by Violet Paige
“We’ll have to go to the store. I think the only thing left is cereal,” I reported.
“That’s ok. We could go together,” she suggested.
Vaughn still hadn’t said if he was up for a double date with my roommate. It felt strange.
“What do you think?” I tried to read his expression.
“It will have to be an early night. I have a big client meeting in the morning, but sounds good. What are we having?”
I let out a sigh. I had been holding my breath without realizing it. I didn’t know if I was nervous that somehow pressure to do something as a couple would scare him off. That was absurd. But it was as if he had passed a mini relationship test.
I hadn’t wanted to test him. I didn’t think about Vaughn like that. I didn’t put him in a category with past boyfriends. What connected us was different. I didn’t think it needed a definition because I felt it so strongly in my bones.
But Greer reminded me there were other elements in the real world that would tumble into our path. And because of that at some point I would have to determine how real this thing was between us. Could we navigate the everyday ups and downs? Could sex sustain us through emotional challenges or stress and crisis? Did the physical bond strengthen everything else between us? Could we hang out with other couples over dinner and talk about movies? Would we dominate a game of bar trivia? My head spun, picturing us in every scenario.
“Want to go to the store now?” Greer asked.
“Now?” I groaned.
I was comfortable and warm. I liked how Vaughn’s body felt next to me. I didn’t want to move.
“Want me to go with you?” he offered.
“You grocery shop?” I let a giggle slip.
“For donuts I do.” He winked and I knew my cheeks instantly reddened.
“Come on. We can catch up,” Greer prodded.
“Are you ok staying here?” I wanted to make sure he didn’t feel as if I was leaving him for extra girl time. I’d rather stay with him.
He nodded. “I think I’ll be fine with the coffee and this crossword.”
“Ok. Let me get dressed.” I rolled out of the chaise, but not before his arm circled my waist and pulled me in for a rough kiss. I tasted the sugar on his lips. The kiss caught me off guard.
“Wow,” Greer whispered.
I staggered to my feet and followed her in the apartment. She closed the door behind us.
“Is he always like that?”
“Like what?”
She planted her hands on her hips. “Intense. Like he’s always going to devour you.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. I guessed she saw it too. I wondered if it was only my perspective. I was used to it, but hadn’t taken it for granted.
“Yeah. He’s intense,” I admitted.
“I think I’m jealous.” She smiled.
“Really? It’s not like that with Preston?”
She glared at me. “You know Preston and you know the answer to that.”
I wrinkled my nose. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Say you know how he looks at you. Say you know you have something every girl in this city is looking for.”
I felt a combination of pride and guilt. As if I had taken something that didn’t belong to me.
Greer shooed me. “Go get dressed. I have a million questions for you.”
I stole another glance at Vaughn. He was working on his tablet, sipping coffee. It was in that moment that I knew what had happened.
I had fallen in love with him.
Chapter Sixteen
Greer and I waited in line for the couple in front of us at the market. They had to be buying groceries for the entire month.
“What did Preston say when you told him about dinner tonight?” I asked.
“He’s fine with it. I think he knows things have been out of balance lately.”
“Because of work?” I was worried the senator’s office would discover Lana’s case before we were ready to officially file. It was one more huge secret I kept from my friend.
She sighed. “Because of everything.”
“What’s going on, Greer?” I held my breath, praying it had nothing to do with Senator Mitcherson and Lana Foley.
We scooted forward in line and started placing the steaks and vegetables on the counter.
“I think it’s a phase. I know it’s a phase.”
“What is?”
She quieted her voice. “We’re both so tired when we get home we go to sleep.”
“Ohh.” I felt relieved. “That’s understandable. You’re exhausted. You both work crazy hours. That’s why Vaughn and I have lazy Sundays. We just re-charge.”
She shook her head. “No, I mean we sleep. Only sleep.” Her eyes bore into mine.
“Ohh.” I realized what she was telling me. “You haven’t?”
“Not in weeks. I don’t know when the last time was actually.”
We stopped talking when the cashier started ringing up the groceries. After we paid, we each grabbed the bags and walked outside.
Greer faced me. “I think it hit me when I saw how Vaughn just grabbed you like that.” She closed her eyes. “I don’t know if Preston has ever kissed me with so much … so much…”
“Intensity?”
“Yeah. That.”
“You’re probably right. It’s just a phase. You can get back on track with a romantic date. You two should have dinner together tonight if you’re both free. We can do the double date thing another night. Go have sex tonight.” I didn’t know if I was being generous or selfish. I wanted my alone time with Vaughn.
“No. This is just as important. I need to get to know the guy who is living in my apartment.”
We started walking toward home.
“He doesn’t live there,” I argued. I hadn’t offered him a drawer. He didn’t keep a toothbrush in my bathroom.
“I’m teasing you. I want to get to know him. See if I can break past that smoldering thing he has.”
I laughed. “I haven’t broken past the smolder.”
“Is it really serious between you two?”
