Maybe that was true, but right now, she thought she heard it in his voice and saw it in his eyes—and felt it, when he ran his hand from her skirt-covered hip, to her waist, to her ribs. He toyed with the lace at the edge of her bra, then leaned forward and kissed her belly. She sucked in a gasp at the rasp of his stubble, the heat of his tongue. Languid need turned the blood in her veins to wine.
She tipped her head back and murmured, “I don’t suppose you’d take your shirt off for me, would you?”
“I think that can be arranged.” He dragged his shirt over his head. The ache between her thighs only worsened at the sight of him. He was so divine. This close, she finally realized that the tattoos covering his shoulders, his chest, his right side, were the old-fashioned, classic kind that usually came in color, but his were black and gray. An eagle, a stag, a crying woman with roses in her hair—her gaze traced over every intricately shaded piece.
He pushed her skirt up her thighs and said, his voice rough, “I like the way you look at me.”
“I—”
His phone beeped, not a call but an alarm or reminder. He took it out of his back pocket, pressed a button, then threw it—actually threw it—out of the open bedroom door.
She blinked. She’d been rather thoughtless this morning. “Oh, Red. You have work—”
“I’m busy. Be quiet.”
“I don’t think you want me to be quiet.” She said it without thinking and was rewarded with a wicked smile.
“No. I don’t.” He rose up on his knees and kissed her again, licking into her mouth, hungry and filthy in a way that got her really wet, really fast. He hiked up her skirt, but instead of touching her desperate pussy he splayed his hands over her ribs again. Slid higher. Reached into her bra and cupped the weight of her breasts, squeezing, kneading, shamelessly enjoying. She shuddered against him, moaning into his mouth. He bit her lower lip, then sucked away the sting. Each slow pull sparked electric pleasure in her clit. If he didn’t get a move on, she was going to start touching herself.
“Here’s something I haven’t told you,” he murmured against her lips. “I love your tits.” His thumbs swept over her nipples, circled her sensitive areolas, and when she whimpered, he kissed her again, fast and hard, as if he wanted to take her pleasure into his body. Then he continued. “I love your tits, but not as much as I love your legs. Don’t ask me why. I’ve been fantasizing about your thighs.” His hands skimmed back down her body, over her hips and belly, until he squeezed the aforementioned thighs. “All soft and thick and lush.” He groaned and pressed hot, openmouthed kisses to her jaw, her throat, her collarbone.
She sucked in a breath when his mouth reached her cleavage and kept going. He’d told her to keep the bra on, but now he muttered, “Fuck it,” and pulled down a cup until she spilled out. Then the tip of his tongue, impossibly light and achingly delicate, nudged her nipple. At the contact, a moan shot from her lips. Her body arched without permission, her hips rocking forward. He took her nipple into his mouth, sucking hard, and she lost the very last of her control. It was as if she’d been on the edge of consciousness, clinging to lucidity by her fingertips, but now she was tumbling into a dream world. She was lust.
“Red,” she gasped, her fingers sinking into his hair. “Oh, my God, Red. More.” She grabbed one of his hands and shoved it between her thighs, rocking her swollen clit into his palm. He released her nipple with one last, sweet lick and her sensitive skin tingled from the rasp of his stubble. She wondered how that same sensation would translate against her inner thighs.
God, she wanted that.
“You want to know what I like best?” he asked conversationally, as if this was a perfectly ordinary interaction. As if she wasn’t frantically grinding against his hand.
“What?” she gasped, barely caring, barely hearing.
“This,” he murmured. “You. My desperate little angel. Losing it for me.” He took his hand away and she whimpered. The sound turned into a moan when he finally pulled down her underwear. “Oh,” he said. “And this.” Without warning, his thick fingers slid through her folds. Her gasp was ragged, torn from somewhere deep inside her. The way he parted her was so intimate, it should’ve been obscene. He spread her open and said, “Your soft, wet cunt. Oh, Chloe.” His thumb circled her clit just right, so right she thought she’d fall to pieces, disappear in a shower of sparks, a fleeting surge of dangerous power. “You’re all swollen and slippery and I . . .” He broke off, shut his eyes, his expression agonized, and bit his fist. “No,” he muttered. “Not today.”
