“I know, right?” I laughed. “I live on West Alaska and even the mailman gets confused sometimes.”
“Really? You’re only a few blocks away from my office then.”
I nodded. “You know the old boardgame shop that’s been converted into a Games Cafe now?”
“Yeah?”
“My apartment is in the same building. Our entrance is right around the corner from theirs.”
“We should have a games evening there sometime,” Jenny said, her shoulders pulling back and a competitive gleam entering her eyes. “I finally have another girl to be on my team. We’re going to annihilate you.”
“You like board games?” I asked, surprise and excitement mingling in my belly.
“Love them,” she replied.
“I think I may have just found a new best friend.” I lifted my palm for a high-five. “I feel the same, but the only other person I know who loves them as much as I do is six.”
Jenny laughed and slapped my hand, then rubbed her palms together and eyed her fiancé evilly. “You two might just finally have some competition.”
Peter scoffed and slung his arm over her shoulders. “You wish, babe. I love you, but Cy and I have been dominating every game one can play as a team our whole lives. No one matches us. I’m sorry, it’s just not possible.”
“We’ll see.” She shimmied her shoulders and winked, then turned her attention back to me. “You want to come help me put the platters together? We’re doing picnic food tonight.”
I nodded and followed her back inside. As the evening wore on, the food kept coming and the drinks kept flowing.
When it was eventually time for us to leave, Cyrus got us an Uber and decided to pick his car up tomorrow. Peter hugged me goodbye, holding on to me for a minute longer than necessary to whisper in my ear.
“Take care of my brother, okay? He’s a good guy underneath the dick demeanor. Just don’t give up on him too easily.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, but Cyrus was eyeing us suspiciously, like he knew his brother was talking to me.
Nodding, I pulled away from him. “I won’t, don’t worry.”
It felt like another lie, though. Cyrus wasn’t mine to give up on, but I would take care of him. For as long as I could. At least he had Jenny and Peter to do it once I couldn’t anymore.
Chapter 24
Cyrus
“Are you tired?” I asked Luna after we got settled in the backseat of the Uber.
Her hand was in mine, but her gaze was fixed on the passing city lights as we drove. She seemed to be deep in thought about something, and once more, I wondered what was going on in her head.
I’d seen Peter saying something to her before we left, but I didn’t know what it was. I was curious, though.
Knowing my brother, it was probably something Luna wouldn’t have wanted to hear. Like how I had the capacity to love or how she shouldn’t give up on us. Some matchmaking bullshit like he’d tried with me when we’d first arrived.
The second he’d laid eyes on her, he’d pulled me aside to comment on how beautiful she was and how I shouldn’t let her go. Rolling my eyes in the relative darkness of the car, I tightened my grip on her hand and lifted it to my lips to get her attention.
“Hey, you okay?”
She nodded, the expression in her eyes still slightly absent when she looked at me. As if she’d snapped herself out of her thoughts, she suddenly focused on me and blinked. “I’m sorry. What did you say before?”
“I asked if you were tired.”
“Oh.” She rocked from side to side, then shrugged. “No, not really. It’s only just past ten.”
“I know, but they’ve got an early bedtime for obvious reasons.” Both of them started work at the crack of dawn and didn’t often get home until after sunset. “They liked you, though.”
“I liked them, too.” A soft smile curled on her lips. “I really admire Jenny. How she can be as loving and cheerful and carefree as she is with her line of work, I don’t know.”
“Yeah. I’ve never really understood it either.” I sighed as I angled myself to face her. “I might not like the idea of Peter getting married, but if he’s got to do it, he sure chose well.”
“It’s good to hear you say that.”
I chuckled. “I might be a cynic, but I’m not blind. If you’re not tired, do you want to go grab a drink before I take you back to your place?”
“Sure. I wasn’t really ready to say goodbye to those margaritas anyway.” Her eyes stayed on me as I leaned forward between the seats and asked the driver to drop us off at a cocktail bar near her apartment.
When I sat back, she frowned and fidgeted with the material of her dress in her lap with her free hand. “This is none of my business, but what happened to Jenny’s parents?”
I sucked in a breath and rubbed her knuckles with my thumb. “She told you about them, huh?”
“Just that they chose their wedding date because it was her parents’. She said they were the example she wanted to follow in her own marriage.”
“Well, the date makes a lot more sense now.” Peter hadn’t told me why that date was so special to them, and I hadn’t thought to ask. “It might not be any of your business, but it’s natural to be curious. Especially since you’re putting in so much work to make the wedding happen on that date.”
“I probably should have asked her. I just didn’t want to upset her.” Guilt crept onto her expression. “You know what? Never mind. I’ll ask her myself the next time I see her.”
“No, it’s okay. They won’t mind me telling you.” I exhaled a deep breath. “Her father died suddenly of a heart attack. Her mother followed about a month later. She didn’t have a heart attack, but Jenny believes she died of a broken heart. There was nothing really wrong with her.”
Luna blinked as her eyes became watery. “She lost both of them suddenly?”
