I float on warmth, the pillows and duvet fluffed up high around me like a cocoon. The golden light of the pillar candles steals beneath my eyelids, blissfully pain-free.
I turn my head on the pillow, blearily opening my eyes. On my bedside table is the fuzzy outline of a mug of most likely cold tea. I have a vague memory of Wesley bringing some after I got out of the bath. I roll to my other side and stifle a gasp.
Wesley is here. On my bed. Lying on top of the covers. My heart beats tenderly that he stayed. But falling asleep together feels too much like something real couples do after a long day, content with the companionship. Surviving off more than just lust. An alarm bell rings somewhere deep inside of me but that panic is for later. The fullness of my bed is too good to worry about right now.
The blinds are drawn and no light creeps from underneath, giving me no idea if it’s early or late. The act of rolling over and checking my phone for the time seems too much, insurmountable. I just study Wesley instead.
His glasses are gone. His hair is a nest. Wesley always seems like a happy-go-lucky guy. But it’s only now that I see him asleep, his face totally calm, that I realize he holds a lot more tension and worry than I’m aware of when he’s awake. Sometimes it’s easy to forget he lost his mom just a few months ago.
Slowly, I creep closer to him, resting my head on his pillow, placing my arm on his T-shirt-clad chest. He doesn’t move. The cotton is soft and the heat from his body borders on burning. His chest rises and falls with slow, deep breaths. I let the covers fall from my leg and roll until my leg hooks over his waist.
He mumbles something that sounds like nuhhh. His body feels heavy, anchored to the bed.
Waking him seems selfish. He’s asleep, deeply so. I close my eyes but now I am too aware of the flickering of the candle on my dresser, the weight of my body pressed against his. I trail my palm up and down his arm.
I am still hyperaware of the heat of his skin, how the hair on his arm tickles my wrist. I kiss him through the fabric of his undershirt and he stirs, turning his head toward me, his hand landing on my thigh. My nipples are hard points where they brush against my silk pajama top. I’ve never felt like this before. Charged. Electrified by another person. And I don’t know how to trust my feelings. Do I feel this way because it’s a secret, forbidden? Or because it’s Wesley? When I’m with him I believe that everything will be okay, with my mom, with Richard, with us.
I rest my hand on the fly of his pants. His cock is already semi-hard and that sends a thrill down my spine and goose bumps along my arm. That no matter what I feel—wild, confused—I think he feels it all, too.
“Wesley.” I whisper his name into the skin of his neck. “Can I touch you? Will you touch me?”
He frowns with his eyes closed. “This isn’t a dream?”
I smile against his collarbone. “No.”
He rolls toward me, his hand finding the space between my legs like he was guided by a heat-seeking missile. His lips are warm against my throat. I pull his fly apart and his cock is in my hand, hard and hot.
“Thank you,” I say into his mouth.
He smiles against my lips. “I haven’t done anything yet.” He moves down my neck, sucking on skin until he pulls sounds that are halfway to embarrassing out of me.
“Thank you for coming here,” I clarify. “For staying.”
He buries his face in my chest but he doesn’t say anything else. He kisses me hard, rubs me harder, the only sounds in the room our harsh breathing, the wet sound of our hands moving over skin slick with sweat and want. I love the feeling of his cock in my hand. The fit, the heat, the power to make him moan.
We match each other stroke for stroke and I gasp as I come, hard and sudden, a quiet sound escaping my throat. His come coats my hand and thighs. I run my fingers through it.
He only moves far enough away to pull a few tissues from the box on the nightstand to wipe away the mess and when he rolls back he wraps his arm around me. We fall asleep drenched in each other.
“Wake up,” I hiss. I attempt to shake him awake but mostly I just move his shoulder around in the socket.
“Awake,” he mumbles into the pillow. I don’t believe him. His eyes are still closed and there’s a small puddle of drool on the pillow.
I shake him again.
“Awake,” he says, sharper, opening his eyes wide, blinking into the morning brightness to prove it.
“We overslept.” My tone is cool efficiency, while my insides squirm.
I’ll be late. He’ll be late. Plus, I don’t know what to do about last night. People don’t take care of me, I take care of myself.
Last night he cared for, nurtured, cherished me. He did too much. I feel like I can’t look him in the eye right now. He’s been doing it from the start. First my presentation, now this, and checking in about my mother. And what’s worse, my stomach sinks. I’ve come to rely on him. I feel dizzy. How did he wiggle his way into my life so quickly?
Taking a giant swig of coffee to avoid it, I wince as I swallow, the liquid burning on the way down. “I don’t think I’ll have time to drive you home,” I say. “I still have to shower.”
“That’s okay.”
He rolls up, scratches his head, and yawns, like he doesn’t have to be at work at the exact same time as I do. He searches the bedside table for his glasses, patting the surface gingerly. “I’ll just wear whatever I wore yesterday.”
Before he breaks something and I have to add a trip to the optometrist to my list of things I don’t have time for this morning, I hand him his glasses. “But then everyone will think you didn’t go home last night.”
“I didn’t.” He shrugs and his stomach growls. “But no one would assume I spent my night here.”
I pause for a moment because he makes a good point. “Right. That makes sense.”
I turn on my heel, hurrying into the bathroom, setting my coffee on the counter. “There’s coffee in the kitchen and food. And you can jump in the shower after me but you need to be fast. I’m leaving in thirty minutes,” I call as I turn on the hot water.
