“Hannah is—”
“Not my problem. Nor is she yours. I really don’t want to spend right now talking about them; we’ve done that. I want to talk about you and me, and this thing between us.” I took a step forward.
She took a step back until her back was against her door.
“Tell me, Guinevere. Am I crossing a line? Am I the only one going down this road?”
“We will hurt each other, Eli. This is just going to be a rebound—”
“I'd rather get hurt a dozen times, remember? Or was that just talk?”
“Eli—”
“I’ll ask again, Guinevere: am I mistaken? Am I the only one who feels something here?”
She looked to the side and shook her head.
“You have to say it.” I needed to hear the words.
She licked her lips, took a deep breath, and looked me square in the eye. “No. Happy? I’ve been trying to tell myself we are just friends, but I keep…I keep hoping to see you, and talk to you, and be around you…you are slowly taking up all the space in my head, and I—”
I kissed her. Not like the peck on the lips I’d given her at the university; I kissed her like I meant it. Her mouth was soft against my own and opened slightly for me when I licked the bottom of her lip. I held onto her waist and pressed her up against the door, her hands went up into my hair, pulling me closer.
I felt my fingers crawling up the length of her, cupping one of her breasts.
Shit. I didn’t want us to start like that. I forced us apart.
“What?” she said.
We both took deep breaths, though neither of us had moved, our bodies still pressed together.
“This is what I do when I just want to screw a woman, Guinevere. I said I wanted to see where this is going with you, and a one-night stand is not where I want it to go, so we need to stop.”
“Okay.” She nodded, pushing me away.
But I didn’t like that either, leaning in and kissing her again. She bit my bottom lip and I moaned into her, her tongue in my mouth, tempting me more.
“Fuck. No,” I said again, taking a step back. “You weren’t supposed to be this good.”
She laughed. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.” She just had this innocence about her; the fact that she was so passionate already was throwing me for a loop.
“So let's call it a night?” she said to me.
I found myself staring at all her curves but, biting my lip, I nodded.
“Okay then. See you tomorrow?” She opened her door.
“Wait.”
“Eli! You’re killing me here.”
Good to know.
“I just wanted to say, knowing you, tomorrow you're going to want to get all dressed up again to make a good impression…but don’t, okay? Let’s not put on a false fa?ade that we are anything other than who we were two days ago.”
She frowned. “You only confessed when I got all glammed up—”
“I confessed because after Hannah spoke to me, I realized I didn’t want you beside any other man. I’m a tad bit possessive like that.”
“Don’t worry, I will whip that right out of you.”
“We’re on to whips now?” I couldn't stop myself.
She laughed, shaking her head at me. “Goodnight, Dr. Davenport.”
“Goodnight, Ms. Poe.”
She closed the door slowly, never breaking eye contact with me until it finally shut.
“Oh, shit,” I whispered to myself, hurrying into my apartment. My hard-on for her was killing me slowly. Pulling off my clothes, I couldn’t help but wonder how we were going to be now that we had crossed this line.
I was a little too excited.
Guinevere
“What just happened?” I asked Taigi, sliding down to sit right in front of my door. One of my hands went to my lips and the other to my chest, where my heart was trying to escape.
I hadn’t just kissed Eli. I had made out with him to the point where I wanted to do so much more. He tasted like vanilla ice cream: sweet and chilly.
“What am I doing, Taigi?” I whispered, running my hands through his fur. His tongue dropped out of his mouth. “If we do this, we are going to complicate everything. Right? It won’t just be us hanging out, it will be dates, and…sex.”
It was all supposed to be negative, yet the more I spoke, the more I wanted all of it. Even now I shivered, just thinking about how his hands had gripped me, how strong they were. How strong and hard all of him felt against me…
Stop it. I’m not going to think about it until tomorrow. We weren’t officially starting until then, right? Did our relationship have an official date?
I was going to give myself a headache. Stop thinking about it.
Yet even after I had showered and changed, I couldn’t let it go. Sitting on my bed, I rested against the wall, grabbing my book from the floor beside me.
Is he asleep? This is useless! I wasn’t going to be able to get any rest, and it was his fault!