With Love, from Cold World, page 16
She skimmed up his arms, pressing her thumb into the branches of the tree tattoo, letting her fingertips slide under his shirt sleeve to reveal the rest of it. He watched her with a hooded expression, giving a slight shudder when she scraped her nails against the dimple in his shoulder.
“I’ve never really cared for tattoos,” she said, and could’ve kicked herself. Why would she say something like that now?
“Oh yeah?”
She swallowed, giving him a sheepish smile. “I seem to be kind of fixated on yours.”
“ ’S all right,” he said. “I don’t mind being objectified.”
He reached up, lifted the glasses off her face. He folded them gently before placing them on top of the fake moss in the potted ficus. “I’ve never seen you without your glasses,” he said, smoothing her temples with his fingertips.
She let out a small huff of a laugh. “That’s because I need them to see.”
It was scarier, when they slowed down like this. It gave her time to think about what they were doing, to wonder if they were making a huge mistake. Even if Asa was determined to have a do-over of the mistletoe kiss, surely they were long past that now. She’d have to see him at work tomorrow—later today, technically. She’d have to look him in the eye knowing all the things they’d revealed to each other, all the places their hands had been.
At the same time, she didn’t want to stop. They’d only kissed and she was aching down to her core, crying out for more of his hands, his mouth . . .
None of this was like Lauren. She wasn’t the type to get carried away with passion, and she wasn’t the type to make out with a coworker after hours on the floor of her own office.
She definitely wasn’t the type to straddle that coworker until she was sitting on his lap, but somehow his hands were on her hips and she found herself so close she could see that his eyes were a thin rim of gray around large, black pupils.
He pulled her in for another long, deep kiss. She tugged on the hem of his shirt, and he broke off only long enough to whip it over his head, before returning his mouth to hers. She slid her hands over the bunched muscles in his shoulders, the flat plane of his chest, letting her fingers brush lightly over his nipple. It was an experimental touch, tentative even, but for a minute he leaned his head back against the wall, breathing hard.
“God, Lauren,” he said. “You have no idea.”
He didn’t finish that thought, but she could finish it for him. You have no idea how good this feels. You have no idea how long I’ve wanted this.
He pushed the cardigan down off her shoulders, and for a minute she was trapped like that, her arms at her sides, his hands holding the bunched fabric around her wrists. Then he had her lower lip between his teeth, was sucking at the sensitive skin where her neck curved into her shoulder, was kissing along the swell of her breasts at the neckline of the dangerous red dress.
He pulled her closer, and the motion made her rub along the hard ridge of his erection. He swallowed her gasp with a kiss, but it turned into a moan as she felt the friction of him through the thin cotton of her underwear.
“Asa—” She didn’t know what she was asking for, but he released her wrists, his fingers biting into her bare thighs under her dress as he dragged her across him again. This time, the sound she made wasn’t like any other she’d made before—halfway between a grunt and a cry.
“Say my name again,” he said into her ear. “Please, Lauren.”
She’d say whatever he wanted as long as he kept doing that. She said it over and over, until the hitch in her breath made the word virtually meaningless. Her hands were on his cheeks, her shoulder in his mouth, and their frantic grinding through clothes was already the most earth-shattering sexual experience she’d ever had.
She arched her hips, pressing into him, and he squeezed his eyes closed like he was in pain. His hands were warm and strong on her hips as he shifted her back a bit.
“That’s getting me close,” he said. “Sorry. Give me a second.”
“Oh.” Lauren chewed on her lower lip. “I, uh, don’t have anything.”
“What?” His eyes hadn’t totally lost their glazed look, and he pulled her back on top of him.
“Like a condom,” she said, embarrassed that the word could still make her blush when she was here, doing this.
“Neither do I,” he said, grinning at her as he pressed a hard, hot kiss to her mouth. “Not exactly how I thought I’d spend my night. But we can still do a lot without one.”
“Yeah, but,” she said, trying to get the words out between his kisses. “You said you were getting close. But since we can’t, you know . . .”
He pulled back, his brow lowered as his gaze searched hers. “This isn’t just about me wanting to get off,” he said. “You know that, right?”
“No, I know—” She wasn’t even aware of what she was saying at this point, she just wanted to go back to when they were kissing and he wasn’t looking at her like she was defective.
“For that, I would’ve just jerked off in a bathroom stall like I’d planned.” From the quirk of his mouth, she could tell that he was deliberately trying to shock her. But it was also like he was trying to make her laugh, trying to make her relax.
And damned if it didn’t work. “Gross,” she said, biting back a smile. “At work?”
“It’s not like I’d do it on the clock,” he said, pressing a kiss to just below her ear. “But when I was staring down a night of being trapped in a building with a very beautiful . . .” He kissed her cheek, and she let her eyes flutter closed. “. . . very stubborn . . .” He kissed the corner of her bottom lip. “. . . very unattainable woman . . .”
She hummed against his mouth. “Mm-hmm?”
“Extenuating circumstances,” he said. “I think I can be forgiven for the impulse.”
