Vote Then Read: Volume III

by Aleatha Romig

  And then my body remembers what to do, hands clutching his waist, sliding up over those rolling shoulders that are attached to fingers that won’t stop giving me reason after reason after reason not to date anyone else.

  And promise to give me multiple, mind-shattering reasons right now, if I just go with him.

  “Ahem.”

  Someone is clearing their throat, but my throat is currently occupied by Andrew’s delicious tongue, so I—

  “This is not how my dates typically end,” declares Chris.

  I reach between me and Andrew, brushing against his erection as my palms slide up his hard wall of abs and chest, then make a space between us. Our mouths separate with near violence, and I turn to look through blurred vision at—

  Oh. Yeah.

  My date.

  “Normally I’m the one kissing my date,” Chris adds.

  “Go away,” Andrew growls.

  And Chris does.

  I’m not torn. I should be, but I’m not. As I watch Chris the Fake Dog Dater roam off into the night, my staring is interrupted by a strong hand on my cheek, fingers raking through my hair, my head tipped up for another kiss that leaves me breathless and knowing even less than I knew a moment ago.

  Until:

  “You won’t date anyone else.”

  “I won’t?”

  The savagery in his tone and the bluntness of the words makes my feminist heart rise up and shake its outraged fist.

  “No.”

  “Says who?”

  “Says your boyfriend.”

  “He sounds like a troglodyte.”

  “He prefers the term Neanderthal. Someone applied it to him once.”

  “Boyfriend? That makes me your girlfriend?”

  I’m thrilled and horrified at the same time, because I have eleven dates to go for DoggieDate. And I can’t say a word about this, because the owner of DoggieDate is a rival of Anterdec’s. I would not only be violating the basic tenets of mystery shopping, but also a slew of non-disclosure agreements. I’d lose my job in a heartbeat.

  “Yes.” His voice softens.

  “Is that what you want?”

  “I just said so.” He kisses me again.

  “You know what I want?” I stand on tiptoes, my lips against his ear.

  “Mmmm?”

  “A breve latte for breakfast.”

  He leers at me. “How about that latte for second breakfast? First breakfast in bed can be...you know...”

  I leer back.

  He grabs my hand and pulls me to the limo, whispering, “Okay, girlfriend. Done.”

  I fall into his lap in a tumble of giggles and gasps—then groans.

  His groans. I’ve missed the sound of his sigh in my ear, how his breath lifts the hair from my neck, how his throaty laugh rumbles along my skin.

  Andrew reaches behind me and grasps the door handle, shutting the limo closed with a thump. We begin to move, but I don’t really notice much, as Andrew’s kissing me like we haven’t touched in years.

  How can a week of distance feel so much longer?

  “I missed you,” he whispers, dragging the tip of his nose along my neck, from earlobe to collarbone, his lips hard and soft at the same time, arms circling me like I’m meant only to be here.

  “I missed you, too.” A thin wisp of guilt floats through the air as I inhale. I must tense, because he stops moving his hands, his arms tightening.

  “Is this okay?”

  “Of course,” I reply, my laughter muted. “I just feel bad about ditching my, uh...” The word date feels dangerous right now. Inappropriate.

  Incendiary.

  “Your date?”

  “Yeah.” When he names it, I’m off the hook.

  “Why?”

  “Because he was a nice person.”

  “Just because he was nice doesn’t mean he gets to be shielded from consequences.”

  “Consequences?”

  “Right.”

  “Explain.”

  Andrew’s head dips down, and as he moves his chin glides along the top of my breasts. A fireball of want replaces whatever silly little bit of guilt was there a second ago.

  “People don’t live with a rope tied between you and them emotionally. Not people you aren’t attached to, I mean.”

  I frown, tilting my head as if the physical shift will give me a different perspective on his words. “Explain again.”

  “I see you doing this. Shannon, too.”

  My ears perk up at the mention of Shannon. Although she’s about to become his sister-in-law, I’ve rarely heard him mention her. This is definitely new territory.

