Bryn
I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. This is more. This is more than I ever thought possible. Him—how much I want him. How much I care. I toss and turn all night, thinking of nothing but Christos and how much I want to do the brave thing, and for once in my life let myself fall without worrying. Let myself fall for him—the guy I’ve been falling for since I was seventeen.
I’ve always been reliable and levelheaded. Cautious, you could say. But that bitch is gone. That was the young me. The adult me says yes, go for it, you have been into this guy since the moment you saw him, greasy and hot at the shop. I want to try and see where this goes, but I’m scared it will end up provoking my heart, even while up on the highest shelf where I’d put it. But who am I kidding? It’s no longer on my shelf, it’s been in his. For a long time.
On Saturday morning, I look up my horoscope for the weekend.
Dear Cappie,
The stars are aligning for you! If you’ve had your hopes on a certain someone, this week might be the time you two can take the relationship to the next level. Just be patient, as they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day…
I’m not sure how I feel about this. It says nothing about what happens if you jump recklessly into a forbidden romance.
No, I am totally not the Cappie that horoscope is talking about. But once Becka told me your sun sign is not the only clue as to the weather around you. She had used a handy little internet tool to find out my ascendant, based on the hour you were born. So I read Pisces next.
Dear Pisces,
Boy you must be thrilled the square alignment has eased some this month, and with Mars back in good form after its retrograde in your house of travel, you should be ready for business and pleasure, both! Keep your eye on your goals and don’t forget to have a little fun this August while Venus travels your fifth house of love and creativity.
“I do enjoy reading these suckers, though I never pay attention to any negative things they have to say. I only run with the good ones. This time though, it’s way off.” I sigh.
“Read mine. Wait, you read it first before telling me what it says. Shit, don’t tell me if it’s bad.”
“What’s your sign?”
“Taurus. Ruled by Venus, I apparently like very beautiful and expensive things.” Sara smirks while taking a peek. “What does it say?”
“Don’t peek and don’t talk, I can’t concentrate reading with noise around!” I start reading hers.
Dear Taurus,
After the recent mercury retrograde in your sister sign Virgo during the month of July, you’re back in full form and able to work off the kinks in your communications. Now is the time to iron out the details of that professional plan you’ve been holding in the back burner, and if a relationship has felt the rough and tumble of the stars, remember the universe always helps us with course corrections to fix what’s broken, or learn to let go.
“What does it say?”
“Dear Taurus,” I begin. “If you still love him, go for it. Don’t wait for my astrologer permission, don’t wait for me to give you a safety net, just do it!”
“What?” She starts reading and says, “Bryn, you are a lousy astrologer. You’d die poor.”
I can’t seem to fully stop a giggle as I set it aside. “No, really. You’re hooked on him, Sara. I do think you need to find him. Why wait? You can be waiting forever. Why do we give our power away?” I frown. “I mean, we’re bombarded by all these marketers telling us what to think, how to feel about ourselves, we wait to see what others think about our clothes to determine if we really like them. We wait for an astrologer to tell us the coast is clear to do something we’ve been wanting to do. It’s wrong.”
I chew my nail. My mind wanders back to Christos and I wonder why I had the balls to give Sara this advice when I don’t have any balls of my own, apparently.
I also remember touching Christos’s balls and how much I wanted to go down on him. A pang of unwelcome little feelings strike and I’m not really sure if I’ll be able to push them away, but I try to, especially considering I was talking to Sara about her love life. Not mine.
“Let’s do something we really want to do. Let’s finally do something for ourselves, take our own advice.”
“Okay then.” She makes a phone call. “Hi, I’d like to see if you can do me a favor and check back on the guest list for last year. I need the name of someone.” Her eyes spark up as if the answer delights her. “Really? You’d do that for me? Thank you!” She hangs up. “He’s helping me find him. Your turn.”
“Did you really call?” I ask, doubting that she did.
“Do you want to call back to verify? Come on. Your turn. Go after him, Bryn.”
I bite down on my lip for a moment, then I grab my phone and decide that I don’t want to keep wondering what if anymore. Not when there’s something I can do about it.
So I’ve been thinking about it.
And I’ve decided this is healthy, this is the best scenario possible, neither of us expects more.
So please tell Christos that it’s yes.
Tell Bit for me
I do want more
And she won’t regret it.
But let’s keep it low key please. I don’t want anyone at Christos and Co or your brother to know
I don’t report to my employees or my brother, but I understand your concern. I’ll be discreet as long as you want to keep a lid on it.
I read the message, relieved, when suddenly a new one pops up.
What are you wearing now?
I tingle.
Panties and a T-shirt.
What color panties?
Soft lilac.
Soft lilac. What material are they?
They’re silky. A little sheer.
And under the T-shirt?
Nothing.
What color T-shirt?
I close my eyes.
I just took it off.
Butterflies in my stomach as I read his reply.
Take off the rest.
Put on one of your little dresses
And meet me downstairs in 20 minutes.
