“It’s yours.” I don’t even know how I can perform like this after eating, much less talk while fucking, but ding dong merrily I’m high on adrenaline and lust for this woman. “What about your pussy?”
“Yours.”
“It’s mine.”
“Yes.”
“All mine.”
“Yes. So good. The way we fit.”
“No one will ever fuck you the way I do.”
“No one ever has. Dec. Oh my God.” Her climax comes hard and fast and beautiful, and I want to live in this crazy moment as much as I want to live in every other moment I’ve spent with her over the past few days. I don’t even want to think about what that means. Because I can’t.
All I have is this. The freezing cold air around us, the heat between us, and the frantic, terrible dilemma of wanting to come and wanting to make this last forever. She arches her back and then presses herself against me, changing angles. And those tiny movements are all it takes to put me over the edge as she takes me with her. Overboard. Into her. Out of my mind. Right up against the only woman on earth who could open me up completely or shut me down for good.
I know better than to call an orgasm love, but I’ve never had to fight the urge to say that word out loud to someone I’m having sex with before. It already feels wrong, not saying it to the woman who brought me back to life and kept me on track, even before I got to see her naked. Even on the deck of the Staten Island Ferry on Christmas.
Her whole body is wrapped around mine, arms around my neck, chin resting on my shoulder, legs around my waist but hidden under my coat. I can’t catch my breath, but I can see it. I can feel her heart beating against my chest, and I want her to tell me that it’s mine, but that’s not dirty talk. It’s the kind of straight talk that I can’t engage in, as her boss, as an attorney, or as a man who is on the cusp of becoming the man who actually deserves Maddie Cooper.
I let her down easy and bend down to retrieve her panties and leggings. But before she pulls them on, I slip a glove onto my right hand and wipe myself off from between her legs. She gasps when I do it. It’s not a sex gasp, it’s a holy shit I can’t believe you’re doing that for me gasp, and it’s just as satisfying. There’s so much I want to do for her, and it scares me. I don’t want to be scared of it because she deserves better than a man who is afraid of his feelings for her. But I can do this for her now, so I will.
I wipe myself off too, remove the glove before folding it up and putting it back in my pocket. I’ll deal with that and so many other things later. We’re now fully dressed again, and we may look freshly fucked, but there’s no law against that.
I take her face in my hands and kiss her parted lips. The tip of her nose is cold, but her mouth is warm and her tongue is warm, and we should probably go back inside the cabin before I whip my dick out again. A soft, appreciative moan comes from deep in her throat as she kisses me. Sweet and sexy as hell. She is all these things and so much more, and I want them as much as I always did.
I just don’t know what to do with this totally unfamiliar and completely unexpected feeling in my chest and in the pit of my stomach.
I got a hot and surprisingly wonderful fake girlfriend for the holidays, but I lost my cocky shithead attitude somewhere back in Youngstown. I don’t miss being a cocky shithead—well, maybe a little—but there’s a river of doubt that’s a lot wider than the New York Harbor separating me from the place that I want to get to with Maddie.
She pulls away from me, slowly, and I look down at her. I should say something. Aren’t I the guy who always knows what to say? As always, she saves me from myself by staring over my shoulder and saying, “Look.”
I turn to see the Statue of Liberty. Glowing and majestic. A beacon of hope and opportunity for weary travelers. The goddess of liberty before me, a goddess of sex and executive administrative skills and potentially a domestic goddess that I would shack up with right behind me.
“Your place or mine?” she asks, wrapping her arms around my waist and pressing her cheek against my back.
“Anywhere. Long as I’m with you,” I say. I say it out loud because fuck you, Colin Firth—I can have hot quick and dirty sex on a ferry and say cheesy things without laughing.
It doesn’t stop Maddie from laughing at me and burying her face into my coat. But it’s cool. One day she’ll figure out that I mean everything I say to her. And one day I’ll be able to say everything I want to say to her. I just hope it’ll be before we ring in the new year.
Twenty-Nine
Maddie
FAIRLY DARK ALE OF NEW YORK
BEX: Well? Did you rock the boat last night or what?
ME: I would NEVER tell you or anyone else if we did it against a metal gate on the upper deck. Or that it was super-hot and surprisingly romantic. Because everyone involved is way too classy for that kind of thing. <winking face emoji>
BEX: <raising hands emoji> YOLO!!! See?!?! It pays to take your big sister’s advice every now and then. You at home?
ME: At his place, actually.
BEX: Wow. Sounds serious.
ME: It’s not. It’s just, you know. For now. But his apartment is incredible, and these sheets are amazing.
BEX: Are you texting me while you’re in bed with him?
