“It’s temporary, Min. Just a few months.” He pressed his forehead to hers, burying his hands in her hair. “I want to scream from the rooftops that you’re mine, contessa,” he said in a low voice. “And I will. As soon as you graduate. Please just hang in there with me until then.”
“It’s about to get complicated,” she said, mostly to herself.
“I’m afraid it’s been complicated since the first time I saw you.”
He ran his hands down her sides, over her hips, settling on her thighs. He pulled her closer to him and she wrapped her legs around his waist, settling in his lap and feeling him begin to grow beneath her again. The man had an impossibly short rebound time. She didn’t think she’d ever get used to the heady feeling that she could make this perfect man’s body call to hers.
“I’d like to keep seeing you,” he said, brushing his lips against her cheek, the sensitive skin beneath her jaw, pausing with his lips barely touching hers. “Would that be alright?”
She hardly had time to nod before he kissed her again, so deeply and hungrily.
Min rocked her hips against him, and he moaned, his body rising to meet hers. “I need you again,” she breathed between kisses. “I need to be able to feel you, even when you’re gone, so I know I didn’t imagine this.”
He flipped her over onto her back and filled her so suddenly and completely that she arched off the bed and gasped, wrapping her legs around his waist. His hands clasped hers above her head as he worked himself in and out of her in slow undulations.
Over and over through the night, she gave herself to Liam, body and soul, completely consumed by her desire for him, desperate to join her body with his in the same way her heart already was.
∞∞∞
Min left Liam’s house just before sunrise, sneaking into her apartment so as not to wake her roommates. Funny how her entire world had been turned on its axis and yet nothing was different. Her apartment was still littered with textbooks and scores, the mismatched furniture so unlike the clean, minimalist aesthetic of Liam’s house. She was still the same college student living in a cheap rental off campus, no matter that she’d spent her night in sheets with a higher thread count than she knew was possible, wrapped in the arms of a man who cooked his meals with fresh ingredients rather than packing his pantry with instant noodles and granola bars.
When she woke mid-morning, it was to the sound of Jeff and Bobby playing Mario Kart in the living room. She changed into yoga pants and a university t-shirt before heading out to the kitchen to scrounge for something to eat. Apparently, a night of mind-blowing sex left her with a killer appetite.
“Did you eat my yogurt?” she called to Jeff from the kitchen when she failed to locate it in the fridge.
“That was yours?” he called back.
Min sighed and settled for a bowl of Jeff’s Cap’n Crunch. She took her bowl and sat next to her best friend on the couch. He promptly swiped a piece of cereal from the bowl without even missing a beat in the game.
“I hear someone had a late night last night,” Bobby said. “Not another fucking shell!” he shouted at the TV screen as Jeff sabotaged Bobby’s Luigi cart.
“Oh, yeah,” Jeff confirmed. “Little miss thing thought she could sneak in here in the middle of the night and I wouldn’t know she came home with some wicked sex hair.”
Min hit Jeff’s arm. “Can you not talk about my sex life with our friends?”
Jeff shrugged and stole another piece of cereal. “Who should I talk about it with then?” he asked with his Cheshire Cat grin.
At that moment her phone dinged.
Liam:I’m cooking dinner for you tonight. 7:00?
Her stomach flipped again.I could get used to this.
Jeff and Bobby didn’t miss the smile stealing over her face. She shoved the phone back in her pocket just as Jeff tried to sneak a peek, barely missing the name on the screen. She would need to change Liam’s entry in her phone later, just in case.
“I’m glad you’re happy, Mel,” Bobby said as the new race loaded on the TV. “It’s nice to see you smiling again.”
“Thanks,” she said, squeezing his shoulder as she walked past him to put her now-empty cereal bowl in the sink, leaving the boys to their video games.
Around 5:30, Min was wrapped in a towel, her wet hair falling around her shoulders, as she rummaged through her underwear drawer, pushing aside the comfortable t-shirt bras and striped cotton underwear. She’d never owned a lot of lingerie, but she had splurged on a few key pieces over the years. She settled on her favorite black set from Victoria’s Secret – a silky balconette bra and a matching black thong with a shiny silver metal ring holding the strap together over one hip. That would do nicely. She had just finished putting on the lingerie and was towel drying her hair when Jeff barged into her bedroom.
“We’re gonna order pizza. Do you want pepperoni or –” Jeff froze, his too-wide grin slowly spreading over his face. “Sex two nights in a row. You must really like this guy,” he teased.
Min threw the towel at him. “We’re just having dinner.”
His smile grew larger. “If you say so.”
She dug through her closet for the right outfit, holding up her little black dress in consideration. Jeff frowned and took the hanger from her, placing it back in her closet.
