Merry Ever After

“Thanks, Mom.” Sinclaire gives me the finger behind her back, and I have to cover my mouth not to laugh. “I’ll be out in a second.”

I hear Merrin’s footsteps retreating back up the hall. Sinclaire rests her forehead against the closed door for a second, releasing a gust of air in a sigh. I walk up behind her and kiss the back of her neck, tongue the satiny slope, grip her hips and press into the curve of her ass.

“What are you doing?” She slips away, turning outraged eyes up to me. “We can’t.”

“Your mom seems to think we should,” I laugh, reaching for her again. “You heard her. I’m handsome and brilliant.”

“Yeah, that’s because she doesn’t know you fucked me up against a wall ten minutes after meeting me.”

“Ahh. Memories.”

“You have to go,” she whisper-shouts. “Let me see if the coast is clear and you can slip out.”

“I don’t want to slip out. I want to kiss you again.” I grin. “I want that tiramisu.”

“Well you don’t get it.” She pokes her head into the hall and then grabs my hand, dragging me out behind her. Tip toeing, she pauses at the sound of her parents talking in the dining room. The apartment is otherwise still, seems empty. She hurries past the living room and to the front door, opening it quietly and shoving me into the hall. Before I can tell her I need my coat, the door closes firmly in my face.

“Well, shit.”

I look around the deserted hall and think about the cold walk to the subway that’s ahead of me. I try not to feel rejected looking back at the closed door as I board the elevator. I took a chance and it backfired, but I’m not giving up.

I found her.

Against all odds, I found the girl who so effortlessly embedded herself in my mind. I haven’t been able to get her out of my thoughts for the last year and a half, and after one kiss, I know I won’t be forgetting her any time soon. Her mother is my agent. I wave to the security guard who let me up a few hours ago and draw in a deep breath, hesitating at the revolving glass door. A light snow is falling, and every instinct urges me to go back up and get my coat.

Every instinct but one.

I really pushed tonight. Was very clear that I want to see where this goes, but seeing me again so unexpectedly, discovering I’m her mother’s client, and that I wrote a book based on our one-hour stand—it’s a lot. I don’t want to push too hard in case I blow this for good. And this is too good, she’s too good, to mess up. So I’ll let her come to me.

In the meantime, a brisk walk in the snow won’t kill me.

Will it?

Visions of all the starving artists who must have died of consumption flash through my mind. I’m stepping out into the street, shivering in the cold as feathery flakes drift to the ground, when a sound behind me grabs my attention. I turn to find Sinclaire standing just outside the glass doors on the sidewalk with my coat folded over one arm.

“You forgot this.”

A laugh, so insistent I can’t even try to hold it back, bubbles up and forces its way past my lips. She grins at me and rolls her eyes, proffering the pea coat to me. “Mom spotted it and I knew you’d be cold.”

“Yeah.” I step forward to take it from her, gratefully slipping my arms in. “I was already thinking about losing a toe to frost bite.”

She tips her head back, meeting my eyes, and her smile softens, melts out here in the cold. Snowflakes fall like sprinkled sugar, stark against her smooth skin and dark hair. I press one frosty knuckle to the curve of her cheek.

“I know you think

it’s crazy,” I say, my voice hoarse in the frigid air and with earnest feeling. “But I want to see you again. I don’t believe we found each other like this just to let go.”

She bites her bottom lip, shivers and wraps her arms around herself. After a moment, she nods, seeming to reach a decision. Whether it’ll be to kick me to the subway or give me another shot, I don’t know. But then she takes my hand, her fingers icy and twined with mine. She nods toward the apartment building.

“You didn’t get your tiramisu.” Her eyes lower to the snow-flecked sidewalk and there’s almost something shy in the way she can’t bring herself to look at me. “Why don’t you come up for dessert?”

Pleasure buzzes through me. This is more than I would have hoped or asked for.

“And your parents?” I ask, letting her lead me back inside through the revolving doors. “What do you want to tell them?”

Her laugh is roguish and bold, and the girl on an adventure, on a mission, the one I met that first night is back, smiling at me over her shoulder as we enter the elevator. “Oh, we’ll think of something.”

By Kennedy Ryan