When the group broke for lunch, I noted the way Niall hesitated to leave. He’d have to face me now—now that I’d listened to his hit single—without the safety net of twenty feet, a wall of glass, and fifteen engineers and transit authority workers between us. He was nervous, and fuck if it wasn’t the most endearing thing I’d ever seen.
Unable to put it off any longer, he gathered his things and stepped out.
“Hungry?” he asked.
“Starving,” I told him, wondering if—hoping—he got the implication of my words.
Judging by the way he reached up and began to fidget with the knot in his tie, I was guessing he did.
I tilted my head toward the hallway. “Walk with me?”
I led us out of the office and down a slowly emptying hall. A man from the meeting stopped us on our way.
“There’s lunch on the floor above us. It’s National Taco Day or something, if you’re hungry. Should be . . . interesting.”
Well, the most interesting thing this guy was going to have happen today, anyway.
“We need to touch base with the London office,” Niall said smoothly. “But we’ll be up as soon as possible.”
And I had to admit, I was impressed.
With a nod, the intruder was off and we continued on, down one hall and then another, until the sounds of voices were just a hum in the opposite direction.
“We’re calling London, are we?” I asked.
“Not exactly.” He glanced over at me, smiling. “I assume you’re taking me somewhere quiet to talk?”
“Talk?” I said with a little smile.
He pursed his amazing lips. “Perhaps.”
“Speaking of ‘talking,’ here are your notes,” I said, handing him the notebook.
“Ah. Thank you.”
A dark room stood at the end of the hall, and I led him inside, closing the door behind us. Then, leaning back against the cool wood, I said, “Your messages were very . . . engrossing.”
“Engrossing, you say?” He took a step closer.
“They affected me,” I said through a giggle. “Deeply.”
Tilting his head and wearing a smile that tilted half of his mouth deliciously, he murmured, “How so?”
I moved to answer, to give him something playful and coy, but when our eyes met, every coherent thought left my brain. My heart started beating so hard with the sudden, surreal understanding that this wasn’t a fantasy, this wasn’t just flirtation. I wasn’t sitting in the middle of a Thursday meeting imagining all of this.
We’d blazed past so many Niall Stella Moments that I’d stopped keeping track.
The Number of Times Niall Stella . . . Touched My Calf, Tucked My Hair Behind My Ear, Looked Me in the Eye and Asked If I Came.
Told Me He Wanted Me to Swallow His Come.
Recorded Himself Masturbating to Share with Me.
Was About to Kiss Me.
This was a thing. We were a thing.
“Answer me.”
I lost the ability to play for the moment, ducking my head. “I ache.”
“Tell me.” His voice was somehow both commanding and gentle as he bent, kissing my neck. “When you ache, what does that mean?”
He knew. He had to know. He wanted me to say the words. “It means I’m wet.”
He inhaled sharply through his nose, running it up my neck and along my jaw. “Bloody hell, Ruby, will you look up and kiss me?”
I tilted my head, completely out of breath and heart crashing around the cage of my lungs. The smell of his cologne permeated the darkness and I felt almost drunk on him, on his nearness and the realization that I was actually going to touch him. Kiss him. And he would kiss me back.
He bent to meet me, lips parted with a shaking exhale. He’d been expecting a small kiss, a quiet slide of his lips over mine. I could tell because I knew him better than maybe I should at that point, but also because of the careful way he bent to me and the gentle brace of his hands on my waist.
But I couldn’t do small and quiet. I’d wanted this for too long. The relief—the awareness of him, his scent and the warm Stella skin—clawed up my spine, jolting through my arms, and I pulled him down into me. I gave him anything but small and quiet. My lips slid over his, pulling his bottom lip in between and he huffed a little breath against me, groaning.
I wanted to swallow it up, wanted to consume his sounds and keep them inside me so I could save them for later and listen to them on a loop, again and again.
His mouth was unreal: firm lips and that perfect man combination of soft and hard, giving and commanding. My world was spinning. I dug my hands into his hair, pressed my breasts into that solid wall of his chest, and let loose the most ridiculous sound of relief and need I’d ever made.
He groaned louder now, surprise and thrill making his hands grip me reflexively before sliding around my back and clutching me close.
Close enough I was bent backward as he curled over me, his lips parting only enough to let loose another deep sound as his tongue slid into my mouth, tasting me.