  “You both,” he continues, “act like you owe some debt to people you aren’t attached to. As if you have to take care of everyone else’s feelings, even when you’re not asked.”

  My cheeks begin to blaze. It’s not from arousal.

  “I don’t understand,” I admit.

  He swallows, and I feel the tension in his neck. “Ah, maybe I’m getting too serious here.”

  “No,” I whisper. “You’re not. This is interesting. I’m really trying to understand. I think you’re on to something. Please,” I urge him.

  What I don’t say is that there’s a deep intimacy to his words, to this discussion, that I don’t get from him elsewhere. Not in restaurants, not in the boardroom—not even in the bedroom.

  I feel his shrug. “Maybe it’s a male/female difference. Maybe it’s personality. I don’t know. That guy back there—”

  “Chris. His name is Chris.”

  “Who cares. Anyhow, that guy is walking home right now, probably a little pissed that I sniped his date, but he certainly doesn’t feel an attachment to you. There’s no connection. No mutuality. You don’t owe him a thing and he doesn’t owe you a thing. He’s a separate person who has autonomy over his behaviors and emotions.”

  “Still not getting you.” And yet, something deep inside me is stirring. I can feel it. A dawning recognition that Andrew has zeroed in on an essential part of who I am, a piece of me that I know subconsciously is there, but that lurks within the subterranean mess of my chaotic soul. The fact that he intuitively sees this part of me is both thrilling and terrifying, because it involves being more real than I’ve ever been with anyone.

  “Amanda, you have a loyalty and a need to fix problems for other people. You do this not because you want the accolades, but because you deeply enjoy being the person who solves problems.” He tightens his grasp of me, touching my elbow with a stroke. “You connect ideas with solutions and implement them. You’re the perfect operations person.”

  Coming from the former VP of Operations at Anterdec and now CEO, that’s high praise.

  “If you’re just saying that to get into my pants,” I tease, “I’m a sure thing tonight.”

  His laugh makes my body lift and bounce slightly as I burrow into the embrace. “I don’t say anything I don’t mean. Take the compliment.”

  “Then...thank you. I’m still not sure I understand everything you said, but I find it fascinating.”

  “My middle name is Freud.”

  “I thought your middle name was James.”

  “Don’t ruin a witty comeback,” he says, crushing my mouth with his so that, indeed, I cannot say another word.

  Five minutes later we come up for air. Oxygen deprivation is the only explanation for why I reach for his face, caress his cheek, look him square in the eyes and murmur, “I’ve never felt this way about any man before.”

  He smiles, then reaches up to brush my unruly hair from my forehead, the movement profound and fleeting.

  “What do you feel? For me?” he asks, head tipped slightly down, eyes lifting up.

  “Attachment.”

  Love, I want to say, but the word is like a firestarter, inert until it gets close to a flame.

  And then it ignites.

  I don’t say it. Can’t. Not yet.

  His face breaks into a wide smile at the word I do use.


  “Good.”

  “I thought you just told me I attach to people too easily!” My heart is pounding. My skin feels exquisitely sensitive. What I’m saying and what I’m thinking are wildly divergent, and yet totally integrated.

  “You attach emotional outcomes to the wrong people too readily.” As he nuzzles my neck, a whiff of his cologne takes over the tiny space.

  “Semantics,” I scoff, trying to pretend that this is banter. It’s not. This is a kind of truth I’m trying so hard to be ready for.

  I get a long, hot kiss as an answer.

  Before I can turn the tables and ask him what he feels for me, the limo slows and motors into the garage at his building.

  And then we’re out, walking to the elevator, hand in hand, Andrew pushing the button and like magic, the doors float open.

  “Nice trick,” I say as we walk on, my heart bouncing like popcorn on a stove.

  “I have lots of them.”

