Come As You Are

by Lauren Blakely

  He laughs and wraps his arms around me, rubbing his hands on my back. “Well, it’s good to see you too.” He’s grinning from ear to ear, and his eyes dance with happiness.

  “I want to be with you,” I say, blurting it all out, everything. “I want to have a go at it if you’ll have me. I want to do all the things in New York with you, and you can quote poetry to me and show me pineapple math, and we won’t have to pretend we need to fact-check anything, and I can take you to the gin joint in Chelsea tomorrow night if you want.”

  Smiling, he tugs me closer, aligning his body with mine. “So you can get me drunk?”

  “Drunk and naked,” I say, giggling, and I’m not a giggler. But right now, I’m so damn happy even though he hasn’t said “I love you” back yet. But I’m not worried because I know he will.

  This certainty—it’s worth every chance.

  It’s worth the world.

  He lifts his hand and runs his fingers across my barrette and over my hair. When he brushes the back of his fingers along my cheek, I melt. Cupping my face, he meets my gaze, holds it, and presses one soft kiss to my lips.

  I think I’m going to die of happiness.

  He breaks the kiss. “I’m madly in love with you too, Sabrina.”

  Okay, now it’s official. I’m not dying. I’ve died, and I’ve gone to heaven, only better, because I’m alive, and my life is incandescent.

  It’s starlight, and fireworks, and all the diamonds in the night sky.

  He runs a finger over my lips. “But what made you change your mind?”

  I don’t think. I don’t contemplate. I tell him the simple truth. “I missed you so much it hurt. And I want you. All of you, because you’re worth it to me.”

  “You’re worth everything to me. You need to know that. I know I shouldn’t have offered you a job, and I also know there’s not much I can give you that you’ll let me give,” he says, and I smile stubbornly, nodding in acknowledgment. “But I can be there for you. Let me give you the support you need. Let me help you as you look for whatever you want next in your career. If you need an introduction to someone, I’ll do that. If you need me to get you a massage or give you a massage, I’ll do that. If you want someone to cook you dinner while you talk about your day, I’m your man. But that’s not all I can do,” he says, and mischief plays in his eyes.

  “What other tricks do you have up your sleeve?” I ask, running my hand over his arm, loving the feel of his warm skin, his muscles.

  “In the costume shop, you said I helped you to not think about things. You said the way I made love to you made it so you didn’t have to think at all,” he says, and I tremble as he says made love. I’m warm all over thinking about how he’ll do it to me tonight. “Let me help you that way. Let me help you whenever you need to not think.”

  “Like right now?”

  He laughs. “But I thought you wanted to see Gramercy Park?”

  “I do. I really do. But I want you more.”

  “We’ll come back, then, whenever you want.” He leans in close, brushes my hair over my ear, and whispers, “And now, like amorous birds of prey, rather at once our time devour.”

  I swoon. “You can’t quote Andrew Marvell, especially when his words are all randy. I told you poetry is an instant orgasm for me.”

  He smiles and gestures to the end of the block. “Let’s go to my place.”

  I grab his shirt, shaking my head. “We need to go to mine.”

  “But I live across the street.”

  “I know, but if I go into your house, it’ll feel like a palace and I’ll want to look around and really all I want to do is have you fuck me. No distractions.”

  He hails a cab, and we go to the East Village.

  28

  Flynn

  * * *

  Weeks of pent-up desire rises to the surface.

  Along with other things.

  To be fair, that’s been risen for a while. Since I saw her outside Gramercy Park. Hey, my woman gives me wood. It’s just the way it is. She makes me happy too, and I couldn’t be more thrilled that she’s taking a chance with me.

  Now though? I’m ready to give her something else she needs, something I need too.

  Connection.

  The second the door clicks shut, I nibble on her neck. Her arms are still wrapped tight around me. I whisper in her ear, “You like it when I take over, right?”

