Scandalized(79)

He nods.

“Is that always how you react to a crisis?”

Alec shakes his head. “Remember how you once said I would need to be with someone who is very chill about things? I don’t think I let myself believe you were really that person. I felt like a live bomb. I was panicking. I didn’t want to add to your trouble.”

I shake my head. “My choices affected you. I own that. I wanted to help you. At the very least I wanted to weather everything with you.”

“I understand.” He smiles. “If we’re doing this, we’re doing it. That means you’re willing to give me the benefit of the doubt if you hear rumors, and I’m not going to shut you out again.”

I reach up, running my fingers through his hair. “Deal.”

That focused gaze makes a full circuit of my face. “I love you.”

It’s dark in this room—night sky, my curtains drawn—but at these words, I feel like I’m lit up inside. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He smiles, and I reach up to gently poke a dimple with my fingertip. “Is it too soon?”

“Yes. But I want to say it, too,” I say.

“You don’t ha—”

I press my fingertips to his lips. “I’m gonna save it. Surprise you with it.”

Alec laughs. “Spring it on me?”

I pretend to smoke a cigar. “Yeah, see. Unexpected like.”

He finally settles over me, subtly flexing his hips into mine. Alec speaks the next words into the tender skin just beneath my jaw. “I bet I could coax it out of you.”

Goose bumps break out along my skin, and I snake my hands between us, tugging his shirt free, unbuttoning. “I bet you could.”

He pulls back and looks at me with a wicked gleam in his eye, shrugging out of his clothes. I glide my greedy hands over the smooth skin of his torso, and it occurs to me that I might not want to dare the man who, even under normal, non-making-up circumstances, enjoys making me beg.

First with his fingers, then with his kiss, and then with his body moving with disciplined focus into mine, he does get those three little words out of me. He makes me say them, swear them, makes me beg him to believe them. When he guides me over him, I say them again through a smile, staring down at the unmasked adoration on his face. And I scream them into the pillow when he fucks me hard from behind. I promise him I truly do when he rolls me onto my back again and pushes slowly into me, his arms caged protectively around my head.

Sweaty and tangled in the sheets, we tumble in a thump from the bed to the floor, where he braces over me, reaching between us to find his way back deep into me and slowing down to the smallest movements, his lips resting over mine, sharing my breath. My hands are woven in his hair; it’s damp from exertion, and he kisses me so deep, groaning quietly at how good it feels. Alec’s palm slides down my side, fingertips teasing along my hip, cupping my thigh, and bringing my leg higher around his waist.

“Do you love me when I’m deep like this?” he asks me.

I whisper into his mouth that I do, more than anything. Tight and urgent, I’m so close already, impossibly, with the promise of an unbelievable weight rolling down my spine, ready to obliterate.

“I think I’m starting to believe you.” Sweat beads his top lip as he stares down between our bodies. I’m desperate for the salt of his skin, the wet, messy slide of his kiss when he’s on the verge of falling to pieces.

Out in the apartment, we hear the front door open and close, and the sound of Eden dropping her purse and keys on the hall table. That means it’s after two in the morning; we’ve been kissing, playing, making love for hours. Alec stares down at me, cupping a hand over my mouth, and only now that I can’t make a sound does he give me what I want: the fast snaps of his hips until my pleasure sears through me one last time, sending my fingernails sinking into his back. He arches away, face tilted up as he bites a white streak into his lower lip, coming with a quiet groan.

We stay like this, catching our breath as Alec stares down at me.

“You okay?” he asks, shifting so he can reach up, move some sweat-slicked hair out of my eyes.

I nod, cupping his neck.

“Let’s get you up.” He kicks away the sheets wrapped around his legs, and I groan, already sore. Alec wordlessly helps me up onto the mattress, where I collapse, and he follows, turning me and tucking me into him with my back all along his front. With his hand on my breast and his breath on the back of my neck, we crash together into sleep.



* * *



Morning sneaks in through the small cracks in my curtains. I’m pressed into the solid comfort of Alec’s chest, and pull away, gazing up at his sleeping face. Squinting, I roll over and reach for the phone on my nightstand. It’s just after six.

My article will be up.

When I bolt upright, Alec stirs, sending a drowsy hand up my spine. “What is it?”

“The article went live at nine Eastern. Seven minutes ago.”

He pushes up onto an elbow, leaning his sleepy face on my arm. We watch it load, and my heart scales my windpipe. There are already hundreds of comments. Silently, we read my story together. And then again.

When we’re done, Alec whispers a quiet, “I mean… this is perfect.”

He takes my phone and lies back down to read the story a third time.