“Thanks.” I slide a thumb under the elastic at the waist, snap it. “Yael got them for me.”
He coughs out a laugh, eyes bolting to my face. “You’re going to give her credit?”
“She picked them out.”
“They were my idea.”
This reminds me, and I hold up an index finger. “I have an important question for you.”
His attention has drifted to my breasts. “My answer is yes.”
“You have my red dress, don’t you?”
He nods, distractedly. “Stole it. Never planned to return it.”
Laughing, I reach for his hand, placing it on my hip and guiding it up my body, over my breast. My smile fades as longing spreads like steam through my veins. His fingers immediately mold to the curve, his eyes falling closed. Back and forth his thumb strokes across the peak. I need his pinch, his tongue and teeth. Arching, I press into his hand.
He swallows before speaking. “I really thought this weekend—this morning—that I might never touch you again.”
When he opens his eyes, I’m already watching him, and the way his expression clears at the eye contact is so pure, his expression so ardent, I feel myself falling deeper into love as if it’s a physical movement. It isn’t just a feeling of passion and tenderness and admiration; it’s feeling like the Gigi in love with Alec exists in an entirely new plane.
Alec slides his hand up my neck and steps to me.
My heart drops in my chest when his mouth touches mine again. A single kiss and then another, and the patience he takes seducing me with his lips tells me he knows we have a world of time to devour.
But, as usual, my body doesn’t care.
I send both hands into his hair, coming right up against him. The pressed fabric of his dress shirt provides maddening friction against my skin. A cool button presses into my breast. Once again, I am almost naked, and he is fully dressed.
His tongue feels like sex in my mouth, tiny flicks and tastes, teeth dragging against my lips, tugging. I would tease him like this if I could, but I can only chase. I’m forever the frantic greed to his focused patience.
“Are you going to tease me for hours?” I ask, urging him with me toward the bed.
“I’m sure going to try.”
At these words we both go still, eyes meeting as the painful echo rings between us. With his hands on my hips, he walks me the last few steps to the bed, coaxing me down, coming over me. The fabric of his dress pants is soft against my thighs, but he holds his hips away, hovering carefully above me.
“I’m not proud of how I acted on Friday,” he says.
“I just didn’t know what to do,” I tell him. “I wanted to apologize, to fix it, to be there for you, but you gave me absolutely no way in.”
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.