AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Maybe not,” he admits. “He might only be a danger to that hamster. But—”
“I’m staying.”
“Why do you want to stay, Mira?” He looks into my face as he says it, his eyes probing and deep-seeing and so very fucking beautiful. He took his glasses off earlier, after doing his research on the apartment across the way.
Why didn’t I see it instantly, how beautiful his eyes are? They’re deep and dark and surrounded by long lashes, and they probably contain all the answers to…everything.
“Forty-two,” I tell him, finally answering his question.
“You want to stay because of the number forty-two?” he asks, still rubbing my hand.
“None of us understand the answer to life, the universe, and everything. Maybe I don’t understand why I have to stay, but I do. Can you accept that?”
“Do I have a choice?” he asks. He surprises me by lifting my hand to his chest, pressing it there. I can feel the thumping of his heart, the way it’s speeding up.
Because you’re touching him.
I can still feel his mouth between my legs, my back pressed up against the tree while he thrust in deep. The thought makes my knees weak.
“No, you don’t,” I say, my voice coming out breathy and strange.
“Do you still feel awkward?”
“Fuck, yes. Don’t you?”
“No, not anymore. Not when I’m just with you. Maybe we can take a ride in the elevator,” he adds, his heart thump-thumping against my hand. “We seem to do okay in there.”
“We do okay in here, too,” I say. Because it’s true. I don’t feel awkward because of him, but because of my head, which is frightened by the knowledge that these deep feelings have grown so quickly, so wildly, in such a short time.
I need to stay here. I need him to be inside of me. I need him to show me that he wasn’t walking away from me earlier. That he was just taking a break, making sure he met his needs without kicking us all out.
He smells of the outdoors—of fallen leaves and cool winds and cider. I want to wrap myself up in that smell. In him.
I want to run away.
“Would it help if I put on those glasses?” he asks with a smirk. Then nods back at the kitchen island.
“It wouldn’t hurt.” My heart is beating as fast as his now. I can feel it in my chest. “I like basking in my own brilliance.”
“Is that why you got me all these shirts?” he asks, pulling at the one he has on today. “So you can bask in your brilliance?” I think he’s amused, but I can’t tell, not totally.
“I like seeing you in them, sure,” I admit. “Maybe I’ll get you more. Forty-two of them. Just in case.” What I don’t add is that it adds a little something to my morning. Or that I run bets with myself about which one it will be. I swallow, then add, “I’d like looking at you without any of them on too.”
I haven’t gotten to see him naked, which seems absurd.
“Okay,” he says, and before I can process what he’s doing, he grabs the bottom of the shirt and pulls it off over his head, letting it fall onto the floor.
I suck in a breath. He’s beautiful, lean and muscular from all of his outdoor recreation. I want to touch him, to trace my lips over him from head to toe. I want to mark him the way he marked me before I send him off to Daphne on Wednesday. I want her to know that someone else sees what she didn’t—that this man is one of a kind.
My hand trembles as I reach out to touch him, pressing my palm flat against his warm skin. “Yes,” I say, my voice quiet to my ears. “I think I like this look best of all. I could get used to it.”
“Good,” he says, sliding his hand over mine. I feel the crutch digging into my armpit, and I have a feeling ofI’m not enough.He looks like some sort of Roman God, with his dark eyes, curling hair, and that torso of lean, layered muscle, and here I am, dragging myself around on crutches because I couldn’t climb the stairs right. Danny’s so smart and good and handsome, and I’m so scared that I’ll lose him because I don’t know how to keep him. How to have this and also my other life.
I let my hand trail up, learning more of him, claiming him with my hand. He leans down and kisses my forehead, the same way he did the other night, and then finds my mouth. He kisses me softly but passionately, like he’d prefer for the kiss to go on forever—and I let the crutches fall and wrap my arms around his neck, needing to feel his warm chest against me and make him warm with mine. He laughs deep in his throat, then wraps his hand through my hair and deepens the kiss, owning it and me and making me desperate for more—for closer, for deeper. He picks me up, and carries me to the kitchen island, sets me down on top of it. Then he reaches for the hem of my shirt.
“I need to see you too,” he says. “I need to see all of you.”
“Yes,” I say, because that’s the only word left in my head.Yes, yes, yes.My blood is beating hotter as he pulls it off over my head. His head instantly bows to the lace of my bra, and he runs his mouth over it reverently, as if he’s worshiping me. His hands reach around and loosen it, and then his mouth is where I need it, sending sparks of pleasure down to my toes and pooling between my legs, and I need him, I needthis…