“I don’t know how to answer that. It doesn’t feel casual if that’s what you’re asking.”
“How’s the sex? Tell me that. I need to live vicariously through you at the moment,” she pressed for details.
“Ok. That’s personal.”
“I know it is. But it has to be off the charts. It is, isn’t it?”
“Ok. I’ll tell you this.” I checked behind us to make sure there wasn’t anyone walking close by. “I’ve never … I’ve done all kind of new things. And I love it. Ok? That’s all I’m saying.”
“Thank God someone has a sex life.” She sighed. “I feel like a forty-year-old married woman. This is pathetic.”
My eyes softened. “Greer, just take a breath and talk to Preston. You know he misses sex as much as you do. I’ll go to a movie tonight or something if you want the apartment to yourselves.”
“You’d do that?”
I shrugged. “Of course. Vaughn said he has to leave early. I’ll go out and let you two have some space to talk. And then I’ll lock myself in my room.”
“Thank you. What do I do if it doesn’t work?” She looked panicked.
We stopped in the foyer of our building. I let the grocery bags rest on the the floor to give my arms a break.
“You have to take the first step. No relationship was cured in one night, but if you don’t have the night, make the time, set the priorities, or it won’t heal. Do the small things. They add up.” I smiled.
I saw her eyes glisten with the threat of tears.
“I-I think it’s this place, you know? We’ve made the senators and our careers more important than each other. All the things that brought us together are the things that are slowly pushing us apart.”
“Why don’t you get away for a weekend? Vaughn took me to this amazing vineyard and winery in the country. It’s rustic and romantic.”
“He took you on a trip?”
I nodded. I wanted to distract her from how much we had drifted apart.
“I’ll give you the name. Surprise Preston with a reservation. He’ll love it.”
She rolled her eyes. “Shit. He sounds perfect. So fucking perfect.”
I shook out my arms before picking up the bags again. “He kinda is.”
We started up the three flights to the apartment. Vaughn was right where I left him. I dropped the grocery bags on the counter and walked out to tell him we were back.
“Hi.”
“You weren’t gone long.” He rested the tablet next to him.
“I’m going to help Greer put everything away. Preston will be here at five for dinner. He volunteered to bring beer and wine.”
“Am I going to like this guy?”
“Probably not.” I smiled. “But he’s never here, so it’s not like you two have to be best friends.”
“Good to know.”
The sun had started to warm the rooftop.
Vaughn’s phone buzzed next to him. He picked it up. “Hello?”
I waited while he took the call. It sounded like work. I could tell the instant quiet and clipped way his words changed.
He hung up and looked at me.
“Everything ok?” I asked.
“I have to fly out tonight.”
“What?”
He put his bare feet on the stone floor. “My meeting was moved.”
“Out of town?” I questioned.
“Yes. I’m sorry. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”
He rose from the chaise.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m getting the itinerary in my email.”
He moved toward the glass door. “Wait, Vaughn. You’re just leaving?”
He faced me. His eyes looked darker than I had ever seen them. “I have to pack. I have to get my passport.”
“I thought you didn’t know where you’re going.”
“I always take my passport when I fly.”
“Oh.” My stomach twisted in knots. I didn’t want him to leave. I didn’t like his mood.
“Come on.” He reached for my hand. “I need to take a shower before I leave.”
I looked through the door. Greer was busy opening cabinets and arranging the food in the refrigerator.
Our fingers entwined with instant heat. He led me through the apartment. Neither one of us said anything to my roommate as we passed through the living room. She didn’t seem to notice. Vaughn locked the door and backed me into the bathroom. He turned on the shower.
“I don’t know when I’ll be back.” He brushed my hair from my shoulder.
“I don’t think I like that idea,” I whispered. My throat clamped with pain as if I could cry.
Chapter Seventeen
Vaughn’s eyes darted back and forth. “Elliot…”
“Yes?” I wondered if it was on his tongue too. The words that had struck me this morning on the balcony.
Words I hadn’t said to anyone before. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t felt them. I had. I had felt them more than once, but I was always too afraid to say them first. Maybe that was my mistake. I waited for someone else to tell me how they felt first. I hid behind the shelter of their words. I protected myself by not going first.
“Ell, I-I—”
I couldn’t stop it from happening. “I love you.”
There was silence between us. My eyes dropped to the floor. “Oh God. Was that not what you wanted to hear?”
He lifted my chin in the air. “I don’t think I’ve ever wished things could be different before.”
He crushed his lips to mine. I didn’t care that he hadn’t said it. I felt it. I felt it when his hands circled my body. When he stripped the clothes from my skin. When he lifted me into the shower.
He pressed my back into the wall. “Why now? Why did you say it now?” he growled. I thought I heard pain in his voice.
I was breathing so hard, I could barely talk. The water rushed over his back and between us. His hand pried my legs apart. I gasped when I felt him circle my clit. My mouth parted with a sigh.