  The stakes tonight feel higher. The question of whether to sleep with Andrew isn’t part of this experience. And the aroused speculation of what it’s like to be naked with him in bed is gone. I know what that is like.

  And it is damn fine.

  What I feel, as the doors close and his fingers unlace from mine, his body closing the distance, mouth finding my own as his hands skim up my spine, is the wholly unfamiliar sense of familiarity. I do know what this is like. The fact that I get more is what is so startling.

  I’m sleeping with him again.

  I’m spending the night again.

  His tongue is lush and ripe and doing that again.

  And again.

  Oh, God, please.

  Again.

  He pushes me forward, using his thighs and hips, his hardness making me lose my breath.

  And my sense of control.

  Yet I have to know.

  “What about you?” My words come out in a rush, as if I can cram them in between passion, as if they have to be hurried and said before this all goes away.

  But he takes his time as he thinks about his answer. He is in no rush.

  And then:

  “I spend long stretches away,” he murmurs against my mouth, “sitting in stupid business meetings with people from around the world who think a merger is more important than anything else, or that a change in online branding will change the world. I fly in planes at crazy hours of the night and do whirlwind tours in countries that changed names during my lifetime. And lately, Amanda, I spend every waking hour away from you wondering what the hell I’m doing.”

  Something in me breaks and blossoms at the same time, illogical and breathtaking, like cracking open an egg and finding a beautiful rainbow inside that takes over the sky.

  “I’m good at what I do. Top of my game,” he continues as I splay my palm flat against his abs. He’s talking, and he needs to, and the words wash over me like the warm sea, welcoming and eternal, ancient and true.

  “But not one bit of it matters. I have everything. Everything I could possibly want. Or, at least, I did. Until I realized I didn’t have you.”

  “Is that why you really kissed me that night after the marina?” I ask.

  “I already told you why I kissed you that night.”

  “Tell me again.”

  “How about I show you?”

  My back is against the wall, my body craving all of this, every second of his attention, every commanding movement as he pulls me closer, pinning me between him and the moving elevator, and all I can think about is this.

  Him.

  Us.

  What if I just stopped trying to fix problems in life and, instead, starting living?

  One kiss, one lick, one groan, one cry at a time.

  The elevator doors open and we lurch, Andrew’s steady hold keeping me upright. But his hands are under my shirt as he walks me backwards into his hallway. He punches the door code and it opens. I lose my footing and tumble backwards, a mass of heat and giggles as I look up at him, standing in the doorway, smiling down on me.

  “That’s the view I love. Except you’re wearing too many clothes.”

  He shuts the door.

  “How many is too many?” I ask.

  “Any.”

  We’re playful and in pleasure mode now, the relief of just being together making us move fast suddenly, as if we have to capture the moment and pin it down, enjoy it first and savor it later.

  There will be a next time, our bodies tell each other. There will. But let’s make sure there is a now.

  Our clothes in a puddle of discarded propriety at the edge of his front door, we kiss our way to the bedroom. His bed is unmade, a surprising display of messiness that makes me smile. I’m currently kissing him as the grin trips over my lips, so he stops and bites my earlobe. The hard warmth of his ticklish skin, scattered with hair that makes my hands rake across his skin with delight as he rubs against me, makes me heady.

  “What’s so funny?” he asks just as my hand reaches for his hardness, fingers wrapping around his thickness.

  I can’t answer because I’m laughing. I halt in the doorway to his bedroom and, because he’s attached to the part of him I’m holding, he has to stop, too.

  “I know you’re not laughing at that!” he adds, clearing his throat meaningfully.

  I descend into giggles that take minutes to recover from, my whoops of uncontrolled devolution breaking down slowly, like a music box whose key is finally unwinding down to the last few notes.

  “No,” I finally gasp. I’m still holding him. “I’m laughing because your bed is unmade.”

  “So? We’re just going to mess it even more.” His abs slide against mine and a shiver runs through me.

  “Also, you’re tickling me. On your skin. The hair on your legs.” I reach down to touch the tops of his thighs. “Your belly.” I reach up. “Your happy trail.”