“Yeah. It was a terrible time. Everyone in our old neighborhood knew and loved them. Peter had only just started dating her, but it hit him hard, too.”
“They’ve been through a lot together then.”
“You have no idea,” I said softly. “The three of us have faced just about all our toughest times together.”
“But you still don’t want him marrying her?” she asked just as the driver started to slow.
He dropped us off at the bar and I clicked into the app to give him a good tip. It wasn’t often I found a driver who had given me as much of an illusion of privacy as he had.
Taking Luna’s hand once I was done, we walked into the dark, crowded bar and found a table near the back. Pool balls clinked nearby, loud voices nearly drowning out the sound of the jukebox in the closed-off area a few feet away.
Raucous laughter rang out from all around us. People were obviously enjoying their Friday night.
It felt like Luna and I were in our own private bubble. We were also enjoying ourselves because we were getting to know each other better, but our conversation was anything but light or carefree.
After a quick stop at the bar, we took our seats and continued with the conversation as if it had never paused. I let my beer dangle between my fingers as I closed my eyes.
“It’s really not about her. It’s just the concept of marriage. Those two adore each other. They’ve loved each other almost half their lives, but I just can’t shake the feeling that getting married is going to spell the beginning of the end.”
Luna leaned across the table and took my hand in hers. “It’s okay to be scared for him after what happened to you, but I disagree. I don’t think it’s the beginning of the end. It’s a new beginning where they get to write their own, hopefully happy, middle before eventually the end comes for us all.”
“That’s a cheery thought.”
She chuckled, but there was no humor in her eyes. “That doesn’t make it any less true.”
“Maybe. Let’s just say my experiences with marriage haven’t given me much reason to think there
can be anything happy about them.”
“What about your parents?” She cocked her head, her fingers running along the length of my wrist and hand. There was nothing sexual about her touch. It was meant to be comforting, and strangely, it was.
“They had a good marriage at times, I guess.” I lifted my shoulders and shook my head.
“Where are they now?”
“They died in a car accident when I was eighteen. That’s why Peter and I are so close. We haven’t had any family but each other since. My parents were both only children, so we didn’t have any extended family.”
“I’m so sorry.” The pain in her eyes told me that she wasn’t just saying that. She bowed her head forward, tears shining in her eyes again when she lifted them back to mine. “I lost my parents when I was twenty-one. Legally an adult, emotionally still very much a child in need of her parents to help her through it.”
“Sucks, doesn’t it?” I let out a humorless laugh, then slapped the hand not holding hers against the table. “Enough of this. It’s making me too sad and it’s Friday night. Friday nights weren’t meant for melancholy. What’s an item on your bucket list you wish you could check off tomorrow?”
Surprise registered in her expression at the abrupt change of subject, but she didn’t skip a beat. “There’s this huge flower show in Dallas every spring. It runs for six weeks and it showcases more than five hundred thousand types of plants. I’d love to take off for Texas tomorrow and not come back until I’ve seen every plant they have to offer.”
“You should do it,” I said. “Seriously. Why not?”
“My piggy bank won’t get me there yet.” She smiled. “But it will someday. What about you?”
“If I could sit down with Elon Musk tomorrow, it would be a dream come true.”
“So why don’t you?” Some laughter had returned to her eyes. “Seriously. I’m sure if anyone could do it, it would be you.”
“I’ve tried. Turns out getting a meeting isn’t that easy.” I let an easy smirk curve my lips. “But I’ll keep trying. If I gave up that easily, I wouldn’t be where I was now.”
Something shuttered in her eyes at my words, but it was gone before I could pinpoint what it might have been. Moving on to the next question, I kept learning more about Luna and offering her more of myself.
Three more drinks in, her eyelids started to droop. I was seated next to her now, having moved when the bar became too noisy to hear her from all the way across the table.
Reaching out to slide a finger under her chin, I lifted it until she looked at me. “I think it’s time to call it a night.”
“Yeah.” She yawned. “You might be right. Maybe it’s just the lack of fresh air in here, but I can hardly keep my eyes open.”
“Let’s go.” I ordered another Uber, paid our tab at the bar, and took Luna’s hand as we walked outside.
We were still holding hands when our ride pulled up. Since her apartment was only a short ride away, we didn’t talk much.
Her hand was on my thigh, though, and her fingers were trailing up and down in a way that was definitely sexual this time. Every so often, she even moved a bit higher and brushed my crotch with the back of her hand.
I stifled a groan and moved my hand to her leg, giving her the same treatment. Both of us stared out our own windows, neither of us making a sound that would draw attention to what we were doing.
By the time we exited the car, however, the air between us was so thick with tension that I doubted it was possible to have hidden it completely.
“Want to walk me in?” Luna asked, even though I’d asked the driver to wait for me a minute.
“Sure.” I hadn’t wanted to be presumptuous, despite what had happened in the car. It had been almost two weeks now since we’d last been together and I’d stopped inviting her over a few days ago.
Whatever had been bothering her seemed to have taken a back seat for the night, though. I told the driver he could go, then followed her into her building.