“You don’t have to say it, Vaughn.” I bit my lip. “I just wanted you to know before you left. It’s ok.”
He held my eyes with his gaze. His body pinned me to the shower wall. His erection was solid against my hip. God, I wanted him. I wanted him inside me. This man I loved.
“But I’m leaving tonight.” He lifted my leg over his hip.
I nodded. “It’s ok. I love you means no pressure.” I whimpered when he pushed his cock to my entrance.
“Fuck, Elliot. You just made everything complicated.”
My eyes flared. “No. It’s not.” My hips jerked forward to show him that I accepted what was between us, no matter if he said it or not.
His hands took mine overhead. “You know you drive me fucking insane?”
I nodded. “Yes.” My voice was breathy.
“And your body is like my drug?”
I nodded again. “God, yes.”
His fingers curled against my knuckles as he started to push inside me.
“And I don’t think it was an option not to fall in love with you.”
He thrust with powerful force as my body wrapped around him. My heart seized. My blood pumped faster than before. It was the complete ecstasy of Vaughn possessing me and hearing the words simultaneously.
I lost gravity. I lost my hold on reality as his body took mine. He lifted my ass against the wall and I straddled him with my other leg. He surged inside me with strong strokes. Each one pinning me against the tile with more urgency than the last.
“Why did you say it?” he panted, kissing my throat.
He pushed inside me. “Ohh,” I cried. I had no way to support myself or gain traction. Vaughn held me as I slid up and down at his will.
“I’m leaving tonight,” he repeated.
“I know.” I found words. “I love you. I do.”
I touched the rippled lines of biceps and dug my fingertips into the skin on his shoulders.
My body tightened as my core shook with the last threads of resistance. The orgasm had built to epic proportions. Vaughn reached between my legs, caressing my clit and I lost it.
“Vaughn,” I screamed into the shower as the last wall collapsed and the orgasm broke free.
“Fuck,” he growled pumping harder and faster.
I rode him wildly, abandoning fears. I clung to him, grasping for more of his skin. His back. His arms. His hands splayed on the wall behind me as he pushed deep, giving in to his own release.
I sucked in gulps of air. The water splattered off his shoulders, hitting my cheeks.
His head hung against my neck. “Fuck.”
I raised his head so that I could stare in his eyes. “I don’t like that you have to leave, but I think I like goodbye sex.” I smiled shyly.
He lowered my legs to the floor. He kissed me, sucking and biting my lips. The flutter in my core returned. I didn’t know anything for sure, but I didn’t know how this could be anything but love.
We opened our eyes.
“I have to go soon.”
“Will you call me when you get where you’re going?” I asked.
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to.” He turned around and reached for the shampoo.
I leaned into his back, circling my arms around his chest while my cheek rested on his back. I loved how he felt under my palms.
“Maybe a text or a message. I have that international app. I can give you my username.” I had added it to my phone just for him.
He ran the shampoo through his hair. “I’ll see what I can do.”
His hands landed on top of mine. He rotated to rinse the shampoo. We were chest to chest. My nipples grazed the indentations of his muscles. My lips pointed toward his. He brushed his wet lips over mine. I smiled.
“I can’t wait for you to get back.”
>
He was quiet.
He turned me around and soaped my back with body wash. When we were finished rinsing off, Vaughn reached for the towels, wrapping me in a spiral before drying his hair and stepping from the shower.
We both dressed and he picked up the few things he had brought with him last night.
“I guess you’ll have to get to know Preston another time,” I mused.
“I guess so.” He tucked his wallet into his back pocket and unplugged his phone from the charger.
“Maybe when you get back we can do a different double date. A movie? Or one of the shows that are coming up for the holidays?”
“Maybe.” He walked past me and pulled his jacket from the hook on the back of the door.
The charge between us had changed. I couldn’t explain it, but it seemed as if Vaughn was so distracted from his travel plans he couldn’t focus. As soon as the shower sex was over, he was on a clearly distinct mission to collect his belongings. I didn’t want to believe it was because I told him I loved him. He already knew—saying it out loud only made it official.
“When is your flight?” I sat on the bed and watched him, confused by how broody he had become.
“Three hours. I have to pack.”
“At least you had a shower,” I teased.
He sighed. “Yeah.” He walked toward the bed. “I have to get going.”
“I could ride with you. Help you pack? Or drop you off at the airport?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so. I have to run by the office first and pick up files. I don’t really have time.”
“I could see your office then.”
“No, Ell.”
I felt the disappointment sink in. I didn’t want him to leave. I didn’t know how to stall him without coming across as immature. I should be able to handle this. It was a business trip. When he went to Germany for a week things weren’t this serious between us. We had one date. We were way past that point now.
The last months had been everything I wanted in a relationship. Knowing there was going to be an interruption in that made me nervous. It shouldn’t. I should have more confidence in him. In us.
I pulled my shoulders back.
“I hope you have fun wherever you go.” I plastered on a fake smile.