  “I do,” she whispers, so husky and sexy. I reach for her hands, removing them from my neck. I drop them to her sides and wrap my hands around her wrists, looking at her gorgeous face. Her hazel eyes pierce mine. Vulnerability, arousal, readiness—that’s what I see in her eyes.

  “I need you to put your hands on the kitchen table,” I tell her as I spin her around, walking her to the table, and pressing a hand on the small of her back so she understands. “And lift your ass.”

  “Oh, God,” she whimpers as she flattens her back and lays her chest against the wood, her arms stretching straight in front of her.

  She looks like a jewel in that dress, with the emerald against her creamy, pale flesh and caramel hair. I take off my glasses and set them next to her.

  “Stay like that.” I bend to my knees and push her skirt up all the way to her ass. A loud groan rips from my throat as I see her panties. Pink. Lace. Barely there. “I don’t think anyone can legally sell these as underwear. They barely cover you, and God bless whoever made them.”

  I glance at her face, pressed to the table, and she smiles wickedly. “There’s not much to them.”

  I stare at her bare legs, every inch of my skin heated, burning with lust for her. I run my hands up the back of her thighs. “Look at you. So beautiful for me.” I slide my hands down to her ankles then kiss one cheek. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted to taste you?”

  “How long?”

  “Too fucking long. I’ve gotten off to this so many times. To going down on you.”

  A full-body shudder shimmies along her legs. As I press a kiss to the back of her knee, a soft little moan falls from her lips. “How did you do it to me? When you fantasized about it?”

  “Sometimes I spread you out on the table like this, or I turned you around and you were flat on your back, your heels at the edge of the wood.”

  She shudders.

  I kiss her right knee. “Sometimes you sat on my desk with your legs wide open and your feet up, and I had you for lunch.”

  A gasp is her response. “I would come into your office and do that for you.”

  “I know you would. And I’m going to hold you to that.” I run my hand up her thigh, cupping one cheek. “Sometimes you crawled up me and sat on my face, and you rocked your sexy little body against my mouth.”

  She groans so loud it sends a rumble through my body. It makes my bones shake with lust. This is what it’s like to want someone with every fiber of your being. This desire for her, I feel it everywhere—inside me, along my skin, in my heart, in every goddamn cell in my body. It’s like a force of its own, obliterating everything else.

  “Sometimes I’d set you on the couch, and I’d hold you down with my hands because you wiggled so much.”

  “Because it was so good,” she moans.

  I lick the back of her knee then flick my tongue up her thigh, reaching her ass. I lick across that wonderful seam where her ass meets her thigh, and she quivers. Her hands grip the edge of the table, white-knuckling it. “Of course it’s so good. It’s you and me, Angel.”

  I bite the soft flesh of her rear, and she gasps, moving closer, trying valiantly to get me to bring my face between her legs.

  “God, I want you so much. Please, please,” she whimpers. “Please take them off.”

  I slide a hand between her legs and cup her. She’s so deliciously soaked, it sends a jolt of heat down my spine, and my dick hardens even more. “So wet.”

  “Please,” she begs again.

  It’s all she can say, and I don’t need her to say anything else.
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br />   “As you wish.” I slide down her panties, leave them on the floor, and press my lips close, but not quite close enough.

  She wriggles, trying to get me to the sweet spot. Trying to push herself against my mouth. She’s a desperate, wanton thing. I shift to the other thigh and nip her flesh.

  She cries out and moans my name. It sounds so fucking filthy and perfect on her lips that it breaks me down. “Do you want me to put you out of your misery, Angel?”

  “Yes,” she moans, making that one syllable last like the chorus to a song.

  At last, I kiss her.

  I’m dizzy with desire. She’s sweet, salty honey. I lick her, and she cries out. Her taste floods my tongue, coats my lips. I kiss her harder, flicking my tongue across all that slippery heat.

  As I go down on her, my brain is mostly a blur. My body is nothing but lust. But three things remain crystal clear.