Once we were inside her small bright apartment, I lingered near the door. “I should probably go. Thanks for coming with me tonight and thanks for—”
Luna had kept walking when I’d stopped, but she turned around suddenly and marched back to me. Without any hesitation, she wrapped her arms around my neck and pressed her lips to mine.
Oh, fuck yeah. This is so happening.
Chapter 25
Luna
Back in the bar, I really hadn’t been able to keep my eyes open. When we’d hit the sidewalk hand in hand, that changed. Fast.
It was like with my first breath of fresh air, my body became supremely aware of Cyrus’s. He’d let me into his life and his world in a way he never had before tonight and it did things to me that he was opening up.
Plus, my body had grown addicted to his and it was done with the denial I’d been putting it through. With his heat radiating into me as we sat close together in the back of the Uber, I just hadn’t been able to keep my hands to myself.
My panties had grown damp just by feeling his hard body so close to mine, smelling that intoxicating scent, and remembering how good things were between us. At first, I hadn’t meant my touches to be a tease in any way.
Since my hands insisted on touching him in some way and my inhibitions were slightly reduced by the amount of alcohol I’d imbibed, I figured putting a hand on his leg was perfectly acceptable at this point in our relationship.
Too bad it hadn’t stayed there. Like it had been possessed, my hand went rogue and did what it really wanted to do. So it ended with practically feeling him up in the backseat of a car being driven by a total stranger.
It was so unlike me that it actually felt like I was breaking free from some mold which, in turn, turned me on even more. Vicious, vicious cycle.
I’d had to bite my lip to keep from moaning all the way back to my place and, once inside, had immediately started heading to my bedroom. Having assumed we were on the same page, I was shocked when he said he had to leave and all I knew was that I couldn’t let him.
I knew I was to blame for him feeling like I might not want him in this way anymore, but it was time to show him how much I really did want him in any way I could get him. With that in mind, I didn’t let him take control this time.
Instead, I pulled his usual trick and walked him back while I kissed him hard, only stopping when he hit the wall. Since I didn’t have his finesse, I hadn’t thought to break the impact with my arms, but Cyrus didn’t seem to mind.
If anything, it seemed to make him even hotter. His mouth warred with mine, our teeth clashing and our tongues dancing as intensely as a tango.
When I abruptly stopped kissing him and dropped to my knees, my hands already on his belt, a growl ripped out of him as he looked down at me. “What are you doing?”
“Turning the tables.” I flashed him a satisfied smirk and yanked his belt free. Once that was done, I undid his button and unzipped him, then carefully lifted his boxers over his cock as I let the pants fall to the floor.
He was hot and hard in my hands, his skin smooth and his tip offering a single bead of wetness. I couldn’t see much of how the rest of his body was reacting, but his fingers threaded into my hair and pulled while his head arched back against the wall.
The muscles in his neck and shoulders were tense and it sounded like he was trying to control his breathing. I grinned against his shaft, feeling a rush of empowerment running through me at how fast I’d managed to get him to this point.
Deciding it was my turn to tease, I pressed soft but open-mouthed kisses all along his hard shaft, giving his skin little sucks as I went along. With one hand wrapped around his base to keep him where I needed him to be, I reached between his legs and ran my finger along the smooth skin I found there until I cupped one of his balls.
I alternated between those and the soft line of skin while I kept my mouth on him. All my touches were feather light, and from the way he was snapping and moaning, I was guessing
it was working.
“Shit, Luna. You’re killing me here. Absolutely fucking killing me. I want to come all over your gorgeous face so badly right now. Fuck.”
His hips twitched, and his hands tightened, but he didn’t take over. He was letting me do what I wanted, just like when I’d walked him backward. I wouldn’t have been able to move him otherwise if he hadn’t let me. There was just no way.
“It’s been a while. I wanted to make sure you knew I haven’t forgotten about you or stopped wanting you.”
He stilled, his eyes closing as he rested his head against the wall. A sound fell from his lips, but I wasn’t sure if it was pleasured or tortured.
The next minute, he burst into action and moved so fast I could hardly keep track of what we were doing. When I caught up, I was naked on my bed and he was rolling a condom down his length.
Then he was on top of me, the gleam in his eyes nothing short of possessive as he spread my legs with his hips and thrust into me. “I haven’t forgotten about you either, baby. I sure as fuck haven’t stopped wanting you.”
As if he was trying to drive home his point, he thrust into me with an animalistic frenzy. It was no less rhythmic than it had been before, nor did the wildness of his actions make him any less talented.
There was an edge to him tonight that was different, sure, but the end result was the same. Two orgasms blew me to smithereens before his kisses put me back together again, but it was only when I opened my eyes again after number two that he followed me over the edge.
“Fuck. Luna. I’m—” Cyrus’s moans mingled with mine in the air as he tensed and his hardness pulsed deep inside me. I felt him swell and my toes curled as his pelvis ground against my clit.
“Cy. Oh, God. Cyrus.” My back arched as waves of bliss spilled from my core to my extremities, caught in the powerful current of aftershock after aftershock.
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