The Beginning of Always (31 page)

It was that stare of his, how familiar and how potent it was, that was what did me in. That was what led me to do what I did next, and as much as I didn’t want to understand it, didn’t want to accept my own responsibility in the act … I knew my hand didn’t slip.

The towel crumpled silently at my feet. My fingers contracted slightly against the smooth, damp glass and I pushed my weight off it.

I swung around and turned to face him as if daring him to take it all in. I didn’t know how I mustered up this courage, this boldness I never knew resided in me. Perhaps I wanted to show him what he’d missed over the past decade. Perhaps I was mocking him. Perhaps this was all a test, for me, for him, for this entire insane back-and-forth. Regardless of the reason, if I even had a reason, I turned and let him drink his fill.

Alistair ran a finger over his top lip as if disbelieving what he was seeing. His eyes were still enraptured, combing all over my body, not lingering or savoring. In fact, he was gorging himself on what was before him, those dark hazel pupils darting back and forth to take in everything, from my breasts to my legs. My own gaze went to his pants and I could read the physical proof of his reaction to this.

I didn’t bother covering myself and then, looking straight ahead, straight into his eyes, I walked towards him. Slowly.

Alistair’s hand tightened around his phone; his whole body tightened the closer I got until I stood in front of him and the entire side of his neck was tense, the edge of his collarbone barely visible from behind the back of his tie.

I rested my fingertips lightly against his chest, barely making contact, hardly pressing down. His smell was all around us, from his freshly used soap clinging to my skin to how his cologne was palpable in our close proximity. I could almost taste it. Taste him.

I flattened my hand so that my palm pressed against the smooth cotton of his shirt, and I raked my nails softly down the length of his chest, so I could just barely make out the contours of his muscles beneath.

Alistair flinched as if I had slapped him. I smiled slightly, viscerally enjoying the moment despite myself. With just a twitch of my hand, he would respond. Toying with him felt good, felt easy.

And then, before I lost my nerve, I shoved Alistair as hard as I could. Caught by surprise, he stumbled backwards out of the room, our eye contact breaking and the touch of skin fading from the moment.

I placed a hand against the side of the bathroom door and closed it, winding down the barrier between us, once again.

And the entire time, we didn’t say one word to each other.

Once I was alone in the bathroom again, I exhaled the breath I didn’t even know I was holding. I ran my hands over my face. What the hell had I just done?

I was naked. I’d touched him. I’d shoved him out of his own bathroom. What the hell had I been thinking?

I stood there, facing the door, until I became acutely aware of the fact that my skin was prickling with cold and my feet felt frozen against the cold marble floor.

I sprung into action. I grabbed the bag of clothes Train had brought me and clumsily fished out the contents. I was able to pull on the skirt with shaky fingers. My breath still hadn’t returned and my entire body was wound up as if I had just sprinted a mile with no warning—my chest constricted, my lungs hurt from lack of oxygen, and strange muscles were oddly sore.

I didn’t even know I was quivering all over until I fought with the zipper along the backside of the skirt. Something caught in the teeth and I struggled to force the slider up to close.

I stopped, took a deep breath and closed my eyes.

Don’t think about later. Don’t think about Saturday or this morning or what just happened ten minutes ago. Just … do what needs to be done. Get dressed and go do the interview, and get home in one piece.

I recited my instructions to myself a couple more times, took another deep breath, and finished getting dressed.

After I did my makeup and cleaned up, my watch read 12:25 p.m. I bustled to the door, then paused for a second, unsure. What if Alistair was waiting for me beyond this door?

My hand slipped.

Okay. I’ll just go with that.

What the hell were you doing walking into a bathroom? Why didn’t
you
leave? Why did you need me to push you out?

Yes, on the offensive, good, good. That could work.

I threw my shoulders back, worked to harden my features, and burst out of the bathroom, halfway expecting to see Alistair’s frowning face greeting me on the other side.

The office was empty. I was momentarily confused, then relieved, then confused again. I glanced at the clock. 12:28 p.m. I guessed we were going to gather in the conference rooms?

