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The show grabbed him from the opening titles, 3-D-printed humanity, and he was totally absorbed by the time Dolores said the newcomers only wanted to come to a place with unlimited possibilities. Flick tucked under his arm, her head on his shoulder, her legs curled at her side. He could get used to coming home early if there was more of this in his life. Simple and surprisingly rich at the same time. Unlimited possibilities.
He looked down at her. “This is—”
The sentence died. Flick’s face was bathed in tears. Grief came in gruesome, unexpected waves. He’d forgotten that. He was an ass for thinking she could possibly be doing okay. She let out a sob and he hugged her closer.
“Ah, Flick.” She didn’t want him to see her face, kept it angled away, wiping her cheeks with a tissue. He kissed the top of her head. “What do you need?”
Up came her face, eyes red and puffy, cheeks damp and inflamed. He cupped it in his hands and kissed her forehead, then her temple, murmuring nonsense. “You’ll be okay. It’s all right. I’m here.” He rested his forehead on hers and her breathing slowed. “I’ve got you.”
Another press of his lips to her temple and she shifted, bringing both arms up around his neck. He’d do anything in this moment to ease her pain. He put his hands to her shoulders, rested his cheek on hers and closed his eyes when her fingers played in his hair.
It was a mistake to kiss her lips, no matter how gently and without intention to take it anywhere, but it was done before he’d thought it through. He didn’t get an apology out because she kissed him back, less tentatively, more achingly sweet.
“We shouldn’t, Flick.” If he believed that, he should take his hands off her, move away.
She kissed him again. “I need it.”
“You need rest and time, and this is going to confuse things.”
“I’m not confused. I’m sad, Tom. I want you and I want to forget just for a moment, to feel good. Help me forget.”
Did it cross a line? She’d made him forget about Harry’s un-retirement and the walking time bomb he’d become in the office. She needed to feel good and he could take her there.
It was a rush of power and responsibility that had him scoop her onto his lap and stand. She clung to his neck and nuzzled into him, and that did nothing to temper his resolve. He couldn’t take her grief away but he could stall it, suspend her in a moment free of its gravity.
In his bedroom he stripped her slowly, taking her clothes and paying her permission to touch the utmost respect. She trusted him and he wouldn’t let her down, and that was heady. There was guilt too, that he should be so turned-on by the way she’d responded. She became a trembling, sighing, excited firefly, buzzing where his hands stroked, rubbing against him, and racing her lips across his skin, in constant motion to match his own fervor.
He’d intended to be gentle, to give, not take, to make her pleasure his reason for being, but she wanted more, pushed him to feel his own need as acutely as he’d helped her quit her brain and live in her body.
On the bed, with her below him, he mouthed across her tattoo, tongue tracing the letters, teeth eating the sentiment. Flick had marked her body with her will to master her fate, and right now she’d put that fate in his hands; a lit torch, a sugary treat, a potent drug with the promise of everlasting life, that was his to devour. He could not have enough of her. The scent of her arousal, the sting of her nails on his shoulder, the rough, throaty moans he ripped from her chest and the muscle-twitching intensity he coached from her limbs.
“Oh, Tom. Oh, Tom.”
“What do you need?”
“More.”
Velvet and simmering heat. Fast thrusts into feeling so good he had trouble keeping his eyes open, and when watching her was as exciting as hearing her chase her peak, he had no intention of missing out on the show. Her writhing hips, the bounce of her tits, the ecstasy rippling across her face.
“Don’t stop.”
He had to slow, or he’d rocket past her. Short-circuit the ride and leave her stranded. “Feel this, Flick.” A hard thrust; held. “There’s always this pleasure.” Another. “It’s yours to take.” Another and another, and she cried out as his own tolerance got thready.
He stilled while she shuddered and then took her lips to seal the pleasure inside her. “Enough?”
The lust-dazed look in her eyes faded as she focused. “Almost.”
He got a hand to the hot skin of her ass and pinched, making her jump. “Almost—what’s that supposed to mean, brat?”
She yanked on his neck and spoke against his lips. “There’s more. There’s always more with you. Just when I think I’ve got you worked out, you go and surprise me by being more.”
It was supposed to be about her pleasure, her break from reality, and it became his too. The bed their world, the night their blanket, the heat of each other’s bodies their sustenance. Kisses for air, caresses for reason; heartbeat to heartbeat, the beloved music of a shared existence, separate from the world and time, and all the ways a person was meant to live, and skin to skin, cocooned and indestructibly, immortally, all too momentarily, entwined.
Chapter Fourteen
Reluctant Tom, the man Flick had first moved in with, closed up, got gruff and remote when he was anxious. Tom was anxious about his dad’s pending visit, but he didn’t try to hide it from her. Flick could fall in love with him for that alone.
If she wasn’t a little in love with him already.
