Page 35 of Sweet (Chicago Underground 7)
“I wouldn’t be standing here if I wasn’t.”
My eyes fell shut. “This was why you wanted to break up with me at the hospital. Philip must have told you.”
“At first I thought he was just trying to break us up, but I couldn’t be sure. Then when I did know… I couldn’t have you coming to my condo, where they’d see, where they’d find out what you were to me. I couldn’t come back here until I knew you’d be safe.”
With a harrumph, I turned my back on him, staring out the window. He could have told me. Although…well, to be honest, I wouldn’t have accepted it then. Still, the thought of him recovering alone, fighting for his life, while I ordered logo merchandise for my studio hurt my heart.
He tugged me back, one hand sliding up my belly and cupping my breast through the slick leotard fabric. The other hand pulled me back to the wall of his chest, ground me against his erection. A tweak of my nipple, a nudge from behind, and I moaned, thready and weak.
“Forgive me?” he murmured against my neck.
I struggled for breath. “Bribing me with sex?”
The straps of my leotard fell down my shoulders, replaced by roaming caresses and questing lips. My arms were held captive by the straps, and I reveled in the helplessness, tossed asea and gladly drowning.
“Depends. Is it working?”
“From the beginning,” I sighed.
There was no regret in that moment, not for all the risks I had taken and the ones I hadn’t. He had showed me how to live in the moment, how to emerge and subside in a breath, how to find fulfillment in a single too-soft touch.
We had watched each other, teased each other, and when the time came to join, clashed together body and mind. This was neither a coy denial nor frantic demand. He explored me slowly, thoughtfully—a lick enveloped in a moan, a brush subsumed with a sigh. I wanted only what he gave me. We were finally, perfectly attuned.
I could see our faint reflection in the glass. Once there had only been me, standing alone, baring myself and my uncertainty. Now we were together, his lowered head beside mine. A tear rolled down my cheek. Another and another, until one landed on his wrist as he stroked and rolled
my nipple to an aching point. He paused.
“Rose?” The concern in his voice was a lance through me. It wasn’t new, which was precisely why it struck me. He had always been solicitous, always kind, and he would beg forgiveness on bended knee for his one moment of meanness if I asked him to. He would be perfect for me and pay for each weakness with drops of blood and buckets of pride, but I didn’t want that. I had loved him as a stranger. I still wanted him at his worst. I would stand by him, eternal.
“Don’t stop.” The words came thickly. “Please. I need—” I wasn’t sure what. To hurt with you. To know you’re here. To promise you forever.
He seemed to understand. “Ah, Rose.”
Gentle hands turned me around, tender lips met mine. He kissed me without reservation, in a sweet melody tainted by the salt of my tears. That didn’t slow him. They were a part of him as much as me. We mourned in that kiss, slaking all the time we hadn’t spent together in the promise of tomorrow and the pleasure of today.
I slipped from his grasp as my knees gave out, only to be held up by the cool glass at my back. He caught me a second later, fused at the mouth and hips and hands.
He groaned. “I can’t stand much longer.”
“The bed’s in there.” I waved toward the hallway. “It’s small, though.”
Taking my hand, he led me through the small apartment, peeking into each bare-box room until he found the right one.
“Rather empty,” he remarked.
“Yes, well…” I pulled back the blankets and climbed in, kneeling in invitation.
His eyes studied mine, a little guarded. “I have a whole condo full of furniture.”
The air seemed thin and rushing at the top of the summit. “Do you?” I choked out.
He shrugged. “But I might need a new place to put it.”
“Philip won’t like that.”
“He doesn’t have a say in this. He never did.”
“Then why…?”