I walked into the empty main offices. Lunchtime. Then, in the far corner where the glass-walled conference rooms were, I spotted Alistair and Gertrude.

Alistair stood facing out towards the windows overlooking his expensive urban scenery while Gertrude was tapping on her iPad. When I entered the room, both of them turned their attention to me—Gertrude’s eyes could barely hold back her annoyance at my arrival while Alistair’s eyes read empty and blank. I knew better, though. I always knew when he shut down and cut off. It meant there was an overload of emotion.

Overload, indeed.

“Hi,” I said. Lame.

Alistair’s demeanor didn’t change. He didn’t move or even shift to properly face me, but Gertrude strode in my direction and gripped my elbow tightly.

“You have forty-five minutes until he has to leave for his next meeting, so let’s make it fast and efficient.” She led me to the wide, round wooden conference table and pushed me to sit down. I crashed into the chair.

“Okay,” I said purely on automation.

Gertrude’s shrewd gaze scanned me, in borrowed clothes and with what was most likely an expression people adopted after they were just hit by a truck. But she actually noticed something else, something crucial. “Where’s your laptop? Your materials? Pen?” she snapped.

Surprised, I lifted up my hands. Yep. Empty.

“Oh,” I said. I stood up quickly, running my fingers through my damp hair. “I forgot my bag in the office.”

“Well,” Gertrude said sharply, “go get them. You’re running into your time here.”

I nodded. “Okay,” I said, and I fled from the room, without as much as a backwards glance at the pair of them.

My heart was pounding as I made my way back to Alistair’s office.
Okay, I’m going to get my notepad with my questions, do the interview and then get the hell out of Dodge
. I was going to write up the article and beg Gordon with everything under the sun not to make me come back. California couldn’t happen, it just couldn’t. This could be the last time. This had to be the last time. I had to end this, for my own good, for my own sanity.

So by the time I pushed my way into the now-cursedly-familiar dark room, I was able to tell myself it was all going to be okay.

But just as my fingers made contact with the leather strap of my bag, the door clicked open behind me.

I spun around and was only vaguely surprised to see Alistair standing there.

His shoulders were slouched and his head down as he stepped in, and only when the lock clicked behind him did he glance up at me.

The expression on his face made me drop the strap.

Things were not going to be okay.

Silence stretched before us. The tension in the air, the heat and the unspoken words, of the past and the present and all the emotions churning within the two of us, it thickened to the point of nauseating me.

I was the first to speak.

“You should really learn to knock. Your manners have deteriorated.”

Alistair didn’t move; he just continued to watch me with those eyes, as if he was dying of thirst and I was a well of pristine water. His fingers clenched the doorknob, knuckles straining and turning white.

This wasn’t good. I gave an awkward laugh.

“How about some levity?” I tried to talk tough, but my heart was pounding from his presence and the thought of what had transpired barely half an hour ago.

My naked flesh and my insane need for him to touch it.

Alistair took a step towards me.

“This is my office,” Alistair said. This was the first time I’d heard his voice since he’d left this morning, and at the sound of it, a jolt of electric emotion snapped through me.

I took a step back.

“You’re the one that walked in on me,” I said.

“You’re the one that dropped the towel,” he said quietly, his tone husky.

We were talking about that? Panic at the dissolution of expectations and my script trickled down my skin. “My grip slipped,” I stuttered back.

“You turned around.”

“I needed to close the door.”

I took another step back, but this time cold plaster met me and I pressed up against the wall with his advance. Alistair came to me, entered and surpassed any illusion of private space, then leaned forward to rest his hands next to my shoulders, trapping me. He was all around, his sharp eyes gazing down and his smell, that woody whisper of a musk that reminded me of back home, engulfing reality.

“I would like to kiss you, Florence.” That harsh line of a mouth hovered, saying those words I both wanted and feared.

“Don’t.” I took a deep breath and shook my head. “No,” I repeated.