  I’m so fucking happy.

  I’m so incredibly turned on.

  And I’m deep in filthy, beautiful love with her.

  29

  Sabrina

  * * *

  It’s too much.

  Too much pleasure, too much bliss, too much goodness.

  I’m lost in the sensations that rocket through me.

  Tingles and sparks and wild roller-coaster loops.

  I’ve become a neon woman, a sign blinking brightly against the night. Pleasure served here.

  He makes love to me with his lips, and he fucks me with his tongue, and he spears my flesh with his fingers. They dig into my thighs, and this is the most intense thing I’ve ever felt.

  I don’t have to think. I get to feel.

  My nerve endings come alive. Heat flares across my skin as his tongue lavishes attention on me. He flicks faster, kisses more deeply, makes love to me with his mouth so wickedly that I fear I might not recover.

  I believe I’ll be amenable to that.

  Gripping the table for dear life, I rock against him, letting him set the pace, letting him control the tempo, knowing he’ll get me there.

  He’ll get me everywhere.

  I’m a comet tearing across the night sky, hurtling on a wild thrill ride through the cosmos.

  I spin and spiral, and soon, soon everything turns to a blur and I’m soaring. I’m starlight and moonlight, flying so far above the earth.

  I didn’t know it was possible to come this hard, this thoroughly. I don’t want to come down, not ever. I want to live inside these millions of sensations like diamonds in my body.

  At some point, I breathe again. I blink open my eyes. I smile like a fool in love. “Thanks. May I have another?” I murmur. I mean it as sort of a joke, but he takes me seriously.

  “As you wish.”

  He scoops me up, carries me to the futon, and lays me down.

  We reenact one of his fantasies. He spreads my legs, and in seconds, he has me so wild that he grips my hands, holding them tightly to keep me still.

  Or stiller, I should say. Because I’m a live wire, writhing and thrusting as he licks me again and again.

  When I near the cliff a second time, I murmur huskily, my throat dry, “Let me touch you, please.”

  He lets go of my fingers, and I grab his head, holding on to him. Like that, I come again, his face between my legs, my hands wrapped in his hair.

  A minute later, or maybe more, I open my eyes to find a gloriously naked and gorgeous Flynn standing at my side, stroking his cock. God, he’s stunning.

  Reaching out, I trace the grooves of his abs, the cut of his arms, and I feel his hot, hard length in my hands. He shudders when I touch him, thrusting against my palm.

  “You’re mine,” I whisper.

  “I’m yours,” he murmurs. “And you’re mine.”

  I sit up. I’m still in a daze, but I pull off my dress, and I’m completely naked. “Flynn, can we go bare? I’m clean, and I’m on birth control.”

  “Fuck, yes. I’m clean.”

  That’s all we need to know. He flips me to my knees, and I want to weep with happiness.

  I hate missionary.

  I love being taken.

  He knows what I need, and he’s going to give it to me. He’s put me on my hands and knees, spreading my cheeks, rubbing the head of his cock against me.

  I ache.

  Exquisitely.

  Deeply.

  My body craves him like a filthy drug.

  I am desperate for my fix, and he gives it to me, shoving deep inside with a carnal groan.

  I cry out. “God, it’s so good.”

  “It’s better than the first time.”

  “I know,” I whisper.

  And it’s not the position, though I love how he grabs my ass as he moves in me.

  It’s not the depth either. But I adore how he’s reaching the ends of me, how I can feel him everywhere.

  It’s not even how he pushes on my back, making me lower my chest to the futon. Or how he loops my hair around his fist, though all of that sends me into the stratosphere.

  It’s how he loves me, even when he fucks me.

  It’s better because we’re Angel and Duke, city explorers, wordsmith and mathematician, poetry reciter and poetry receiver, and most of all, we are us.

  Loving and fucking, fucking and loving.

  There’s no more role-playing tonight. We have no need to pretend because we both want the real thing.