He doesn’t respond so I pull my hair up into a bun and step into the warm water. I want to spend long minutes under the spray, letting the heat soak into me, thinking about last night, and earlier this morning. The memories of his hands on me, between my legs, wiping off my makeup, brushing back my hair. The way his touch feels like being held, carried, allowed to rest; they need time to marinate. But I don’t have the time.
Ten minutes later, he strolls into my walk-in closet in his underwear with a bowl of yogurt, granola, and berries.
“Your kitchen is a shrine to starting your day off right,” he says, holding the bowl and spoon out for me. My heart does a little flip in my chest.
“Oh. Thank you.” I take the bowl and turn back to my wardrobe. All of the colors blend together and my mind blanks on where the skirts, the blouses, the dresses hang. Suddenly, I don’t know how to dress myself. He’s still standing there, so I face him and make a show of taking a bite of granola.
He cracks his toes. His feet are big. And hairy. And so absurdly masculine in the soft hues of my walk-in closet that for a moment I think I understand foot fetishes.
“You should wear that red dress.” He gestures to a wine-red dress with long sleeves and a low neckline. “You look amazing in red.”
I frown in an attempt to hide my blush. “That’s not exactly work appropriate.”
The V is deep.
“You could wear this blazer.” He flicks the sleeve of a navy blue blazer hanging on the other side of the closet. “How much time do I have?” he asks.
I blink, distracted by his chest, the peppering of hair there, his nipples, a dark reddish-brown. Crunching the granola, I swallow and it almost gets lodged in my throat, it’s so dry. “Ten minutes,” I croak.
“Yeah,” he says with a smile. “Because you took too long in the shower.”
I turn away before he can see me smile. I eat the rest of my breakfast standing up in the closet. From the bathroom comes an electric guitar and the echoing bang of drums, a wail that leads into a rap song. Wesley’s music reverberates but his voice is even louder, belting out the lyrics.
It’s obnoxiously loud and the complete opposite of how I usually start my day. But by the time the song is over, my head is bobbing.
I’m in my home office when he calls for me from down the hall. “Corrine?”
“I’m coming,” I snap. I can’t help it. He showered faster than me, he made me my favorite breakfast without even asking, and he picked out a great outfit. And now I can’t get whatever that song he was blasting in my bathroom out of my head.
“I’m sorry,” I say, stopping in front of him with my bag over my shoulder and files in my arms. “I’m not usually this disorganized.”
“I figured,” he says, pulling a few files and my bag from my hands, gesturing for me to lead the way out.
“So...” He scratches the back of his leg with his shoe as we wait for the elevator. “Can I, uh...bum a ride to work?” He smiles in a way I should find obnoxious, but is really just charming.
“Everyone will see.”
“You could let me off around the corner,” he counters. “Plus, otherwise, I’ll be late. And my boss hates it when I’m late.”
He bumps his shoulder with mine and smiles and I can’t help but smile back. I feel like this smile is giving away too much about myself and what I’m feeling.
That I’m so thankful he showed up last night. That I liked getting ready with him this morning, even if it has me feeling completely off-kilter.
So I do it grudgingly.
“Fine. But around the corner.” I point my finger at him as we step off the elevator into the parking garage to make my point. I review the day’s schedule and things we’ll need to do when we get in on the drive over. If I can just get back into my routine, into work-mode, I’ll be able to stop thinking about the way he looked last night, as he came in the dim glow of the candles.
The car shifts forward a few inches as I put it into park.
“Shit.” I was so focused I never even realized we’d already made it to work.
I slouch down in my seat and try to peer out the windows. He leans over and places his hand on my thigh. I tense.
He gives me a gentle squeeze. “Hey. Don’t worry. I’ll get out first and take the stairs into the lobby. No one will know we drove in together. I promise.”
My jaw is sore from all of the clenching and unclenching I do. The problem is I realize I’m being a touch anal retentive about this. Letting him see me this flustered feels almost as embarrassing as getting caught by our coworkers. “Okay,” I say.
He hesitates. “I really want to kiss you goodbye.”
I want him to kiss me goodbye, too. “You’re going to see me in a few minutes upstairs,” I say instead of doing just that.
He smiles, crooked and boyish, and fine—I reach out, closing my fist over his sleeve. I pull him back to me and kiss him hard and quick. It’s not even close to good enough but he smiles again, popping out of the car and jogging to the stairs. My heart pounds long after the heavy door to the stairwell slams closed and I pull myself from the car.
When the elevator doors open on the lobby, Wesley stands at the front of a large group of Hill City employees. I take a step back as they all pile in and nod hello.
“Good morning, Ms. Blunt.” He nods back, smiling like we have a secret.
He’s so obvious it’s disgusting. And yet, I kind of love him for it.
I gasp audibly at the thought. Smother it, push it down below the surface. The feeling planted itself deep inside me last night and has grown and grown. But that cannot be what this is. It’s infatuation, affection run wild.
“Good morning, Mr. Chambers.” My head spins as the elevator takes us up. Everyone else chitchats with each other about their evenings and the day ahead, completely unaware of my internal panic. He leans a little closer.
“That color looks lovely on you,” he says quietly.
My eyes fall to my red dress. I smooth my hand over the blue blazer. “Thank you.”
Maybe it’s the dress. Or that song he played in the shower about sabotage that won’t leave my head. Maybe it’s this wild thing planted deep inside me. But I reach out toward him, keeping my hand down by my side, blindly searching until my fingers make contact with his skin. I hold on to his hand the whole way up.