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But then: “Faith,” Andre says, and he says my name with such reverence that happy little tingles buzz through my veins. His arms spread wide, and I step into them without a second thought.
It’s bone-deep instinct to me: when Andre is near, I must get closer.
“Have you thought about this? About us?” he asks, the words pressed against my hair.
With my neighbor’s arms wrapped around me tight, I’m so safe and warm. So treasured. Is this really happening? It’s everything I dreamed it would be.
“I’m sure,” I say, my words muffled against Andre’s neck.
There’s a beat of silence, his arms squeezing tight—then all the tension drains out of him in one gusting breath. “Thank god for that.”
In the space between heartbeats, a switch is flipped. Andre goes from cautious and hesitant, handling me like glass, to a powerful, confident man. One hand grips my hair and tugs my head back; the other squeezes my ass like he owns it.
“Oh!” I squeak.
Wish I’d be cooler about this, but I’ve never been manhandled, okay? I didn’t expect the rush of heat, or this bubbly, happy feeling.
Will he squeeze my ass again? Maybe slap it? Tug on my hair and palm my breasts? God, I’ve pictured sex with this man in every position and scenario, but I didn’t realize I’d want to be his pretty little plaything. We’re two seconds in and already I want to sink to my knees and worship my gorgeous older neighbor.
“Faith,” Andre says, dragging his lips along my throat. He nibbles at the flushed skin, dragging my body against his. The hand in my hair twists the strands, and the sting makes me gasp. “You’re so perfect. So sweet and pretty. Did you know that?”
I do now.
“So you like what you feel?”
Andre growls and tugs my head all the way back, scowls down at me in his arms—then kisses me so hard and filthy that the hallway spins.
The rasp of stubble. The nip of teeth, and the hot slide of his tongue. The sturdiness of his toned chest and the heat of him through his cotton t-shirt, and that spicy, woodsy scent all around me.
Want to remember every detail. Want to commit this kiss to memory—but I can’t focus, not with Andre’s mouth moving against mine, devouring me like he’s wanted this as badly as I have.
Heat twists low in my belly, the steady ache there becoming sharper. Needier. I whimper and rub against him.
“Jesus,” Andre says, tearing his mouth away from mine. He’s breathing hard, and his pupils are blown. A faint flush colors his cheekbones. “This is moving fast, sweetheart.”
Four years doesn’t feel fast to me. It feels like freaking torture.
And a not-so-small part of me fears that if we slow down, if we stop, the haze will clear and Andre will go back to questioning everything. Who knows? This may be my only shot.
“C’mon, neighbor. Act first…” My palms run down his chest, his toned abs, down the warmth scorching through his t-shirt—and settle on the top button of his jeans. “Think later.”
“Did Stephen teach you that catchphrase?” Andre asks, voice strained. But he doesn’t bat my hands away; doesn’t stop me from flicking his button open and tugging down the zipper, and I go slowly enough that he has a dozen chances to tell me no.
God knows this man has had plenty of practice at turning me down. He could write a book on it. And as a surge of bitterness washes through me, unexpected but strong enough to blister my insides, Andre pauses at my sudden scowl.
“Faith? What is it?”
I reach for the opening in his jeans, but he grabs my wrist. “Nothing,” I grumble, because the last thing I want to do this morning is talk about my deep seated fear of abandonment—nor the hot lump of anger lodged in my belly. Nope, don’t want to think about those things at all.
So Andre took a while to come around. He’s here, isn’t he?
So why am I so freaking angry all of a sudden?
Iwanthim here. I spent the whole night pacing round and round in my bedroom, tugging on my hair,longingfor this man, praying that he’d come, and when he kissed me a few moments ago… it felt like I might float up to the sky.
But now I’ve gone all prickly. What the hell?
Sometimes I really wish I understood myself better. Dear Hattie would know what’s going on in my bat-shit brain.
