I pulled myself up with dark eyes on him, catching my breath.
“Am I okay?” I crossed my arms over my battered dress and used the stall to keep my shaking body upright. “What about any of this is okay?” I asked.
His eyes moved away from mine, focusing on his shifting feet.
“We were never good at timing,” he said quietly.
I paused for a second, almost insulted by the truth.
“You’re impatient, and I’m too patient—is that what you mean?” I finally said.
Garrett stared at me wordlessly, and then lowered his focus to his unbuttoned shirt. I watched his fingers, fingers which had just been inside me, stitch up our crime.
“You know that night—the night of my twenty-fourth birthday?” I asked.
I waited for his eyes to come back to me. They did, warily.
“When we almost kissed after karaoke?” I continued. His hands froze on the loose tie around his neck. “I was dating someone else at the time, which is why I didn’t kiss you back. I broke up with him right after you left.” I twisted my dress in my hands, the memory pounding at my chest. “Later that night, I showed up at your door to finish what you started, and Quinn answered the buzzer.”
His eyes were soft on me, his body still.
“I think about it too much,” I said, my voice getting smaller, tears forming. “About how if you had believed in the possibility of us, the way I did, that we’d probably be…” I trailed off, unable to finish the sentence. I didn’t need to finish it. He knew.
We stared at each other until the silent tears were down my chest. His fingers were still on his tie, and I shook my head in pain, walked past him with my shoes in my hands and my heart on the floor. I had waited twelve years for Garrett Scholl to come around. Our moment had passed, like so many times before.
32
TWENTY-NINE
“FUCK.”
Breathless, I stared into my shallow purse, then back at my locked door. In borrowing a bag from Summer tonight, I had failed to transfer my apartment keys to this purse—which was problematic, considering the guy I had lusted after for six years was standing at my doorstep, his body throbbing behind me, ready to fuck me into the next morning.
I turned around to look at Garrett, apologetically gritting my teeth in a straight line. My lips parted, taking him in. His shirt was hanging off his sweaty body, his blond hair an adorable mess from the way I messed it up in the cab.
He tugged me close to him and hungrily kissed my mouth, then my neck. I arched my chin to the ceiling in a moan.
“We can go to mine,” he whispered against my ear.
My lips came up to his mouth, with my hand gripped on his belt loop, his hard dick throbbing against my thigh, his face flushed. My breathing quickened. I needed his lips back on mine, but not here.
I stared at him, breathless.
“Kick my door in.”
It was absolutely the sexiest thing I’d ever said to a man.
He stared wide-eyed at the door, then back at me.
“Are you sure?”
I was sure. I wanted him to ruin my apartment’s front door. I wanted him to ruin me—in the best fucking way possible.
“Kick my door in,” I repeated, hungrily against his lips.
Garrett closed his eyes as my hand ran up his leg, tightening over the bulge in his jeans. He tilted his chin to the ceiling, sucked in air, then backed up from my body and adjusted his pants. I stood a few inches behind his strong build, my body trembling as his wingtip shoe met my door’s handle. The wood splintered at the lock, sending my front door wide open.
Garrett turned to me with a devilish grin, and before I could undress him right there in the doorway, he tugged my mouth back onto his, and spun us both through the open door—as if we were one.
I lifted my arms as he pulled the shirt off my body, leaving me topless in front of him. His shirt came off in a fever, and he held me against his body, so my breasts met his chest.
We stood still for a moment, two hearts racing as Garrett traced long lines with his eyes and his hands up and down the naked sides of my ribs.
I moved back, and with eyes wide on him, I stepped out of my heels and took off my jeans, now only in a pair of underwear.
His eyes didn’t leave mine as he reached back to wedge the door shut. He stared, unblinking, taking in every side of me, with just the light of the city beaming through the window, yellow hues against my sweltering skin.
“You’re ridiculously beautiful,” he exhaled.
I kept my eyes on his as I unbuttoned his jeans. He stepped out of his pants and his briefs, setting himself free, and in one motion, he pulled me toward him.
I kissed the curve of his neck, musk and vanilla, and I let my hand move down his abs, until I had his hard dick in my grip. His breathing thickened as my hand slid back and forth, sending his eyes to the ceiling. Garrett pulled back slightly, my hand still on him as he kissed my naked shoulder. His lips made a trail down my body, taking one breast at a time full in his mouth, my eyes going to the ceiling, his tongue down my rib cage, sending my hands off his body. The heat of his mouth hovered above my lace underwear, the tips of his fingers moving up and down my inner thigh, my legs shaking. Heat engulfed my chest, as his mouth tugged my wet underwear to the floor. I clenched my hands in his hair as his tongue went inside me, my grip squeezing tighter and tighter. His tongue and his touch weakened my legs until my vision was blurry and my trembling body turned white hot. I arched my head back in a loud moan, my body writhing.
He came back up toward me and pulled my trembling frame against him, our mouths fighting for air against each other as he lifted me onto the bed with ease—his perfect, naked body on mine.
Garrett hovered over me, hands on either side of my face, his blue eyes scanning my body the way I always dreamed they would. He encircled the small tattoo on my rib cage—a full black-and-gray moon.
“You have a tattoo,” he marveled.
I smiled. “It’s like…maybe the only thing you don’t know about me,” I said.
His smile faded, face stiffening, as if remembering that he knew everything about me. Everything but this. He tucked a strand of hair back from my face, keeping one hand on my cheek.
“Maggie, I’m leaving for nine months.”
“I know…” My voice quivered in confusion, wondering where this was going.
“I’ve thought about this, about us—so many times. But I did long distance right after college and it went very poorly.…I don’t want to do that to us.” He closed his mouth, gaze on me.
I knew where he was going, but I couldn’t go there, not right now. I’d overthought us five years ago, when our lips almost touched, and that moment punched me in the loneliest hours of the night, or every time he smiled at me the right way. My default was to overthink every scenario, but I couldn’t live with the regret of not moving forward because of fear that it wouldn’t last.
“Do you want this, right now?” I asked.
His body was swelling hard against mine, fingers tracing a circle around my hip bone.
“More than you know,” he whispered, his voice cracking under the admission.
My heart raced as I took my hand and wrapped it around him, showing him that I was right there with him. I wanted this. I wanted him. Garrett’s eyes closed at my touch, and his breathing quickened.