“Yes, today,” she ordered, spreading her thighs wider, arching her back, showing him everything he claimed to love so much.
He held her gaze, his thumb still teasing her clit. “I’m not rushing this. Also, I don’t think you have condoms.”
Oh. Yes. That was a rather intelligent point. “Don’t you have one in your wallet, or something?”
He snorted. “You’re confused about the state of my sex life. No, there’s not a condom in my wallet. And even if there was, I wouldn’t give you what you want. I’d need to take my time. And I like hearing you beg.”
“You’re evil.”
“You like it.” He cupped her jaw, kissed her gently. He always touched her so carefully, but she didn’t feel like he was afraid of breaking her. More like he worshipped her even as he debauched her. More like she was his, and precious, but he planned to come all over her anyway.
Mmm. Please.
He eased his tongue into her mouth and pushed two fingers inside her—not deep, not hard, just teasing. Stroking. Exploring. When he glided over her G-spot she stopped breathing for a moment. Then she started again, and her next exhalation was a rush of “Oh, that, stay there, stay there.”
“Yeah?” he whispered against her lips. “Sure you don’t want me to—?” He pulled out and she sobbed. Then he circled her clit, fingers wet with her arousal, his touch so certain, she screamed.
And then he went back to her G-spot.
She clutched his shoulders because she felt like she might faint. “Red, please, please—”
“All right, love,” he murmured, his fingers moving faster, his warmth fading as he moved away. His next words were a hot breath against her thigh. “You’re so beautiful. So beautiful, and the longer I look, the better it gets.”
How he could say that, when he was shirtless and stunning on his knees before her, torturing her, she had no idea. Then he lowered his head and flicked his tongue over her swollen flesh, and it didn’t matter, because nothing mattered except feeling. Feeling this. Feeling him. His mouth was hot and wet and slow, so slow, as he licked and sucked her clit. His tongue rubbed every inch of her with shameless intensity, slick and thorough and dizzyingly good. She moaned, choked out his name, pulled his hair, but none of that released the divine, impossible pressure building just beneath her skin. He did that. He loved her steadily, thoroughly, his fingers thrusting deep inside her while he lapped, sucked, pressed deep kisses to her labia the same way he’d owned her mouth. She melted, and he licked up her wetness like nectar.
Her orgasm was so powerful she thought she might black out. She released a high, desperate, gasping sound that might’ve been his name, might’ve been nonsense, might’ve been “Oh-my-goodness-this-is-fantastic-thank-you-so-much.” Who knew? Certainly not Chloe, because sheer pleasure took up so much of her body that it shoved awareness out of the way to make room. She came until she was nothing but a limp, worn-out mess of a woman with hot tears spilling over her cheeks.
Red held her tight and kissed her hard, and she sucked her own taste from his tongue. Then he brushed his lips over her tears and murmured, “I knew you’d cry.”
She wasn’t sure how her voice still worked, but she managed to ask, “How?”
“You feel so much,” he said simply.
Oh, if he only knew. If he only knew how very much she felt for him.
Chapter Eighteen
Chloe didn’t think it was unreaso
nable to say that an orgasm courtesy of Red’s wicked mouth was now her favorite way to start the day. And, speaking of: an orgasm courtesy of Red’s wicked hands was her favorite way to float into sleep. She could say that with certainty, because on Thursday night, he came back after work and made her dinner, and approved the work she’d done on his website so far. Then he took her to bed and stroked her until she fell apart for him.
He wasn’t there when she woke up on Friday morning, but he’d left something behind on her desk, right beside her computer: a message scrawled in his familiar handwriting on one of her pink sticky notes.
Call if you need me. I’ll see you tomorrow.
(FOR CAMPING.)
Underneath, he’d scribbled a cute little picture of a tree. What, exactly, made the picture cute? She couldn’t say, except for the fact that it came from Red.