Alistair’s gaze narrowed slightly and he leaned forward onto his forearms, setting closer to my body. “I wasn’t asking,” he said quietly.

My stare flickered to his lips, unable to tear my thoughts away from the feel of them.

I shook my head.

“No,” I repeated. My voice was shaky, unconvincing. I sucked in a breath to say it again, but I couldn’t muster up the plea.

We couldn’t do this, we couldn’t cross that line. Both of us danced along the edge, but one move, one kiss—it would push us over into a void with no end.

“Just a taste,” Alistair murmured.

I shook my head weakly, but his eyes continued to bore into mine. They made promises. They told me about the past and the present and the contemplation of the future, and I was sick with want for all those to be true.

His eyelashes grazed downwards as he studied me. Alistair slowly slid the palm of his hand over my face to cup my cheek. Our eyes continued to search each other, and in his, I found that familiar loneliness and isolation reflected back. That neediness that no one knew he could possibly possess. My own needs. His thumb lightly grazed the bottom edge of my lips, tugging slightly at the edge to coax them apart. My mouth parted at his prompting and I licked them nervously, my tongue furtively peeking out to dampen my quivering lips.

That small act was what did us in. Perhaps that small step wasn’t my acquiescence, but it spurred him into action, and God help me, because I didn’t stop him.

I didn’t want him to stop.

Alistair leaned down and grazed his mouth gently over mine. He was testing the temperature of the situation, waiting for my reaction.

I inhaled a shaky breath and closed my eyes.

Then, his lips.

Oh God, his lips. They were so familiar yet incredibly foreign. So familiar, I wanted to weep. A small whimper emanated from my body and Alistair bored harder into me. His fingers dug into my hair and he pulled me closer to him, strengthening the connection, angling me just so, so that I leaned into him, at his mercy.

I wanted more. My mind flashed to nothing else.

I wanted more. I breathed in his essence, to taste him.

Just a taste, as he said.

This was just a taste.

Alistair deepened the kiss, and that familiar languorous melt trickled through my system. Our mouths parted and his tongue edged in and found mine. His lips, his touch, they were everything.

I pressed closer, my fingers digging strong.

I found myself winding my arms around his neck. I was responding sweetly, sweeter than I’d prefer and more than I should. But what else could I do?

My soul had found its way home.

His hips mirrored mine and pressed up against them, holding them in place against the wall. His cock hardened, digging into my thigh, and my mind flashed to memories, thoughts from a past that I’d always tried to forget.

Those thoughts overwhelmed me now.

The feel of his skin against my tongue.

The feel of him in between my lips.

The grunts and moans he made when I crouched on my knees in front of him.

That look he’d give me, as if I were a goddess to be worshipped. As if I was the only one that mattered to him.

The tug of his fingers in my hair as he’d spoken to me, that glide when he pushed the hair over one shoulder.

Those whispers he gave, of love and affection.

The promises of devotion and forever.

Of always.

It was addicting back then, and now, that old need flared free. Alistair was addicting, and I’d been denied for too long.

I inched my tongue out to line the edge of his bottom lip and his tongue swept over mine. I sucked on it while digging my nails into him, wanting him closer, wanting him harder.

Alistair read me. He pushed me harder up against the wall and his erection pressed unyieldingly. My fingers that just moments ago had crept down to push him away were now pulling on his shirt to bring him closer to me. I could feel his tight stomach underneath the fabric and I clawed my nails into him.

I wanted him.

All my mind told me was him.

It was always him.

Then, my body seized. Alistair had slipped a hand underneath the hem of my skirt and was subtly caressing the curve of my hip. His bare skin against my exposed flesh caused more memories to flash through my mind.

Memories that brought with them the sensation of his fingers against my cunt and those achingly distant sounds of sex. Our sex.

My agonizing pressure begged for his relief, and it was that sudden electricity that both excited and terrified me, that brought me out of the stupor.

Abruptly, I twisted my head to the right, breaking away. My eyes flew open and I sucked a shaky breath, willing all of the painful emotions assailing me to stop.