At the last word, my heart seizes in my chest and I can feel the blood leaching from underneath my skin, every last drop on a raging course south. My voice comes out hoarse when I say, “Jesus fuck.”
She raises a fine brow and puts down her glass. Having pity on me, she nudges mine toward me. “Take a big sip. The Pinot is delicious and especially fortifying tonight.”
I reach for it. “I think I’d rather have the absinthe.”
“Get ahold of yourself, Huck. This isn’t the time for being shy. You regularly write about oral sex on a public forum.”
I choke on my sip and Lorelai flushes prettily, her lips pursed. “Are you gonna deny it?”
I chug the entire glass, which in turn burns my entire esophagus, but desperate times and all. “How long have you known?”
“That you have an anonymous erotic poetry account on Instagram or that you’re writing about me?”
I clear my throat and retrieve the bottle, refilling both our glasses. “Both,” I rasp.
“I’ve known about the account for months. I’ve followed it for longer, but I didn’t know it was you until I accidentally saw your phone notifications that one time we were ordering from Sweet Tomato. As far as knowing you were writing about me … I didn’t. Until now, anyway. I guessed. Or hoped rather, after the sunflower poem.”
I wrote the night after she made me pull over at a field of sunflowers and we wandered in between the rows. She was tipsy and I was feeling especially poetic.
So she knows. She … knows.
“And then the champagne poems from the other night … after I posted from the wedding.”
I spread my hands on the countertop, dropping my head and taking a deep breath.
“Still need the absinthe?” she asks quietly, and I recognize the offer for what it is. A chance to pretend this conversation never happened.
I shake my head, still reeling, but not a complete idiot. I know what she’s asking for. I can recognize the come-on for what it is. Of course she wants Old Huck. The good-time guy. The no-strings-attached fuck.
That’s what sexts are for, after all. Even ones set to music and sung in the loveliest voice. Not once did she mention love or feelings or taking our relationship to the next level. Which, okay, neither have I. My poetry has been purely physical. About her, but not. About us, but not.
Because the one thing Old Huck and New Craig have in common is an ironclad sense of self-preservation.
Find an acceptable baseline, Boseman.
I decide to be honest. This is new territory for me. “I don’t know where to go from here, though.”
Lorelai drops down from her chair and pads on bare feet around the island to stand in front of me. Just as close as she was the other night on the corner when we nearly …
She raises her eyes to mine and her mouth follows. Her lips a millimeter away from my own, her wine-soaked breath making my mouth water. She trails her fingers along the back of my hand, still on the countertop, grounding me; up my tense forearm, over my shoulder, and around my neck.
“You could start by kissing me.”
Without conscious thought, I’m reaching for her hips, my fingers eager, dragging her close. I swallow hard. “Okay.” My voice comes out sounding like it’s been dragged across sandpaper.
“Thank god.”
The words have barely passed her lips before I let it all go, diving down to capture her mouth, my fingers carding in her hair, and tilting her face so I can consume her. Her lips fall open with a surprised gasp and I finally get my first taste of her.
Hell. She’s better than I remembered.
I taste over and over, my greedy tongue tangling with hers, hers curling against mine. A hungry moan escapes the back of her throat and I swallow it, with a quiet growl. I drop one hand to the small of her back, pressing her against me, and she hooks one of those mile-long legs around my hip, bucking slowly, tantalizingly, and I don’t think I’ve ever been so hard in my life. I have handfuls of her shirt, dress, whatever, in my fists, and her soft panting in my ears. She pulls back to place hot wet open-mouthed kisses from my ear to my collarbone, and I can already tell it’s been too long for me and I don’t have an ice cube’s chance in hell of lasting tonight.
After waiting for this woman for so long, I refuse to let that happen. I quickly spin us around and press her back against the island, tugging her mouth to mine and stroking a long, teasing finger back and forth against her center before taking a step back with a smirk, my dick fighting a losing battle against my zipper. Lorelai whimpers softly in protest at the loss of contact, her dark eyes flashing open before I drop to my knees and slip a hand up her dress.
14
LORELAI
ACTING UP
He drops to his knees in front of me and I nearly pass out.
It’s happening. Thank fuck, it’s finally, finally happening.
I thought I was ready, but then he brushes ever so softly against my center with the knuckle of his thumb, gripping my trembling thigh between his palms and bowing his head like he’s giving a benediction.
I thought I was ready, but then he slips my damp underwear down my legs, inch by inch, covering the blazing trail left behind with his cool, wine-rich mouth.
I thought I was ready, but then he glances up at me, his blue eyes dark with lust, and in a low rumble tells me to keep my hands on the counter.
I thought I was ready, but then he lifts my leg, nibbling playfully at the inside of my knee before draping it over his shoulder, offering me up before him.
I thought I was ready, but then he spreads me apart with his talented fingers before deliberately pressing his hot tongue against me, tender and coaxing, savoring me into near incoherence.
I thought I was ready, but then his tongue curls and circles, relentless and almost rude in its insistence to make me come. He’s devouring me, his talented fingers playing all the right chords until I drop over the edge, wildly bucking against his mouth. Until I cry out his name, clenching again and again, and sing my own incoherent benediction to the rafters. Until I find my feet, stunned, sated, and irrevocably changed.
Until I let go of the counter and run my fingers through his hair, collapsing to my own knees there on the kitchen floor in front of him, still trembling with the aftershocks of what I’ve just experienced.
What he’s done to me.
I wrap myself around him and he holds me close as a second skin. We share breaths. We share heartbeats.
I come back to my senses when I realize I can feel him hard as steel beneath me and pull away, reaching for his belt buckle, eager to return the favor, but he stops me, his hand covering mine.
“You don’t have to…”
“But I want to.”
He’s completely still. So quiet that I can literally feel him withdrawing and the space between us grows suffocatingly thick with something unrecognizable. Craig gets to his feet and offers his hands to help me to mine. He’s careful and attentive and something is very, very wrong because I’m still tingling from my orgasm and his face is a mask of politeness.
“Why don’t you…”
He shakes his head. “We’ve done enough tonight.”
My face burns white hot. “But I don’t understand. Is something wrong? Did I do something wr—”
“No!” he assures me, but his expression is still weird. Like him, but also not at all. “No,” he repeats, quieter. “Nothing is wrong. I just … you know. That was a lot. For one night. And all those things we talked about before … and just.” He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing and his bare cheeks flushed. “Nothing is wrong. I loved doing that for you. I…” He smiles, finally, and it looks more real this time. “I’ve wanted to do that forever. It’s late…”—he gestures to the food left scattered and cold on the counter—“and we didn’t even eat dinner.”