She got a glass of water and sat down on the couch, her laptop in front of her. Was that a knock at her door? Sydney had texted that she might drop by with the sweater Margot had left at the restaurant the other night; it must be her. She was the only person who dropped by Margot’s house, anyway. Margot had assumed she was at the restaurant by now, but maybe she’d had time to come by with a snack from Charlie—who Sydney was convinced had a crush on her—or some hot gossip she wanted to share in person.
Margot should be mad at the interruption; she’d wanted to get this work done all day. But right now, her heart wasn’t in it.
She opened her front door, and then stopped.
“Luke.”
He was leaning against the side of the porch. It was dusk, and the porch light wasn’t on yet, so she could barely see the uncertain look on his face.
“Hi, Margot,” he said.
At first she just stared at him.
“Um. Do you want to come in?”
He nodded, and she opened the door wider. So many questions jumbled around her mind, flew through her head, it felt like they were thought bubbles above her head, racing around and disappearing and reappearing at breakneck speed. She knew she should make them stop, take a breath, think, ask him, ask herself some of those questions.
But she didn’t.
As soon as the door closed behind him, she reached for him. And then she kissed him. She kissed him how she’d wanted to kiss him in the car the week before, how she’d wanted to kiss him every day for the last month. Her lips on his, her body pressed against him; her desire for him, her sheer want for him, no longer hidden, but there for him to see, to feel, to taste.
He kissed her back immediately, at first with a sigh of relief that made her smile, then with determination. His hands moved slowly, possessively up her body, first skimming over her breasts, her waist, then gripping her hips and pulling her closer to him. She could feel the imprint of his fingers on her skin, through the thin silk of her robe. She held on to him tighter.
Finally, they broke apart, gasping for air, and she rested her head on his chest. After a moment, she looked up at him.
“Do you know what?” she asked him.
He smiled down at her and traced her eyebrows with his finger.
“What?”
“You don’t work for me anymore.”
His smile got wider.
“No,” he said. “I don’t.”
And then he kissed her again, kissed her like he’d dreamed of this, or maybe she just thought that because she had. It felt like coming home, with his hands on her and his body against hers and that way he sucked her bottom lip, just the way she’d thought of and fantasized about for weeks.
Eventually, they stumbled to her couch and sat down. He took her hand and played with her fingers.
“I hated the way I had to leave today,” he said. “With you and Elliot both there, I mean. I was glad that I could tell him directly, and that he didn’t seem to be pissed at me—”
“He’s not,” she interrupted. “He meant what he said.”
“Good,” he said. “But to be honest, I don’t give a fuck how Elliot felt about me leaving. I only care how you felt.”
She touched his cheek.
“I was . . . I didn’t . . . I wasn’t sure how to feel, actually. I didn’t know if you’d—”
He laughed, and pulled her closer.
“Are you kidding me? I have wanted you since the moment I first saw you, and then every single moment since, and you didn’t know what I was going to do as soon as I wasn’t working for you anymore?” He traced the neckline of her robe with his finger. “When you answered the door in this,” he said, “and you clearly weren’t expecting me, I was consumed with jealousy, you know. I thought you were expecting someone else.”
She laughed softly. That would have never occurred to her.
“That’s very flattering, but I haven’t thought about anyone but you since that night.” She kissed him softly. “I shouldn’t say that, I know, I should play it cool, pretend I haven’t been thinking of you, of that night, for so long. But I’m not good at that.”
He dropped light kisses along the neckline of her robe.
“That’s the biggest lie you’ve ever told, Margot Noble, because you’ve seemed excellent at it to me. Here I’ve been staring at you all day at work like a lovesick puppy, and you barely glanced my way.” He loosened the tie of her robe and pushed it off one shoulder. “I know you didn’t look at me, I was checking.”
She couldn’t believe she was really allowed to do this. Kiss him, like she was doing now. Slide her hands up and down his body. Breathe in his scent. Luxuriate in the way he looked at her, touched her, with his hands, his lips, his tongue.
