It is a primal coming together. There is nothing slow or seductive about it. But I have never been more aroused. Even as I come I feel another orgasm building immediately afterwards, intense and powerful. I dig my nails into his hips, feeling his warm, smooth flesh and wanting to mark it with my possession of him.
I wrap my legs around his waist and he drops his hands to my ass, curving his hands beneath me and kneading my flesh until I groan into his mouth.
I am incapable of thought. I am incapable of anything but feeling. And I feel him everywhere. Each thrust drives him deeper into my body until I am existing purely for this. All for him.
And I’m just sensible enough to be afraid of that.
* * *
‘You said two propositions?’
Our breathing is returning to normal. His body is a weight on me that I crave.
‘Right.’
He grins slowly, sensually. My stomach flops.
‘Do I take it that means you accept the first?’
I pull a face. ‘I’m thinking about it.’
He nods thoughtfully. ‘Might you need more convincing?’
My body trembles. ‘I might.’
I don’t. I want to sleep with him again and again—which should in and of itself warn me off.
Ethan shifts a little; my body responds instantly.
‘I have a designer for the interior. But I want your artistic input. I want you to wave your magic wand over this place. Think you can do that? For me?’
The way he says that should warn me, but I am not afraid. We have been honest—we have immunised ourselves against emotional fallout. Flirting with him is fine because we both know what we want.
And what’s at stake if we don’t.
‘You’re asking me to work for you?’
He nods. ‘Yes. What d’you say?’
I say yes, don’t I?
‘Why don’t you show me the place while I make up my mind?’
* * *
‘I guess this will be a kind of entertaining area.’ He gestures around the large open space on the top floor of the townhouse. It’s huge. Cavernous, even. I instantly see it as it could be. Neutral décor. Cream walls, polished floorboards and a single feature wall of a dark, earthy grey colour. Modern lighting, like round floor lamps and curved wall lamps, and perhaps a shag pile rug in the middle.
And contemporary art. Abstract without being corporate.
There’s a Hirst I know Christie’s has coming up for auction and mentally I picture it on the wall. I can’t recall the exact dimensions off the top of my head, so I reach into my bag and pull out my iPad mini.
‘What about something like this?’ I load up the painting and hold the iPad closer to him. Not too close. Not so close that I can breathe him in or risk touching him.
What happened downstairs is still playing on the edges of my mind, and I don’t know if I should run and hide or pretend it’s business as usual. I’ve opted for the latter, but every movement he makes reminds me passionately of what we’ve done. What I want.
I struggle to make sense of it.
‘I love it.’
He smiles as he meets my eyes. He’s so straightforward and simple...it’s hard to believe he feels anything like my inner-turmoil.
Why am I complicating things? We’re two adults who want to have a no-strings-attached sex-fest. What danger is there in that?
I quickly spin away from him, not wanting him to see even a hint of my thought processes on my face.
The business with Jeremy scared me. For life, possibly. Well, Eliza says it fucked me up good, and I’ve always kind of agreed with her.
I fell in love with him hard and fast. And I thought it was mutual. I believed everything he told me. Six months into our relationship I should have seen the signs. The way he would often not answer my calls. The way he’d have weird explanations for what he’d been doing, and the way he’d change plans at a moment’s notice. The way we once went to a restaurant and a couple came over to speak to him and the woman kept looking at me with obvious confusion.
And then, yes... The way his wife walked in on us in flagrante.
God, what an idiot I’d been.
So? Was I being an idiot now?
‘How come you have such a huge place when you don’t even live in the States?’
His shrug is non-committal, as though we’re talking about a studio apartment rather than two brownstones joined at the seams.