So, he’d be busy until tomorrow, would he? She found herself smiling at the thought of all the things he might be getting up to. For someone who’d once seemed like her antithesis, he had a secret fondness for plans that made her want to kiss his lovely, blushing cheeks. She ran a finger over his cartoon tree and sighed. Camping. Ick. Not exactly her forte, but she had the oddest feeling that she’d enjoy it anyway. There was a warm, jittery thrill in her stomach, like the screaming smile of someone on a roller coaster.
This, she decided, was how an adventure should feel. Not like an ordeal, the way drinking and dancing had, but like a welcome risk. When she and Red had left that awful nightclub, a seed of possibility had started growing in Chloe, daring and electric: maybe the list should be more than a box-ticking exercise. Maybe it should mean more. Maybe changing it wasn’t the end of the world.
Now, that seed had become a sapling, and Chloe was ready to make changes. A little apprehensive, but ready all the same.
She found her glittery blue notebook and sat at her desk, Red’s sticky note beside her, a momentous weight in the air. After a moment’s hesitation, she crossed out item 2, Enjoy a drunken night out, with quick, sharp lines of her pen. Beside the crossed-out entry, she wrote simply, awkwardly, with a what-am-I-doing wince: Call Annie. Be nice. Make friends.
Dani often said that writing down one’s desires, even in the slightest way possible, was a vital step in manifesting one’s ideal future. Chloe often replied that that was nonsense, but the truth was, she believed in it. She stared down at the altered list with growing satisfaction, like a streetlight slowly switching on as the sun set behind it. She crossed out item 5, meaningless sex, with relish.
And then she wrote something else: an entirely new entry, because he made her feel entirely new things. Another wish, another manifestation, a stepping stone to an ideal future she only dared to peek at through splayed fingers. One she was determined to reach out and grab.
8. Keep Red.
* * *
Contacting Annie proved to be the easiest list item Chloe had ever completed. When she forced herself to find the mysterious hot pink card and type its number into her phone, she was still on a list-editing high, utterly dauntless. Perhaps that was why, when Annie suggested coffee that very afternoon, Chloe agreed without even checking her schedule.
She was spontaneous, after all. She was flexible. She was committed to her new and improved list.
Hours later, she was also nervous. She sat at a table in a busy, overloud, and likely unhygienic coffee shop in Harebell, which could only be described as the hipster quarter of the city. Of course Annie, with her strange outfits and excellent business cards, had wanted to meet here. And yet, she wasn’t here, leaving Chloe to sit by the cold window like a shivering loner.
Wonderful.
But waiting wasn’t all bad. It gave her time to text her new favorite contact.
Chloe: Guess where I am?
Red: Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro?
Chloe: Not yet.
Red: I hope you haven’t gone to New York without me.
She stared at that message for long, happy heartbeats, a thousand wonderful implications threading through her mind like a never-ending daisy chain. Perhaps they’d go to New York together. Because they were together. And they shared goals and future plans. And things.
Chloe: I’d never go without you. I’m at a coffee shop waiting for Annie.
Red: What?
Red: ANNIE Annie?
Red: Actually, I don’t care which Annie it is. You’re waiting for someone? To have coffee? Not to throw the coffee at them, or anything, but to actually have coffee?
She snorted, clapping a hand over her mouth.
Chloe: YES. Honestly, what on earth do you think of me?
Red: That you’re short-tempered and always interesting.
Chloe: You are a very difficult man.
Red: That must make me perfect for you. ;)
She was still smiling when Annie arrived.
“Chloe!” Annie plonked herself down in the seat across the table with a sound like a bubble bursting. “There you are!”
Chloe stared. There she was? She’d been here for the last thirty minutes, for Christ’s sake. “Yes,” she said dryly. “Here I am.”
“So sorry I’m late. I’ve had a Marmite disaster.”
“Oh. That sounds . . .”
“Vitamin rich? Very.” Annie’s golden curls were pinned almost flat to her head with what appeared to be a thousand black hair slides. She was wearing her enormous camo coat again, but she unzipped it to reveal a surprisingly ordinary outfit that consisted of jeans and a raspberry-colored jumper. “Coffee?” she asked brightly.