  I slide my palm down.

  “My habitrail? I know I have some body hair, but did you just refer to that patch as a habitrail? Like a hamster?”

  With great flourish, he takes a step back and points both sets of fingers, palms facing in, at his navel and below, and declares, “This does not involve furry monsters.”

  Cue more giggling for the next seven minutes.

  “I said Happy Trail. Two different words. No hamsters.” I can’t stop gasping.

  A look of confusion, relief, and amusement fills his face. “Well, that’s an improvement, but what the hell is a ‘happy trail?’”

  I point with my index finger at the thickening hair below his navel, tracing it down for him on his torso until he inhales sharply.

  And then I drop to my knees.

  “That, Mr. McCormick, is a happy trail. And while I see no furry monsters, I am discovering definite signs of a male animal here.”

  His growl of satisfaction confirms it, in fact.

  A few minutes later, he stops me.

  “I don’t want to...this isn’t how I want....well., I just..” Andrew isn’t a stammerer, so this is charming. I do this to him. My mouth, my hands, my attentions take away his poise and leave him more real.

  I stand on tiptoes and kiss him.

  “You want me.”

  “I want to be in you. I want you in my arms. Not on your knees.” He’s breathing hard, his eyes dark and intense. “I want to make love with you, Amanda. In my bed, under me, on top of me—but together.”

  Rather than answer, I lead him to the bed and he takes control, crawling over my body as he warms my heart, my toes, my eyes and arms and legs and everything.

  “I wanted to ask you a question in the car,” I whisper as he kisses my collarbone, his breath coming in sighs and sounds like restraint becoming frayed by too much use.

  “Yes?”

  “What do you feel? For me?” I murmur. His face hovers above my breast, brow relaxed and smooth. One second passes. Two. Three. I lose count because time becomes a blur of chaos as I wait to hear my anchor in the endless river of hope.


  He lifts his head up and moves so our faces are inches apart. The moon pokes out from clouds here and there, making the light erratic, carrying a dewy glow like gossamer flattened with an iron and spread thin. I cannot see his eyes in full, but I feel the soft energy of his breath against my chest.

  “I,” he says sweetly, “feel....” He sighs, then gives me a look of earnest connection that makes all my doubts disappear.

  “Everything, Amanda. I feel everything.”

  The kiss that seals my fate comes with a sense that time itself ripples right now, like a stone thrown into a pond. The water will go back to being placid and smooth, but the stone remains forever moved, the water displaced just so forever. And ever.

  And everything.

  Discreet and quiet, he reaches into his nightstand and finds what he needs for protection, the same way he has each time we’ve made love before. I’m grateful for the smooth integration, for his responsibility, for the thoughtful resoluteness in making sure that making love is safe.

  His words make all the blood in my body rush to places where his touch thrills and sates, where we get as close as two individuals can possibly be. I want him in me, too, and as I stretch back and pull him to me, I wrap my legs around him, inviting him the only way I know how without words.

  He finds me wet and wanting, his hips moving against me with a measured distraction that I find alluring. His fingers trace a circle around one nipple as he thrusts gently, all the way, making me tip my hips to take him in.

  The fresh heat of him over me captivates every part of my being. Andrew is in me, over me, arms around me and I am enraptured. The strands of web that make up Amanda are woven by time, experience, emotion and senses, and right now he is threaded in me, weaving new patterns into the tapestry of my essence.

  We move against each other with slow strokes that carry the groundswell of urge and need, of fire and ice, of everything.

  Everything.

  “I feel you, Amanda,” he murmurs, his voice harder to control. “And you’re all I want to feel. I want you.” My own control is fading, too, as impulse driven by logic dissolves under the moans that build in my throat. Too many years of no one, too many memories of loneliness, and far too many missed chances flood me as my blood skyrockets and crests, fevered and pulsing, searching for ways to find more of him.