Close enough that I was positive he felt my heart hammering through my chest.
Close enough for me to feel him growing hard, longer, pressing into my stomach.
I was so wildly, deliriously hungry for him, for this, that I let out tiny gasps, a tight moan at the feel of his tongue sliding over mine. I barely had time to process what I was saying before “Niall. Please,” escaped.
“Please what?” He slid his lips to my ear, kissing, exhaling in a shaking gust of air. “Anything.”
“Just . . . kiss me.”
I felt his small laugh. “I believe I was kissing you.”
“Then touch me. Something. I feel . . .”
“Show me,” he whispered against my mouth. “Show me where you ache.”
I couldn’t stop the small whimper that escaped my throat, and I pulled back, just enough to meet his eyes.
Turning my hand so that our palms touched, I twisted my fingers with his, bringing them up to place a single kiss on the back of his hand. His gaze flickered from my eyes to my mouth, and back again, before he nodded, slowly. Hands still entwined, I brought them between us and down until together they slipped beneath the hem of my skirt.
“Yes,” he groaned, feeling bare skin as we moved up together, finally brushing the damp fabric of my panties. I took a step back, and then another, bringing him with me until my back was pressed against the door.
He followed my lead, fingertips slipping beneath the lace to skim along my skin, slick from wanting him.
“Already,” he gasped moving back and forth so easily.
I nodded but couldn’t form even a single word in response. I wanted him so much it hurt, and now he was touching me, finally, his long index finger smoothing along my bare flesh to slip over and between, finally to where I wanted him most of all.
Right there,
Oh, God, there,
Oh, it’s so good.
I gave him every thought before I was even conscious of it.
He traced the same path again, along my entrance and back up to my clit with a surprisingly competent touch for someone who wasn’t even sure whether the woman he’d spent over a decade with had enjoyed the nights they shared together. His lips moved from the corner of my mouth to my jaw and then up, finally tracking the shell of my ear.
“This is what I’ve wanted,” he whispered. “What I think about. What I thought about last night. I thought about your soft tongue, how you would feel just here. What it would feel like to slip into your body, your mouth. I think about it nearly to the point of obsession.”
I pushed back into the door, wanting to escape the increasing urgency of his touch, or needing the support it offered me, I wasn’t sure. I only knew that I was lost, only a breath away from falling apart so completely he might never be able to put me back together.
“Inside,” I whispered, voice breaking. “Want to come with you inside me.”
“When you speak this way . . .” he said, but did as I asked. He pushed one finger into me, and then two, pumping deeply. “Bloody hell . . .”
Sensation built, making my legs weak and my kisses distracted and wet all over his lips, his chin. My desperate sounds carried only so far as his mouth before he consumed them. His thumb circled, firm and sure, as fingers slid in and out. I could swear he was pushing deeper with every stroke, reaching something inside me that was wild and untouched.
And then, the feeling built until it was spilling over and I came, my body arching into his hand. His mouth found mine again, and he whispered things I only barely understood.
“Give me your sounds,” he said. “Let me keep them to think about tonight.”
But we had all night together, I remembered. No meetings and no dinners planned with anyone from the conference. Nobody that would interrupt us. I wondered if he knew that, too. Maybe doing this here was easier, with the distant sounds of office life coming from the other rooms around us, reminding us both that we couldn’t take it too far. Maybe—
“I can’t believe I’m the one saying this,” he said, rubbing his nose along mine, “but stop thinking.”
“Just . . . wow,” I said, wanting to slip like warm honey down to the floor. Regretfully, he pulled his hand from my skirt and wrapped his arms around me, keeping me upright.
“?‘Wow’ is good. I’ll take ‘wow.’?”
“We should do that again,” I said, feeling my stupid grin.
“Just seeing how quickly you fell apart in my arms . . .”
“No kidding.”
He glanced at the door, his expression falling the smallest bit. “But we’ve been gone for some time; we should join the others.”
“You—” I started, eyes flickering down to his cock.
He was still hard—impressively so—but he stilled my hand when I reached for his belt. “Quite used to it by now, I can assure you.”
I frowned. “But I can—”
As if on cue, a voice called out from the other end of the hall. Time was up.
For now, I thought. We had an entire night, and I planned on enjoying every second of it.