  As he goes deep another time, swiveling his hips and stroking me, I’m there again at the edge, coming like it’s all my body ever wants to do, like I’ve been trained to do this, like I can’t stop.

  He grips me harder, groaning and turning wild. Saying my name. The way it sounds from his lips, like a benediction, like a rock song, like a primal scream of pleasure, is the highest high.

  He collapses on me.

  His arms slink around me, and he smothers my face in kisses, and I don’t know who wins the “I love you” game, but we both play it all night long, saying it, telling the other.

  As I curl up in his arms, I know I’ve never felt this way with anyone else. I’ve never felt this safe, this content, this wildly, blissfully happy. I have no idea what tomorrow will bring, but I’ll be able to get through it with him by my side.

  When morning comes we shower, learning how fun it is to get clean with my hands against the wall and his on my breasts as he makes me come again.

  Then we dress, and I get ready to see Mr. Galloway. I walk Flynn to the door of the building and wave as he heads down the street.

  He waves back, the morning sun haloing his handsome face.

  I can’t resist.

  “Wait!” I call out, racing down the steps and after him.

  I run to him, and I throw myself at him, wrapping my arms around his neck, my legs around his waist, like a koala. He laughs and pulls me closer.

  “I love you, Flynn Parker.”

  “I love you, Sabrina Granger.”

  “I want to kiss you again.”

  “Kiss me again.”

  We kiss, and we kiss, and eventually, I let him leave.

  As I return to my building, an engine rumbles loudly by the curb. I turn in its direction, spotting an idling red sports car.

  As I walk past it, the passenger door opens.

  A woman emerges. Red flaming hair. Big sunglasses. Snapping bubblegum. Cowboy boots.

  Maureen is here.

  30

  Sabrina

  * * *

  “Baby!”

  I still cringe when she calls me that. When she acts as if she has the right to call me anything other than my name.

  Drawing a deep breath, I let it fill me, let it fuel me with calm, with grace. That is the only way I can handle her. “Hello, Maureen.”

  She holds her arms out wide, scads of silver and gold bracelets jangling up her wrists. Her jeans are painted onto her legs, and her blouse is unbuttoned low enough to reveal the tops of her breasts. “Give your momma a hug.”

  My skin crawls. I don’t want
to hug her. I don’t want to talk to her. I don’t want to see her. But I also don’t want to give her the satisfaction of knowing how I feel. I choose blankness with her. That’s how I’ve tried to behave since she left—cool and calm, showing no emotions.

  I walk the few feet to her. Steeling myself, I give her a quick hug. The cloying scent of her Britney Spears perfume wafts into my nostrils. She tries to keep me in the embrace, gripping me tight then sniffing my hair.

  I peel myself away, smoothing a hand over my blouse—my Up Next uniform. My hair is still wet, pulled back in a looped-over ponytail.

  “Tell me all the things. What’s the dealio?” Her eyes drift in the direction that Flynn walked. “Are you going to tell me about your new main squeeze?”

  She hasn’t earned the privilege to know a damn thing about the best part of my life. I dodge the question. “How are you, Maureen?”

  She blows a pink bubble the size of a small fish. Snapping it into her hot-pink lipsticked mouth, she shakes her head and wags a finger at me. “Don’t try to avoid the subject.” Her voice is cheery like we always have these kinds of girly conversations when she bursts into town every year.

  Oh, wait. We do. Because she bursts into town every year, acting like everything is fine. “When did you start seeing Flynn Parker?”

  A blush spreads across my face when she voices his name. I hate how it sounds on her tongue. Gritting my teeth, I remain silent as I wonder how she knows who he is. But then, she probably stays current on all the wealthy men.

  She punches my arm. “You got yourself a rich man. Way to go, girl.”

  “Mom,” I say, groaning.

  “Good for you, baby. Now, you don’t have to worry about a thing.”

  Sighing heavily, I bite out the words. “Mom, that’s not how it works. That’s not how it is.”