I reach for my panties. Bryn, what the hell are you doing?
Honestly, something has just clicked in my mind. The fact that I no longer care. I want him—desperately. And for a long time, Christos has wanted me. I don’t want to deny myself his presence, his laughter, his touch. Fuck what the cosmos says, or if it’s written in the stars, or if its doomed, or if it’s right or not. Life goes by in a blink, and I don’t want to blink one second and once again, find him gone.
We walk along Gramercy Park until it starts to rain. One second we’re dry, the next we’re getting pounded by raindrops. Christos glances around and motions farther down the block, to a tall skyscraper. “Over there.”
He rushes me to a building where the doorman greets him.
“Penthouse still empty?” He runs his hand through his wet hair as I feel water drip down my legs.
“Sir, yes. They’re putting in the finishing touches until they start showing next month.”
“We need shelter for a moment,” he says with a smirk.
The doorman pulls out a double set of keys. “Of course, sir, go right in. I’ll be sure you’re not disturbed.”
He slides a key into the elevator slot, then uses the second one to open the double doors when we reach the top floor.
We walk into a huge, vacant marble-floored penthouse.
“You own this?”
“Yes.”
“The penthouse or the building?” I gaze out at the panoramic views.
Silence.
I turn. “Wow. You amaze me.”
“You’re amazing,” he husks back. He walks forward. “Did you take off what I told you?”
“Yes.” Flushing, I motion to him. “Seems right that you take off something too. It’s only fair.”
“Life isn’t fair.”
He smiles, but when he stares at me for a moment, something flickers in his eyes. He starts to unbutton his wet, white shirt, then he shrugs it off his powerful shoulders.
“Are we even?”
I gulp. “Not even close,” I breathe and hold his wicked—w i c k e d—gaze. His tattoo is shining wetly on his shoulder and bicep, and I get wet in places the sunlight doesn’t touch.
His chest is wet. I try not to notice.
But I notice.
Oh boy.
He is speaking to me.
Did he ask me something?
I can’t hear. A drop of water slides down his abs and falls into his belly button.
His pecs are hard, his muscles so defined I could trace them with a pencil. My tongue could act as a pencil, I suppose.
I want to trace the tattoo with my fingers, his whole body with my fingers.
I lick my lips and he is watching me, speculatively.
I take a step, then a few quicker ones, and then I’m pressing my mouth to his nipple. I lick the drop.
He groans.
A low, pained sound as his hand comes to cup the back of my head.
I bend and lick the other drop, close to his belly button, on his strong, ripped abs, and my tongue dips into his belly button even though there’s not a drop there. When I place my hands on his abs, they feel so hard. They constrict beneath my fingers, and I kiss him on each square. My heart pounds as he holds the back of my head, one hand on my skull, the other curving possessively around my neck—exerting the slightest pressure to keep my face where it is. With my lips on his warm, wet skin. I ease up and meet his gaze.
He pulls me up higher with his hand, looking straight at me with devastatingly tender eyes. His jaw starts working, his lips pressing into a grim line. He fists my hair, starts pulling me up. I go willingly.
Pressing my mouth between his pecs. Then as he pulls me up another inch, he dives down, and the wet raindrops are replaced by his wet mouth.
Something overtakes us. My hands on his wet shoulders, twining first and then gripping the wet muscle, nails in his back as his arms go around me and my legs go around him as he devours my mouth.
Christos grabs my ass and boosts me.
Up higher, so I’m almost higher than he is. I’m canting down my head so he can ravage me and massage my butt. His beautiful erection is almost a table for me to sit on. I feel so tiny even when he has me lifted higher, as if I were a little girl and he wanted to show me the world.
“Aaric,” I breathe. My own driving desire shocks me.
He turns me up against the wall, our mouths fused as he jams a hand between our bodies and touches me there.
I’m not wearing any panties—only his slacks separate us, and as he kisses me and strokes his fingers along my wetness, I groan.
He groans too, more undone than I am.
He tears free and hunches down, and he nuzzles my stomach over my dress.
My breath snags in my throat when he rasps something unintelligible, nudging my dress upward with his nose—then his breath is on the skin beneath my belly button.
His fingertips run up the back of my knee, his nose pressing into my abdomen. He smells my skin.
I whimper, my whole body tightening in yearning.
He flicks his tongue out to lick my abs, a wet circle around my belly button, and he groans, as if my taste is addictive.
I’m melting.
His hand continues trailing up the back of my thigh, leisurely shifting to my inner thigh, under my skirt.
His eyes shine as he looks up at me. But that look changes when he touches my sex with the tip of his index finger.
The damp spot is unmistakable.
He clenches his jaw. His gaze? It’s not playful anymore; it’s raw and ridiculously primitive. He tugs the fabric aside.
“You’ve thought of this. Me kissing you here.”
“No.”
“You want this.”
“No…”
He moves his finger over my sex. “This tells me yes.”