“I had to pretend,” she said as his fingers circled her nipple. “But my God, I wanted you. I wanted this.”
He pushed her slowly back on the couch.
“I just need to look at you,” he said. “Then I’ll believe this is really happening.”
She should feel self-conscious, with all the lights on, as she lay here, half-naked—more than half, really—with him staring at her. But she didn’t feel that way at all. Maybe it was because they’d done this before, maybe it was because she felt so comfortable with him, but all she could do was glory in the way he looked at her. That look of pure need. He’d looked at her like that in her office the day they’d kissed. She’d almost thought she’d imagined it until now.
She reached for the bottom of his shirt and pulled it up over his head.
“Until that time in my office, I really wasn’t sure that you—”
“That I wanted you—that I want you—so much I could barely function?” He lowered himself on top of her, and she reveled in the feeling of his body on hers, his warm and smooth skin against hers, his breath on her chest, her cheek, her neck.
“Do you know what I thought about, later that night, after I kissed you in your office?” he said in her ear. “I heard your voice, over and over, saying you wanted me. I thought about how much I wanted you, what I wanted to do to you, what I wanted you to do to me.” He opened the robe all the way.
She reached for his belt.
“So did I.”
He looked at her, so intently, and smiled.
“What did you think about? What did you want me to do to you? Because, I promise, I am down for it all.”
She could feel how hard he already was. She wanted him inside her right now, but she also wanted this moment to last forever.
She took his hand from where it rested on her shoulder.
“I thought about you touching me here.” She moved his hand to her breast. “You came so close, in my office that day, and I wanted it so much.”
He squeezed her already-hard nipple between his finger and thumb.
“You stopped me,” he said.
“I know,” she said. “But I didn’t want to.”
He leaned down and sucked her nipple in between his lips. She closed her eyes, and let her head fall back against the arm of the couch.
“God, I love when you do that,” she said.
She could feel him smile against her skin.
“I can tell. I love that I can tell.” One of his hands was at her waist, and she covered it with her own.
“Do you want to know what else I thought about?” she asked him.
He lifted his head to look at her.
“Absolutely I do.”
Had anyone ever been this laser focused on her? Not that she could remember.
She slid his hand down.
“I thought about you touching me here,” she said, moving his fingers between her legs. He dipped one finger inside of her, and she watched his smile widen.
“Were you this wet, when you thought about that?” She moved her hand out of the way as he pushed her knees wider.
She shook her head.
“Not until I thought about how much I wanted you to put your tongue there.”
Now his grin was very wide.
“Have I ever told you that I like the way you think?”
She shook her head. She couldn’t believe she’d waited so long for this.
“You haven’t, as a matter of fact.” She ran her fingers up and down his arms. She couldn’t stop touching him. Maybe, eventually, she’d believe this wasn’t one of her fantasies.
“Well.” He slid onto the floor and swung her legs wide. “I like everything about you.”
She looked down at him as he pressed kisses from her knee all the way up her thigh. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen anything so arousing. When he was almost there, almost where she wanted him, he moved to the other side, with a little smile on his face. She reached down and played with his hair, so springy under her fingers. He moved slowly, teasing her a little. It was agonizing. She loved it.
Finally, oh God, finally, his tongue slid inside of her, and she let her eyes flutter closed. She’d wondered if she’d just made up how good he was at this, built it up in her mind, because she had to see him almost every day, because she’d wanted him so much. She’d wondered if maybe she’d pretended to herself that he—that this—was more than what it actually was.
But somehow, it was even better. As she gripped his hair, as he kissed and licked and squeezed and sucked, as she sighed and gasped and opened her legs wider and wider, it felt so good that it felt almost impossible, that nothing in the world could ever feel this good. And then he moved, just in the right way, and her fingernails dug into his shoulder, and he kept doing that, just the way she liked it, faster and faster, and she came so hard she almost forgot to breathe.
When she opened her eyes, he was sitting up on the couch again, with her legs draped over him, smiling at her.