He looks me over, shrugs, and then picks me up to carry me up the front steps. I laugh as he slides me down to get his keys out. Once we’re inside the building, he slides me down against him, our bodies close.
“Need a lift again?” he asks gently.
I shake my head, my eyes on his lips, my heart pounding.
As we climb the stairs, I can feel his eyes on the back of my neck. The flights of stairs seem to take an eternity. When we reach his apartment, he unlocks the door and then takes my hand to lead me inside. As soon as the door closes, we both spin at the same time, pressing toward each other as he kisses me, pushing me up against the door.
It is an explosion of a kiss, his hands sliding behind my back, my hands slipping around his waist to pull him closer. I hear him whisper my name, and then we are wrapped around each other, all over each other like teenagers, his lips on my cheek, on my neck, on my shoulder.
“Do you need anything?” he says after a moment, breathing hard, his mouth against my collarbone. “Anything to drink, water?”
I shake my head, dazed and hot.
“A shower?” he asks. “After the dancing?”
“We’re both sticky,” I murmur. “I don’t mind if you don’t.”
He shakes his head against my shoulder as he keeps pressing me against the wall, then licks the salt from my neck. My knees almost melt beneath me. His hands glide around my waist and pull me even closer and everywhere that we’re touching lights up.
Another pause for breath. I can’t remember the last time I was this turned on.
He pauses and heaves a long sigh, not looking up. I wonder if he’s thinking about his ex again. “What is it?” I say, afraid for a moment.
“I just feel…”
“What?” I try not to sound worried.
“Relieved,” he says. “I’m so relieved that I saw her, and I got through it, and I didn’t lose you. You didn’t give up on me.”
I run a hand through his hair, meeting his eyes. “I’m not going to give up on you.”
He gives me that same unreadable look for a moment, then kisses me again.
“Let me get you some water,” he says.
His apartment is high-ceilinged but narrow, a railroad-style one-bedroom with limited furniture: I suspect that his wife must have taken a lot of furnishings in the divorce, and he never bothered to buy more. The living room has only a television, a classic leather sofa and an old-fashioned rolltop desk. There are two barrister bookcases filled with various paperbacks and law school tomes. It all seems very Ollie, special but a little buttoned-up; even his books are behind glass. He walks around his clean, minimalist kitchen, pouring two glasses of water.
“What you said the other day, when we were in the water,” he begins quietly, handing me a glass of water. So I guess we’re going to talk about it now. My casual little ‘I love you.’
“I was probably drunk on seawater,” I try to joke.
He shakes his head. “It’s not that I don’t…” He takes a breath. “It’s not that I don’t think things are going that way.”
“It’s okay. I didn’t say it so you would say it back.”
“I just…I don’t want you to think I’m trying to play it cool. It’s not that at all. It’s just that I’m superstitious about that particular word.”
I nod once. “Okay.”
“But I’m serious about you.”
“Okay.” I give a little smile. He takes a step forward and puts one hand on my waist to kiss me gently, and I can’t tell whether he’s trying to tell me that he loves me or apologizing that he doesn’t. His eyes are warm, the rings of green and brown so beautiful this close that it’s hard to look at them for long. When he leads me to the bedroom I feel a brief sense of panic. I haven’t slept with anyone but Nick in years.
He pauses as he notices my hesitation. “We don’t have to—I’m just afraid my back will stick to my leather sofa if we sit down there.”
“That old line,” I whisper.
“You’re so stunning,” he says quietly, his expression entranced. “I don’t know what you’re doing with me.”