“Well,” she said, her voice a little unsteady as he burrowed his face into the curve of her neck. “I’m glad it didn’t come to that.”
She buried her fingers in his blue hair, inhaling the scent of him. He lowered her gently until she was lying on the floor, using her discarded cardigan as a makeshift pillow for her head. He ran his hand over her breasts, her ribs, her stomach. There was something erotic about still being fully clothed, about seeing his bare chest next to the siren red of her dress.
“What about you?” he asked, bunching up the material of her skirt around her thighs—not lifting it all the way, but enough that her breath caught.
“I wasn’t planning on masturbating in the bathroom,” she managed to choke out, and he gave a little laugh.
“No,” he said. He brushed his knuckles over the pulsing core of her, the sensation through her underwear making her hips buck. “I meant, what gets you off?”
She licked her lips. She couldn’t focus enough to answer the question when he was touching her like that. “It’s okay,” she said. “I usually take a long time . . .”
“What about this?” He pressed the pad of his thumb against the damp fabric of her underwear, rubbing in a hard circle. “Or this?” He scraped his nails lightly over her slit, which sent a spasm through her body like she’d been electrocuted.
“All of it,” she managed to gasp out.
By the time his hand finally ventured under her panties, she was already wet and halfway there. He rubbed her clit in agonizingly patient circles, until the pressure building inside her was almost too much to stand. She reached down to grasp his wrist, looking down at her fingers wrapped around the lean muscle of his forearm, his hand inside her underwear. Then she looked back up at him.
He was watching her, a serious expression on his face. “Do you want me to stop?”
She felt like she was about to come apart. The idea of doing that in front of Asa . . . doing that because of Asa . . . it scared her. But she also couldn’t imagine a world where she told him to stop. She shook her head.
“What do you want?” He slid one finger in her hot, tight center, and she clenched around him, still holding on to his wrist. “This?”
“Oh god,” she said. “Yes.”
It was the last word she was capable of speaking as he stroked her with one finger, then two, harder and faster until all the building pressure inside her crested and broke over her like a wave. Her whole body shuddered and Asa’s fingers were still inside her, as if waiting out her body’s response, which felt like it would last forever. She knew it wouldn’t, knew eventually he’d have to withdraw, but she found herself wanting to delay that moment as long as possible.
It did normally take her longer to reach orgasm, even when masturbating. And yet it had immediately felt different with Asa. Like she was more in the moment, like there was no room in her mind for overthinking when there was so much to feel.
Aftershocks were still tingling through her when Asa lay down next to her, propping himself up on one elbow. He traced her collarbone, causing her to shiver. Her rose pendant must’ve gotten flipped around, and he fixed it, smoothing it until it laid flat.
“What’s the story with the necklace?”
She reached up for it reflexively. She was still trying to catch her breath. “My necklace?”
“You always wear it.”
The ridges of the rose petals were comforting against her thumb. It had been a long time since she’d given in to the nervous habit of rubbing the pendant like a talisman, but the old comfort was there. “My mom gave it to me,” she said. “For my first day of first grade. We had a thing where we’d pick a flower for the year, and called it good luck if we spotted it out in the wild. Rose was for first grade, lotus for second, then violet, then iris . . .”
He smiled, his hand brushing hers as he reached to admire the pendant. “Then what?”
Iris had been for fourth grade. By the middle of that school year, she’d been pulled away from her mother and placed in another school on the other side of the county. They should’ve stacked the luck decks better. Chosen a common wildflower, a hibiscus, an azalea.
Asa could roll right back into conversation, as though those same fingers currently twisting the pendant hadn’t been inside her only a few minutes before. She’d thought it was kind of hot, the way they’d never even gotten all the way undressed, the scratch of the carpet on her shoulder blades as he’d brought her to orgasm.
But now she was realizing that he’d never even finished. Maybe this had been part of his plan all along, to loosen her up and show her a good time. Wasn’t he always mentioning that? How she needed to learn how to unwind and have more fun?
She didn’t really think it had been planned. Or she didn’t want to think so. It was hard to know the difference. All she knew was that she’d definitely never intended for any of it to happen.
She sat up, pushing back against the wall. Her legs still felt a little wobbly, a delicious soreness between her thighs reminding her of what they’d just done. In her office.
God, what had she been thinking?
“Where are my glasses?” she asked, feeling naked and empty without them on her face.
He reached over and retrieved them from the potted plant, handing them to her. That’s right. She remembered him putting them there now. She’d been touched by how much care he’d taken with them, and the way he’d folded her sweater to make her a pillow. There’d been a tenderness to those gestures that had to mean he cared about her at least a little, right?
Asa is fickle. Wasn’t that what Kiki had warned her just earlier that night? Maybe what had happened between them wasn’t about pity, maybe it wasn’t even about some stupid random number generator game, but whatever it was, it had a shelf life of a couple months, tops. And what then?
“I’m going to freshen up,” she said, getting to her feet and trying to avoid eye contact with Asa without making it look like she was trying to avoid eye contact.
