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“Yeah, you did.”
“It’s so much better with you,” he says.
His unfiltered words feel like darts hitting my heart.
I’m not sure I like the feeling, and I’m even less sure what to do about it, much less how to respond. But I do press a kiss to the top of his head before I suggest a shower.
“With me?” he lifts his face up to ask.
“Better for the environment.”
We stick to washing up and the occasional wet kiss in the shower, both of us too spent and sore to try to work in another round of orgasms. But it’s still the most intimate I’ve ever been with anyone. Washing his hair. Ensuring every inch of him is clean, letting him do the same to me like I’m not perfectly capable of washing myself. It’s a new kind of nakedness—the soul-baring kind. And while part of me relishes every second of it solely on the basis of how good it feels to be taken care of, another part of me wants to get it over with because I shouldn’t need this.
I do need this.
The personal space thing I mentioned to him? It’s always applied to showers. I’ve never shared that space with anyone before. I’m not sure what to chalk up this change in me to. But him is an obvious answer.
Afterward, Olivier lies down with me to take a nap before I have to go down and “work the door” as he puts it. He gloms onto me like my niece Kelly does whenever I see her, wrapping herself around my leg or torso whenever she gets the chance.
If given the choice of having his hands on me or not—I pick hands—fuck personal space. I choose soft curls in my face and the sweet citrus scent of him. The satin-smooth expanse of his body covering mine.
“Of course I wanna suck your cock,” I mumble just before nodding off.
“Then why don’t you?”
“Because…timing…”
This might sound irresponsible in the extreme, but I’ve kept my phone off since riding up the service elevator after leaving Chelsea the other night. It’s been plugged in and charged on Olivier’s kitchen counter, but every time I walked past it and felt the itch—the idea of more bad news or tough conversations stayed my hand.
But once I’m back at work, I have to turn it on. While it powers up, I see Babs and Jeremy out on their way to dinner and let in 609 with her two Yorkies—the bane of the entire sixth floor’s existence.
My second least favorite tenant also makes a rare appearance, so absorbed in her phone, she doesn’t even acknowledge me as a human as I open the door for her and summon the elevator.
She’s young, maybe my age, and an author of one breakout novel. People like her come and go from this building all the time, but they usually have basic manners. Unless she’s some kind of fucking genius, which—who knows—maybe she is—she won’t earn out her advance, or her next book will flop, and she’ll end up leaving the Upper East Side because she doesn’t belong up here anymore than I do.
I fantasize about her “moving out” day often.
Olivier’s due to leave soon, and every ding of the elevator behind me has my heart rate jacked, but I chance a glance at my phone and wince at the sheer number of missed calls and texts.
The majority of them, interestingly, are from my roommate Christian. Silas left a voicemail and one text that says, “call me back,” Jericho left one text message that I’ll look at once Olivier leaves, and Peggy left five text messages demanding to know the name and number of the plumber, where the hell I am, who the hell I think I am, and two half-assed apologies and gentler requests to get back with her ASAP. I know better than to fall for those, though. Fool me once, as they say…
The elevator doors slide open.
I rise because I know it’s him. I don’t know how or why, but I’m right. It’s an Olympic feat of strength not to reach up and trace each brutal hickey I left on his neck above the crisp white collar of his Oscar de la Renta shirt. His suit is bespoke, dove gray, and a perfect fit. His shoes are Prada. They look like black suede, but they’re probably made of something much rarer than that. He’s stunning. Angels would weep at the sight of him. So could I, I think.
Summoning my voice from somewhere, I say, “Impeccable. As always, Mr. Arnaud.”
“You’re too kind, Jack.” And yet he preens a moment, giving me profile. An over-the shoulder, a smolder with hands in pockets, modeling the suit in that sleek Manhattan way I never mastered. Because I’m not sleek. And I’m not pretty.
“Do you have the ring?” I ask.
He pats his pant pocket. “Yes.”
I lift a brow. “Any chance she’ll say no?”
“I can hope.”
“Don’t hope,” I say. “Manifest.”
