Heating Up the Holidays 3-Story Bundle(104)

She knew exactly what he meant.





Chapter 7


Nora was upstairs showering, the water running through the house’s old pipes. Miles sometimes worried that something big would go wrong with the house, something to do with plumbing or electricity, two categories of fix-it he’d vowed never to touch. He didn’t have the funds to deal with something big like that. Not the furnace or the roof or any kind of systems failure. Without an income, he could make ends meet for only another six months or so—yet another reason he didn’t feel like a good candidate for a relationship.

He felt “unfit.” That was the word that kept running through his head.

He hadn’t meant to ask her how long she was staying, but a thought had risen to the surface as he’d sat across from her, watching her eat her sandwich. I want to keep her.

Not a well-formed thought, just the sort of thing that bubbled up from your gut when you were unguarded and couldn’t help it. Almost ugly, the idea of keeping, but that was what it was. And she’d said he could, until tomorrow afternoon, and for a brief moment it had felt like enough.

But he was unfit. A suspect, not in a position to support himself if this went on much longer, not in a position to introduce someone else into his half-assed existence.

He made up his mind. Monday morning, he would begin to look for a new job. For a long time he’d kept hoping that things would happen fast, that he’d be cleared and would be able to resume his old life. The lawyer had kept telling him to hang on, not to do anything rash, that he’d have his life, his old job, his sense of self, back soon. But that hadn’t happened. The investigation had moved glacially, leaving him caught in this peculiar limbo for weeks and then months. A few days ago, he’d passed the one-year mark.

It was time for him to figure out how to build a new life in his reshaped reality. It wouldn’t be easy to get work, with the shadow of an investigation hanging over his head. He wouldn’t find anything that reflected his skill and experience level, but the economy had rebounded, and there were houses going up again—maybe he could do handyman jobs. Something, anything, to begin the process of making room for Nora in his life.

The water was still running upstairs—he imagined her sliding her soapy hands all over her body. He wanted to go up and get in the shower with her. Enjoy her, the sweetness of her mouth, the heat of her body, the restless hunger of her f*cking, the way he could watch her mind work during the silences in their conversations, sometimes to the point where a private smile crossed her face. He wanted to know exactly what was behind those small hints at her inner world. If he could, he’d get inside her head and listen to her thoughts.

He stopped to pull another condom from the box in her messenger bag, took the stairs two at a time, knocked on the door, entered on her invitation. She was behind the glass door, behind a veil of steam, but Miles could make out her rosy curves and the dark circles of her areolae and the triangle of red hair where her thighs met. He was hard before he had his clothes off—he’d been on his way before he left the kitchen.

“Good,” she said. “I was feeling a little miffed that you didn’t want to get in here with me.”

“I want. Give me the soap.”

She handed it over without protest, and he soaped his hands and washed her. Not carefully. Not lovingly. Just to feel the unfettered slip and slide of skin over skin, everywhere. So few things moved like that—frictionless, slick—and it was like sex in another guise, as if you could unhitch sex from the specific body parts he’d always associated it with and turn it into a full-body, all-over experience, as if the palms of his hands were as sensitive as the head of his cock. He’d somehow gathered her into his arms and was kissing her hard, rubbing his whole self all over her, her breasts with their taut nipples slipping back and forth over his chest, her belly against his, her thighs against his, his leg between hers, his cock moving against her skin with the pressure of his body and the pressure of her body on either side, her moaning into his mouth, and—

“Give me a sec.”

He stepped out of the shower and got the condom he’d brought up, rolled it on. Stepped back in.

She smiled coyly at him, then turned and faced the shower wall, her palms against it, and he almost came right then and there. She pushed up on her toes, her ass tilted up to give him access, her flesh blotched pink from the heat and arousal, and he could see her inner lips, red and wet and ready.

He failed again at careful. At respectful. At anything you’d do to woo someone you wanted to impress. He just—he banged into her, really. A nudge to position himself and a mad thrust as deep as he could go, and, f*ck, she was thrusting back against him. Making low, harsh noises punctuated with little squeaks. He tried to figure out how to maximize the squeaks for her, but she reached back and grabbed his hip and said, “More,” so he threw all the rest of his restraint away and gave it to her, and—“Oh, Nora, sorry!” he said, because he was coming, whole body spasms gripping him, and he had to brace himself against the wall, too, and even so he almost blacked out.

He had some trouble restoring his sense of which way was up.

“Sorry,” he said again, when he could. “Neanderthal.” He wasn’t yet to the point of being able to form sentences. “I’ll make it up to you.”

“I came.”