He stood, too, still wearing only his jeans, which sat low enough on his hips that she could see a strip of his hunter green underwear, the light dusting of hair that led down to his . . . well. Now she needed to avoid looking at his face or anywhere else on his body, so she directed her next comment to somewhere in the vicinity of the stuffed polar bear on the filing cabinet.
“And then we should try to figure out a way to get some sleep?” she said. “I may just try putting my head down at my desk . . . Dolores’ office is probably open if you wanted to do the same.”
“Lauren,” he said.
She gathered her purse, making sure her phone was inside. “I’ll be right back,” she said. She knew the phrase was relative. She’d be gone however long it took her to regain control, and at that moment, it didn’t feel like there were enough minutes in the world.
Chapter
Fourteen
Somewhere, he’d fucked up. He just couldn’t tell where.
He’d thought Lauren was with him every step of the way. She’d been shy at first, tentative about touching him, but he’d had no doubts that she wanted him just as much as he wanted her.
He’d been shocked when she brought up the kiss. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about it, since it happened. But she’d seemed so mortified at the time that it had been clear to him that the only way forward was to pretend like it never happened, put it in a box somewhere under the bed and only bring it out during the occasional night when he couldn’t sleep and wondered if she’d meant anything by it. He’d never imagined she might have a box of her own, that the memory of that kiss was more accessible than he thought.
And then tonight, when she’d said his name. He didn’t know if she realized it, but Lauren had never called him by his name to his face. Not once. Until she’d written that note on his fridge, he’d sometimes wondered if there was a chance she didn’t even know it.
Hearing her say it, and like that, her voice all breathy and low . . . well, he couldn’t think about it too much, or he’d have to take care of himself in the bathroom after all.
It had made his blood start to boil, the way she’d rushed to worrying about his satisfaction while writing off her own. It made him wonder if that was what she’d been taught to expect from sex, if previous boyfriends had gotten what they wanted and then left her to do the rest herself. It made him want to take his time with her.
He’d thought time was one thing that they had. He wasn’t oblivious—he knew that they were in a strange bubble tonight, that whatever was building here might not survive the light of day. But he’d had this vision of getting blankets from the gift shop and hunkering down in her office, finding more ways to get to know each other. He wouldn’t have minded just snuggling together under the blankets, making a corny joke about doing it for body heat in Cold World or some shit like that.
Now, something told him she was not in the mood to cuddle. She wouldn’t even look at him when she’d left.
Still, they would need to sleep. He decided to head to the bathroom to wash up and get ready for bed, and then maybe he’d grab those blankets from the gift shop after all. He might need double if they were going to make two beds. Add them to the tab.
* * *
• • •
By the time Lauren came back, he’d set up two makeshift sleeping areas—one behind her desk for her, with a folded blanket for a mattress and another one on top, a larger stuffed animal from the gift shop serving as a pillow. He’d made up his own similar arrangement just inside the doorway to the office. Not that he expected any nocturnal visitor—security or otherwise—but he figured it was better for him to be the first point of contact.
“I hope you don’t mind,” he said. “But I really don’t want to sleep in Dolores’ office. That would feel a little weird.”
“Oh,” she said, glancing around. “No, that’s fine. This looks really . . . Thanks for setting it up.”
“I’m also going to sleep in just my T-shirt and boxers,” he said. “If you wanted to strip down, I could give you some privacy . . . or we could get something from the gift shop.”
“I’m okay,” she said. She had a handful of silky black fabric balled up in her hand, and he realized it must be her bra. Catching his gaze on it, she flushed and crossed her arms over her chest, where her nipples had pebbled against the red fabric of her dress in the cold office.
He cleared his throat, rubbing the back of his neck while he tried to look anywhere but at her. “I set my phone alarm for six,” he said. “I think security comes by around seven to do a morning sweep and disable the alarm, so that should give us time.”
She pulled her own phone out and tapped it a few times, cutting off the loud trill of her own alarm when it started to sound. “I set mine, too,” she said. “Just in case. We don’t want to be . . .”
She didn’t finish that sentence, but he could imagine what she was going to say. They didn’t want to be found sleeping together on the floor of her office. Even if they wouldn’t be together, per se. He didn’t particularly relish the idea of explaining all of this to their boss, either, but the dismissal in her voice still made something in his chest ache.
They both climbed into their makeshift beds, and he reached over to unplug the Christmas lights wrapped around the fake plant, leaving them with only the ambient glow from the lobby outside.
Her voice cut through the dark. “Asa?”
He closed his eyes. Eventually, he’d get used to hearing her say his name. But not yet. “Yeah?”
“Thank you for tonight,” she said in a rush, like she had to get the words out before she swallowed them back up. “Not just, you know, but . . . I really enjoyed playing the random number generator game with you.”
“Me, too.” He hesitated, wanting to address the elephant in the room, which she apparently wouldn’t even refer to directly. It would kill him if she regretted it.
But she swooped in before he could figure out what to say. “Do you think we could keep it all between us? Like What happens at Cold World stays at Cold World?”
