Madly (New York 2)
Page 71
“Allie.”
“Oh my God.”
“Allie.”
And she heard it and felt it when he started to come, felt it everywhere, moving through her, tightening her aching pussy and swelling in her clit, his broken breathing, his straining body, and she came so hard with her eyes closed that her vision went red-black at the edges, on and on until she couldn’t hear him anymore, or move, ever again.
She was dead.
Winston started to laugh.
“Don’t. I’m dead. Don’t make me—”
But it was impossible not to, the way he shook with it, his hoarse laugh and his big beaming smile, his face that
had so much Winston in it, thoughtful and interesting and dear.
She flopped over him, her sticky hand clenched in the sheets, his wet palm on her ass, and they laughed and laughed and laughed.
Chapter 16
Ben wasn’t cooking.
Allie didn’t know Ben particularly well. She’d met him when May showed up with him, a surly and dark-haired stranger without provenance whom May seemed to know incredibly well, and to trust, despite having only known him a few days.
It was the weekend of Allie’s wedding, and she’d been preoccupied with the impending catastrophe of her own decision to walk away from Matt. She hadn’t found much time to interact with Ben, and then he and May were gone again, back to New York, where May had settled in.
They’d visited Wisconsin a few times since, and Allie had chatted with Ben enough to be sure that he loved her sister, and to figure out that when he was nervous, or happy, or at loose ends—pretty much all the time—he cooked.
This morning he was sitting across from her on a pink sofa, hands clasped between his knees, training all of his intensity and focus right at her, and Allie would have far, far preferred him to be cooking.
She cleared her throat. “So I’m just supposed to go in there?”
“Yes.”
“And…like, she wants to talk to me?”
Ben raked both hands through his hair, every tendon in his hands straining. “I already said.”
“I know, I’m just making sure, I’m just…” She fluttered her hands through the air, a gesture that meant nothing, that meant Ben made her twitchy, and she was already twitchy enough, running on caffeine and four hours’ sleep and fumes, and she just wished he’d tell her what to say.
“Fix it.”
“Yeah, but if I don’t, you know, it’s kind of—”
“You’re not leaving this apartment until you fix it. Come on. Stand up.”
Allie stood. There was no way not to, with Ben looking at her like that.
“Put your purse down, for fuck’s sake. Take off your shoes. Stop looking like I’m going to eat you.”
Allie slipped her purse off her shoulder and set it on the floor.
“Jesus, you can put it on the coffee table.” But he was already moving, crouching and sliding toward her so fast that she flinched, and then claiming her purse from the floor and dumping it on the table. “Talk to your sister. If I have to live with her one more fucking day with this hanging over me, I’m going to stroke out.”
“She’s so mad at me.” Allie looked at him as she said it, hoping for some softening, empathy.
“I’m mad at you, and I’m a lot fucking scarier than May. Get in there.”