Since Chloe had been politely waiting before ordering, and ignoring the death glares of the lady behind the counter, for half an hour, she nodded eagerly before realizing what she was agreeing to. “Oh—no coffee for me, but I’ll get tea.”
“My treat!” Annie was up and off before Chloe could say another word. She was so . . . springy. Energetic. Possibly earnest, potentially a master of sarcasm. Chloe wasn’t sure which, but she suspected her own prickliness stemmed from an urgent desire to find out, and a worry that she never would. How long had it been since she’d made and kept a friend? So long she must have lost the ability, rather like a wasted muscle. She should’ve been doing social exercises alongside her physiotherapy all these years. She found her own distorted reflection in the shiny metal sugar cup at the center of the table and gave herself a stern look. “Pull yourself together,” she told the metallic Chloe with the aubergine-shaped head. “Think victorious thoughts. Triumphant thoughts. The thoughts of a woman who succeeds in all endeavors.”
“An excellent philosophy!” Annie said.
Oops. Chloe slapped on a smile and tried to look less like someone who encouraged their own reflection in the middle of cool coffee shops.
Annie set down a tray of hot drinks, took her seat again, and said, “So! Are you still cross with me about Perdita?”
“I—erm—oh, gosh, I wasn’t cross with you—”
“I know you were. I would be, too, if it were me. Perdy’s a doll.” Annie paused. “Well, as far as cats go. I don’t actually like them that much.”
Chloe stared. “You don’t?”
“Gosh, no. I’m more of a dog person. But the thing is, I have to look after them. It’s part of the deal.”
“The deal?”
Annie’s voice dropped. “With the goddess of the underworld.”
Oh dear.
Annie’s voice dropped further as she went on, “My mother.”
Ah. That was quite a bit less bonkers.
“You made some sort of deal with your mother that involves looking after cats?”
“Eleven cats. Thankfully, most are outdoors. I have to keep them all safe and tend to their needs with my own fair hand as much as is possible.”
Chloe stared, aghast. “And what on earth do you get out of the bargain?”
“I get to live in my mother’s house while she sails the world on a piddling little boat with her third husband, Lee. Now, I know what you’re thinki
ng—only three husbands? But my mother was quite young when she had me, so she’s not as mature as you’d assume. Hopefully, by the time she hits her sixties she’ll have found a rhythm and will be on her fifth husband at least.”
“I’m sure,” Chloe agreed. “There is nothing wrong with being a late bloomer.”
“Certainly not. I myself, however, am a lost cause,” Annie said. “Thirty-four years old and not a single husband, divorced, deceased, or otherwise disposed of.”
“Me neither. I blame the modern age for an outrageous gap in my education. Schools simply aren’t providing their girls with the skills needed to acquire and eliminate spouses.”
“Hear, hear. So, since you, like myself, suffer from a lack of life insurance checks and/or alimony, what is it you do to keep yourself in chocolate biscuits and such?”
“I’m a web designer,” Chloe said. “I ought to give you my card. It’s not as good as yours.”
“Flatterer.” But Annie looked pleased. She had a Julia Roberts sort of mouth, so it was impossible to miss the smile she tried to hide.
Chloe found herself smiling wider in return. “And what do you do?” Because really, she’d been dying to know, and she still hadn’t allowed herself to look.
“I’m a lingerie designer,” Annie said.
“Goodness. That’s . . .”
“Your bra doesn’t fit, by the way.”
Chloe blinked and looked down at her own chest. “It—?”
“Sorry. Auntie always tells me not to say things like that. But you seem the type who likes to know what’s what.”
“I am. How can you tell it doesn’t fit?”
“Oh, please don’t worry, you look lovely. But I can tell.”
Chloe nodded. “So I don’t look as if I have one giant, central boob or anything?”
“Certainly not,” Annie said immediately. “Not at all.”
“Oh, good. Well, I suppose I need to go bra shopping, then.” An idea struck her, the sort she’d usually dismiss out of hand. The sort she’d be too afraid to say out loud, in case she was struck down and embarrassed. But Chloe was being brave, these days, so she pulled herself together and blurted it out: “Perhaps, at some point, you’d, er, be interested in advising me on . . .”