He ducks his head and presses his warm tongue and slowly runs it over my sex, tasting me.
I shudder from the shock of the warm flick of his tongue over my wet spot, this time a little slower, a little firmer.
My knees try to snap closed, but he grabs me by the thighs and holds me in place as he kisses me more, angling his head to taste more of me. Lick more of me. Twirl his tongue and caress more of me. “You’re beautiful, Bryn. You taste so good, little bit.”
He spreads me a little farther open, his big body hunched between my legs, his shoulders bunched up as he keeps his head between my legs. He’s toying with my sex lips. I feel his hand coming to cup my sex with so much tenderness that it hurts my heart. He inserts two fingers inside me as he cups one breast with his hand and raises his head to look up at me.
My breasts are moving up and down with my harsh breaths. Almost begging for his attention, one of them covered by his palm. The other so lonely and puckered it hurts.
I bite my lower lip discreetly, my eyes meeting his for a fraction of a second—and I’m able to see the total pleasure in his eyes of seeing me undone like this, completely helpless. I want to have the energy to pull him closer, to ravage this man, but I can’t move one whit, because I’m undone seeing him like this too. Along with the pleasure in his eyes, I see heat—heat that this is doing shit to him, that he’s thought of this too.
He stands back over me, leans over, and brushes his lips over mine, and I groan and feel myself go lax beneath him as he slides two fingers between my legs, all while kissing me—slow and thorough—his other hand tweaking my nipple in a move that I’d assume should be a little painful but is actually so pleasurable I arch and gasp, my gasp only inviting his tongue to keep working me into a frenzy. He roams his tongue in my mouth as his fingers move, one inch, two inches, three, four…in and out, slowly, priming me.
My hands grip his hard shoulders. My legs twine around his hips, even as he remains dressed from the waist down.
I start to kiss him back with all the passion I kept hidden for so many years. This man kissing me is the only man who makes me nervous. Makes me babble. Makes me afraid. Makes me excited. Makes me want.
There are the kinds of things that you don’t choose—they just happen, sometimes with people you don’t want to react to as fiercely as you do. Christos has always been mine. My what if, and also my why him.
Right now he’s the center of my universe. His nearness all I know. And that gold sea of desire in his eyes as he tears free to look down at me questioningly, as if he can’t believe I’m so fucking hungry. It’s the fucking hottest thing I’ve ever seen in a man.
He grabs my dress and pulls it over my head.
Groaning, out of control, I duck my head and nuzzle my nose as he rains kisses on my stomach.
They’re not sweet kisses, not really. They have so much tongue and teeth: nips, gentle bites, hungry licks.
“Aaric, I want to see you too,” I groan.
He shushes me by nudging my legs farther apart and looking straight at me. Looking at me there. At the tingly, aching spot he just kissed with wicked intimacy. His eyes cool and assessing and at the same time hot and reverent.
He presses a simple kiss to my curls.
I buck from the pleasure, and he leans forward again and flicks his warm, slow, lovely tongue out to taste me again.
Colors begin dancing behind my eyelids.
I tense up as an orgasm starts building, surprising me.
He stands then, and takes my arms and lays them against the wall, rocking his clothed hips against my naked body, his hard cock, covered only by his slacks, against my bare sex.
All while he lowers and gives my mouth the biggest fucking of its life.
I go off the next instant with a soft cry, Christos rocking against me as I do, his mouth and hands and strength all I know as he growls and comes with me, the dampness seeping from his pants and against my wet sex.
As the waves start dissipating, I become aware of how we stand—me naked, him just shirtless and tattooed, his slacks damp from the rain, my hair tangled, my whole body still shuddering in aftershocks.
I laugh, and his laugh is rich and deep as he chuckles too, brushing my hair back with one hand.
He drives me home and walks me to my door. Sara’s in the kitchen and obviously catches on quickly enough when she sees him.
“You’re welcome to stay, Christos,” Sara tells him as we walk into the living area.
“He was on his way out. My boss has a big dick. I mean, my boss is an absolute dick. I need my rest.”
Sara’s eyes widen, Christos just laughs.
He leans over. “I’m not your boss, but when you need someone to boss you in bed—call me.” He winks.
“You’re right, you’re my business partner. You offered up the dough.”
“Maybe you should offer me a nightcap.”
“Christos, come on, my roommate is here…”
“To my disadvantage,” he agrees, his eyes darkening. “Goodnight, bit.”
“Goodnight, Aaric.”
The door shuts, and I raise my hand to Sara. “Don’t ask.”
“I have to!” she complains as she follows me to my room. “Are you two…?”
I throw myself down on my bed. “You dared me to go after what I wanted.”
“So?”
“So I am,” I say, giddy as I hug my pillow and laugh. “Sara, I can’t even deal with myself right now,” I groan, flipping to my back and staring up at the ceiling, seeing his face as I came for him, his face as he came in his pants with me. The sexiest expression imaginable on his sexy-as-fuck face.