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And then I came. It was so easy this time. No thought to it, no surprise, as though my body just knew how to do it, and this time was happy to comply with what I wanted. Needed. He followed me shortly after, and we held on as the waves rushed through, surging and eventually stopping, but leaving me quivering in his arms. I pressed my head against his chest and listened to his heartbeat gallop and then slow while we both fell back down to Earth from wherever we went in those moments.
I kept my face against him so he couldn’t see my eyes, couldn’t read my expression, couldn’t know what that had just meant, that spontaneous joining first thing in the morning before the world was really awake for us.
I smoothed my hand over his muscles. He was built like a man, like he’d spent years honing his strength and wouldn’t be discounted. I’d dreamed of this man before it was appropriate to do so. I’d touched myself in the dark, a stupid teenager when he’d been taking out women, feeding them expensive meals and stroking his hand on their bare skin. I might be famous—infamous, really—but he was real. And he’d never take me seriously until I took myself that way.
I dropped my hand. I wouldn’t be another nothing to him. I had to earn this, but so did he.
And therein lay the problem. He didn’t want to. Relationships weren’t his thing. So I had to get myself under control before I fucked this entire thing up, and this was the last time I was ever in his bed before I made it impossible for him to decide to change his mind. I knew better than my last thought. You couldn’t really get a person to alter who they were at their core. The thing was, I didn’t think Zeke was made for being alone. He needed love as much as I did, and if he were going to decide he’d been wrong, I wanted him to do that with me.
I kept ranking up points on the pathetic score, but that was what I wanted.
It was Zeke who kept telling me I should have what I wanted.
I simply had to figure out how.
He pulled out of me gently and discarded the condom into the wastebasket next to the bed. Rain pelted down on the roof. When had that started? It sounded rough, like it was quite a storm.
“If that keeps up, we’re not running today.” He yawned. “Or going to the café. I’ll make us something. The chef doesn’t come in until after breakfast.”
I smiled at him. “Sounds good.”
He wrapped me against him again. “Go back to sleep. It’s too early for doing anything and too late to watch the sunrise. I’m not ready to face the day yet. I want more time just in this bed with you.”
Zeke was such a contrast of words. One second, he said something like that, which made me think he did want me in his life, and the next, he was telling me not to be needy. How was I supposed to keep up when he was a walking contradiction? If Iasked, that would probably qualify as needy. And fuck, I didn’t want to be that.
We lay there like that, and I assumed he’d fallen back asleep until he spoke again. “You are completely awake.”
I lifted my head. “How did you know?”
“You breathe differently when you’re sleeping. That adorable little snore. I like it. And when you’re not doing it, you’re awake.”
That was embarrassing. “I’m sorry if it—”
“Layla.” He cut me off. “I just told you. I like it. A lot. So give it back to me so I can go back to sleep, too. Unless you absolutely can’t, in which case, I’ll get up with you and we can both be up for the day.”
I lay back down. I was still tired. He’d worn me out with our morning sex, and it would be nice to sleep a little bit. If he really didn’t mind that I snored, then I supposed it was okay. Still, I might see if there was anything I could do in the future to stop doing that. I’d kind of thought I’d stopped as I’d gotten older.
Snuggling against him, I listened to his heartbeat again; I let his warmth drag me under.
I dreamed that I was on a beach, walking next to the water. The ocean dragged out and then came back again. My sisters were with me, but they were up ahead, leaving me behind because I couldn’t seem to walk as fast as they did. But that was okay. This was my pace, and it suited me. They were running for something, and I got to feel the water at my feet, the sand dipping and raising. The shells floating by.
“Layla.” Zeke wore a black V-neck shirt and a pair of light-colored khakis. He was also barefoot. He was just ahead of me and extended his hand to me, but when I went to take it, he was gone.
When I woke up again, with Zeke still asleep next to me, rain pelted the roof, matching my tears.
I wiped them away. They would probably constitute being needy.
17
Iheard him enter the kitchen, but I didn’t turn around because I was terrified if I did, I’d spill the coffee I was making all over myself. As I was wearing his shirt that I’d picked up off the floor and it was nothing more than a men’s V-neck white undergarment, I didn’t want to destroy it with the coffee I was sure would never come out in the wash.
His arms came around me from behind, and he kissed the side of my neck. “I woke up and you weren’t there.”
Well, that much was obvious since I was, in fact, here fixing us both breakfast. “Careful, this is hot.”
“I told you I’d do it.”
I held up the coffee cup, and he took it from me. I picked up my own and moved out of the sanctity of his arms, mostly because I’d thought the word sanctity, and I had to get my shit under control before he ousted me from his life for being ridiculous.
