with you in Tokyo, but I was afraid. I thought I would ruin you, try to mold you into what I thought you should be. So I tried to let you go and move on. And I've been making a ridiculous mess of my life ever since."
I didn't know what to say. Neil was really, actually, not-fucking-around in love with me. Apparently, he had been for some time. It was my turn to go all lizard-in-the-desert.
"I shouldn't have told you," he said, his expression falling.
"No." I shook my head and smiled. "No, I'm so glad you did."
He kissed me again, his lips warm and soft, and I melted against him. He loved me. Neil Elwood and I were in love.
And I was still pretty pissed off at him.
"You shouldn't have said that, you know." I pushed my hair back from my forehead as I leaned away. "About my job. Being just an assistant editor. That was a cheap shot."
"I know. I meant it to be. I'm not proud of that." He looked at me with such earnest sincerity my heart ached. "I really am sorry."
"I won't hold a grudge against you forever. Just maybe like, forty more minutes." I gestured at the counter. "You can make it up to me by finishing breakfast. And not bleeding on it."
We ate at the island, because there was more room for our gadgets. That sounds demented and sad, but Neil liked to read the paper on his iPad, and I liked to make my morning perusal of The Huffington Post on my phone, so it was nice to share the comfortable silence while we ate. I got up to get more coffee, and on impulse I stepped over and refilled Neil's mug, too. When I sat back down, he casually took my hand and squeezed it, without looking up.
Sometimes, the simplest things can take your breath away.
I pulled my hand back and stood, stretching with a loud groan. "I think I'm going to go take a shower. Do we have anything on the agenda today?"
"Nothing at all. If you want to go out, I wouldn't be adverse to a jog through the park, maybe one last time before the snow really hits. But if you want to stay in, I'll serve my sentence on the elliptical." Neil was pretty careful about exercising, which was awesome, because it meant he didn't encourage me to slack off on the weekends, either. I'd gone running with him a couple of times, and then we'd come back to the apartment all sweaty and exhausted to tumble straight into shower sex. But this morning, I just wasn't feeling the urge to hit the crisp winter air.
"If you don't mind, I'd rather not. I'm super tired. And my knees are killing me. It’s like some perverted billionaire fucked me on a hard marble floor last night or something." I stood beside him and leaned my head on his shoulder as he flipped a page on the screen of his iPad.
"If it’s any consolation, I’m sure his knees suffered, too.” He pulled my hand to his lips and gave it a quick smooch. "Go on, get clean."
So, my bathtub at home is great, but spoiled as I was when it came to getting wet and soapy, I had to admit that Neil's master bath was pretty impressive. It was accessible only from his drool-worthy closet, making it this private little oasis cut off from the rest of the house. In addition to dark wood cabinetry and relaxing golden light from glass fixtures, there were more of those marvelous floor-level forced air ducts warming the natural stone tile. The toilet was in its own little room, beside the his-and-hers vessel sinks of brown stone. The shelves on one side of the counter were bare, waiting for the day I would be comfortable leaving something there.
I opened a cupboard and pulled out a few fluffy white towels. Another really great thing about Neil was that at his house, I could use as many towels as I wanted, and I didn’t pay for it on laundry day. Staying with him was a bit like staying at a hotel in that respect. I giggled to myself as I reached through the shower door to turn on the taps. The shower was a spacious cube with corners of matching natural stone and three glass sides. There was an amazing square shower head in the ceiling that was like standing in the rain, as well as a gleaming metal detachable head and the standard wall-mounted spray. There was a garden tub in the bathroom, too, but with a shower ripped from my wildest plumbing fantasies, I'd never bothered to try out the alternative.
As I stood under the downpour from the ceiling, washing the shampoo from my hair, my mind spun. We'd said it. We'd admitted that we loved each other. Now that it was in the open, it made things... different.
At dinner, Rudy had said Neil couldn't do anything halfway. Did that mean we were into serious relationship territory? Was the clock ticking on the "leaving a toothbrush" front?
Worse, would things get boring between us? It seemed like a petty thing to worry about. Neil loved me. Shouldn’t I just be happy with that? But if we were "in love," didn't we have to leave all the fun, kinky stuff behind?
In the past, when relationships had gotten stale or we’d argued over something, I’d been okay with cutting the guys loose, because I didn’t want to do the work. Neil was different. Without meaning to, I'd gotten exactly what I'd been afraid of for most of my short adult life: A real, grown-up relationship that was going to require actual investment.
"Sophie?"
I opened my eyes at the sound of Neil's voice. He had a towel wrapped around his waist, and nothing else on.
My heart did a crazy little flip-flop at the sight of him. Glass shower walls didn't hide much, even if they were a bit steamy, and I felt oddly exposed before him. He pushed open the shower door and shut it behind him with a soft click, deftly avoiding the falling water in the center of the small space.
"I hope you don't mind if I join you?"
"Not at all," I breathed, pressing my thighs together. The last time we'd been in here, he'd fucked me hard from behind while my tits pressed against the cold glass wall. I was not going to argue with him if that's what he had in store for me today.
He motioned me away from the center shower and turned off the water. "Come over here, would you?"
With his back to me, I noticed the silver gleam of a pair of handcuffs tucked into the top of the towel at his waist, and a thrill shot through me. "You're not in here to get clean, are you?"
He shook his head slowly, and reached for the cuffs. He turned to face me, and held them out.
Obediently, I presented my wrists. Goose bumps popped up all over my wet skin, and the chill only heightened my anticipation. He locked one cuff around my left wrist, not too tight, then closed the second clasp around the other one. He positioned me in front of the gleaming steel fixtures and pushed my arms over my head, ducking beneath them so our bodies were pressed together, my hands helplessly bound behind his neck.
"I would appreciate it if you didn’t pull,” he warned me. “I don’t want my neck wrenched or your wrists bruised. So, do me a favor and try to keep from falling.”
"This sounds a bit intense," I teased. Inside though, my libido was rioting.
"It's going to be, I assure you." He reached for the detachable faucet and deftly unscrewed the head from the hose, tossing it aside to clatter on the tile.
Oh, good lord.
Look, if there is one thing any reasonably horny woman knows, it's the value of good water pressure and accessible plumbing. Apparently, at least one unreasonably horny man knew it, too, and he had just handcuffed me to himself in the shower. He grinned at me as he reached over my shoulder to turn the tap on. When he tested the water from the hose on the inside of his arm, I couldn't help but notice how the stream dented his flesh. My thighs trembled.
He trailed the hose down the front of my body, splashing the warm water over both of us. Then he smiled maliciously and said, "And here we go."
I rose up on the balls of my feet, my breath whooshing from my lungs as the spray hit my clit directly. He pressed the opening of the hose lightly against me, intensifying the pressure. I'm almost embarrassed to admit it, but I think it took me all of eight seconds to groan with an orgasm that set my skin tingling.
"I'm sorry, what was that?" he asked, wrapping his arm around my waist to hold me still as the water cascaded down my legs. "I missed that. You'll have to do it again."
"Oh, fuck!" I cursed, trying to twist away from the relentless sensation of the water on my post-orgasmic, over-sensitive clitoris. This was worse than the hair tie, because there was no change in intensity, no let-up. The muscles in my thighs were jumping and I called him every name in the book, hurled every swear word I knew at him as I sobbed and broke over the edge again.
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