Porter’s lips were near my neck, nibbling as he followed the curve of my throat to my shoulder. “We are talking, Mon Coeur.”
I leaned back. “No. Porter. About us.” I bit my lip, trying not to scream as my clit was responding to his touch. I had to focus. “Seriously…”
Porter groaned, removing his lips and tongue as they left their slick imprint on my skin. He leaned back on his knees, reluctantly removing his hands. “Okay. What about us, Ari?”
I looked up into Porter’s eyes, which were soft mint and sweet, like pistachio ice cream. “Porter, you know I like you, right?”
Porter wasn’t sure if he should smile or frown. So, his face did something in between. “Okay? I’m pretty sure I know that.”
“And I want to keep liking you…”
Porter narrowed his eyes. “Ari, what is this about?”
I chewed my bottom lip. “We can’t be a thing, Porter. I don’t care how bomb the sex was…”
Porter smirked. “So, the sex was good, eh?”
I playfully pinched his nipple and he laughed. “I’m serious. Porter, we can’t.”
“And I told you I’d never hurt you. This is not that. I’m not him. I’m Porter. Porter Etienne Harrison, Junior.”
“Your middle name is Etienne?”
“Yep.”
“That’s kind of…bourgeois. Maybe a touch pretentious.”
“Uhm. That’s rude. It’s a family name. And you’re getting off topic, Ari.”
I took a deep breath and rubbed my temples. Porter reached for my hands, placing them inside his large, warm palms. He was right about one thing; he certainly wasn’t Maurice. Maurice had never been this damn good in bed. Or this considerate of my feelings. Or orgasms.
“Porter, you’re amazing,” I blurted out.
“As are you, Ari.” Porter leaned closer to me, placing a chaste kiss on my forehead. “I’ll take your lead. No pressure.”
“No pressure?”
“No pressure.”
I traced my tongue against my teeth. “No expectations?”
Porter nodded. “No expectations.”
I turned and looked at Porter. “Just sex. No…relationship?”
Porter looked at me, puzzled. “Is that what you want? Ari, I don’t want you to feel like I’d be sexing you, and only sexing you, in secret. Didn’t you say Maurice…”
I cut him off. “You’re not like Maurice.”
“Right, but…”
“We can’t be together.”
We sat in silence. I pulled the sheets off my body and stepped onto the floor. Before I could get out the bed, Porter grabbed my arm.
“Ari?”
“Yeah?”
“I care about you. Last night wasn’t a mistake. It wasn’t us just being horny and blowing off steam. You know this, right?”
“I know that, Porter.” I more than knew that. Last night differed from anything I’d experienced. But for the sake of everything, we couldn’t be anything more.
“So, is this what you want?” Porter asked, his voice heavy with dejection. “What you truly want?”
I nodded. “It’s what we have to do, Porter.” I sat on the edge of the bed, my feet dangling as I thought about it.
Porter turned my chin toward his face, a small smirk forming at the corners of his lips. “Fine, but I was in the middle of starting something. And I’d hate to leave a job half-finished.”
I looked over my shoulder at Porter and smiled. “Well, if you insist, you have five minutes.”
Porter pulled me into the bed, pillows tumbling to the floor. I laughed as he whispered into my ear, his teeth tugging at my earlobe.
“Make that twenty.”
Chapter Eighteen
Porter
Twenty minutes turned into an hour. Every morning and a few afternoons. For a month straight.
We hustled upstairs to make the last of the morning briefing. Given that everyone knew Ari drove a clunker of a car, they seemed to buy our excuse that Ari’s car had clunked out on her again and she needed a ride. Again. And ride she did…
After settling into my office, I searched for my tortoiseshell reading glasses. I’d tossed my dry contacts in the trash at Ari’s and was operating blind. Just as I was reviewing new drafts of a cross section of the stadium, there was a knock at the door. Ari stood at the door wearing the hell out of the form-fitting dark green dress and heels she picked out this morning. It took everything in me this morning not to unzip that dress and have my way with her again. The fact that I knew this woman intimately felt like my perfect little secret. A secret that now, was starting to make my dick hard as concrete. Porter, have you no shame?