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“It is good-good that you are naked. And frankly,” he says, “I’m happy to share this moment with Christopher Walken.”
I’m overcome with a fondness so consuming that I cup Andrew’s face and pull him to me. It isn’t just about how good this feels or how flat-out gorgeous he is, it’s about how easy and natural it is to be with him, to talk between kisses, to be totally unselfconsciously naked, to laugh about Andrew’s near-death experience between my legs.
The kiss starts sweet and calm, but when he grazes his teeth across my lip, I make a noise that seems to uncork something inside him, and he’s over me again, elbows planted beside my head, kissing me so good I’m dizzy with how much I want him.
My fingers toy with the waistband of his sweats, and skim just beneath and then—why not—I push them down his hips, and his warm skin slides over mine. I think for one second that it’s moving too fast, but I sense the same awareness in him because he shifts back and away.
I’ve never been in sync with someone like this. It feels like hours pass while we’re kissing and touching, talking and breaking into spontaneous, loud bursts of laughter. The sex is right there, but so is the blackness of night, reminding us that no one is in a hurry and we have plenty of time for fun. Even the fumbling condom unwrapping leaves us in hysterics. He’s still laughing into a kiss when he moves over me, and into me, and then I get to see the quiet, focused side of Andrew, the one who makes it his life’s work to listen, because he works so carefully to respond to every single sound I make.
When we finally pull our clothes back on and he walks me across the moonlit expanse of snow, there are two things I want with equal intensity: I want to turn around and go back to being naked in the sleeping bag, and I want him to follow me into the kitchen, sit down at the table, and talk to me for hours.
chapter twenty
At five thirty in the morning, two and a half hours after Andrew walked me back to the house, I give up on sleep and shuffle upstairs to the kitchen. I am a sewer creature emerging into daylight; a woman who very definitively needs eight full hours of sleep. Today should be interesting.
Ricky stumbles in about the same time I do, and we both freeze at the sight of his son at the end of the table, bent over a bowl of cereal. My heart falls into my stomach, and I watch in horror as Andrew lifts an arm and casually wipes away a drip of milk from his chin.
He hasn’t heard us approach, I know, but the view of him bowed over the table, the silence that seems to stretch like a canyon across the otherwise warm, inviting space . . . it’s so similar to that horrible morning with Theo that I am instantly queasy with dread.
Is this the catch? The surprise ending? Gotcha! You’ve made the same mistake with Andrew. Did you really think the point of all this was for you to be happy?
A sound creaks out of me, something between an inhale and a groan, and Andrew’s eyes shoot up, and then back over his shoulder to his dad, before returning to me.
His sleepy gaze immediately shifts into twinkling happiness. “Well, good morning, fellow early risers.”
He’s looking at me like I’m exactly who he wanted to find this morning, but my doubt takes a beat to wear off and the feeling keeps me from moving deeper into the room.
Ricky looks at me, then the coffeepot, and then me again meaningfully before he eventually gives up and walks over to it himself. “What’re you doing up so early, Drew?”
“Couldn’t sleep.” Behind his father’s back, Andrew winks mischievously at me, and my insides all turn into a heated tangle. An echo of his groan, a flash of his throat arched back in pleasure snaps my thoughts clean of anything else.
“Too cold out there in the Boathouse?” Ricky turns to smile at me, too, like he’s really got Andrew where he wants him now.
“Actually, I was toasty as a bear in a den,” Andrew says, poking at his cereal. “Just stayed up too late and then couldn’t shut off my brain.”
“Something worrying you? Work stuff?” Ricky pulls down three mugs as the coffee starts to slowly dribble into the carafe.
“Work was the last thing on my mind, actually.” Andrew gives his dad an easy shrug and takes another bite of cereal. “Just wide awake and buzzing.”
I look down at the linoleum, faking a yawn to smother my delirious grin.
“Well, you’ll be tired after today,” Ricky says, sitting at the table, “that’s for sure.”
