The Beginning of Always (36 page)

As if reading my mind, Florence let go and lightly scratched up my hip bones. I gripped the backs of her knees and pulled her open, spreading her legs for me.

Florence gave a sharp inhale just as I pressed up close to her. I circled the edge, groaning at the slick heat that teased. I wanted so badly, so desperately just to thrust in, to fall all in one fell swoop. It was taking every ounce of self-control not to fuck her fast and senseless.

“W-wa … wait,” she said. I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop. I continued to press up against her, her wetness giving me a craze-inducing taste of what was to come.

“Alistair,” she said again. My name. I slowed, then stopped. I was so close, just the lightest press and I would feel her, feel me in her and her around me in all the ways I had dreamed of for so long.

I groaned. In lust. In frustration. In guilt. In agony. I leaned down and pressed our foreheads together, our desperate exhales mingling. “We don’t have to do anything,” I rasped. I had to stop. I didn’t want to stop, but if Florence said no or pulled away, goddamn it, I would stop.

Florence’s breaths were deep and heavy. When she spoke, it was labored. “I want to. I do. With you. Alistair. Alistair. Only you.”

Her body began to quiver, ever so gently underneath me. Goose bumps texturized her skin and her voice wavered at her next words. “I’m … I don’t know, I’m just scared. I’m scared of everything, but I know I want this.”

“I don’t want to hurt you. Don’t be scared.” I kissed the inside of her neck, forcing myself to gentle my fingers and to slow down. I caressed her, slipping my fingers from my grip behind her thighs. My fingers traveled to meet her heat, and when wet desire greeted me I sucked in a sharp breath. My fingers slowly circled her clit, just the way I knew she liked it. I wanted her at the edge; I wanted her needing and desperate and just like me. I wanted to feel her cum on me, to clench around me.

Florence started to pant, her hips bucking against my palm. I inserted a finger in her and she cried out. I fucked her slowly with my finger, then two, my lust deepening to the point of no return.

“Make love to me, I want you to,” Florence begged. I pulled my fingers out and rounded her hips, relishing in her luscious curves. I wanted to taste her so bad, to put my mouth on her until she came, but to be in her, to fill her. I palmed her ass and yanked her to me, so close our hip bones crashed into each other.

“Please.” Florence tightened her legs around my waist and rocked her hips up to me. “Please, Alistair. I’m burning. I need you.”

“Please,” she whispered over and over. She leaned up and wound her arms around my neck, kissing me hard. I tasted her air, her tongue, her sweet words of desperation and pleas for relief.

“I love you, Alistair. Don’t forget me.” She exhaled the words into me from between a kiss, her hips gliding underneath me.

I dug my fingers hard against her soft flesh, needing her to believe me, needing her to feel the intent behind my heart. For her to feel her utter possession of my soul. That I was no longer myself, but a tangent to her existence. I pressed closer to her, almost in.

“I love you, Florence,” I whispered between her lips.

Sensation, emotion, waves of intensity crashed over me so potently, all I could process was her. This moment. Everything. All senses—taste, touch, smell, sight, sound—they were all concentrated onto the single entity before me.

The girl before me. The one who clenched my heart in hers. My soul in hers.

“I’ll remember everything,” I breathed.

Her wetness enveloped me and I buried myself into her. She gasped. A sharp sound of pain. I groaned and closed my eyes, craving the need to prolong the moment, for this to linger.

Her soul, her body, her heart.

I fell into the dark abyss of my love for her.

There was no bottom. There was no escape from it. She had me, for always and always.

“Everything.”

Her nails dug deeper into my skin, underscoring my words.

“I promise.”

And I meant it.

I would never mean anything more in my entire life.

Chapter 19

A
fter I got home from that disastrous day, I feverishly cleaned. The kitchen, the living room, the hallway floor, my room, Nicolas’s room.

I just needed something to take my mind off Alistair and his lips.

And his body.

And his fingers.

And …

I needed something else to clean.

So I tore into scrubbing the bathroom tile down.

I was still attacking the grout when the front door slammed. I leaned back on my haunches, sweat beading my hairline and my wrist aching from all the vigorous force.

“Florence? Where are you?” Nicolas’s voice rang out from the entrance.

“Hall bath!” I called back.

Nicolas’s boots thudded and I gingerly fought to stand up. I braced myself with my knuckles and slowly straightened, hissing when my knees popped in protest from their hour-long contact with the hard tile.

“What the hell?” Nicolas’s voice was incredulous and right in my ear. “What is going on?”

“Just cleaning,” I grunted, my hand on the small of my back as I stretched backwards. A slight crack sounded from my spine and I groaned in relief.

“Cleaning,” Nicolas said. “You. Cleaning.” He was leaning against the doorway, wearing his scrubs with a jacket over them. He took in the scene—the buckets of water, cleaning solution bottles, sponges, and towels strewn about the floor. Me, in shorts and a tank top, soaked with sweat and water.

“Yes, Sherlock, I’m cleaning. Very astute observation.”

“You. Cleaning,” he repeated.

“A thank-you would be nice. I mopped your bathroom, too.”

“You. Mopp—” he started but I interrupted swiftly.

“Don’t you have things to do? Doctor things? Important, life-or-death things?”

“Oh yeah, I have a ton of paperwork to get to, but let me enjoy this for now.”

I collapsed against the sink, resting my elbows on the stone countertop. I shot Nicolas a glare from across the room. “Enjoy silently, please.”

He popped a grin and began shedding his jacket. “Hey, never going to protest a freshly scrubbed apartment. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” I said in a surly tone as I inched out the bathroom. I was going to feel this tomorrow; my muscles contracted and protested as I pushed past Nicolas.

“Where you going?”

“Getting ice from the kitchen.”

Nicolas tagged behind me like a puppy dog, pestering me as well as one. “So, any reason for the big spring cleaning?”

“Nope.” I grabbed a plastic sandwich bag and began filling it with ice from the freezer. The ice cubes clattered and scratched against each other, the noise filling the air around us.

Nicolas yanked open the fridge and took out a bottle of water. “So … just suddenly you were afflicted with the urge to douse our place with bleach?”

“What can I say? Huffing cleaning chemicals after work is just my idea of happy hour.” I cradled the bag of ice in my arms and limped to the living room, crashing against the wide pillows of the couch.

Nicolas sipped his water, watching as I awkwardly positioned the ice bag against my kneecaps. I was exhausted and woozy from the cleaning solutions, not to mention the emotional stress tornado still raging inside me. But if I was tired enough, I would forget today. Hell, I might even be able to sleep tonight.

“By the way, your phone was ringing, like, nonstop when I got home.” He casually tossed my phone to the seat next to me.

“
What?
” I answered, the ice slipping from my grasp and crashing wetly against the carpet. A touch of panic escaped into my voice.

Nicolas’s eyebrows raised slightly. “Your phone was ringing? What, expecting a mob hit or something tonight?”

“No, not at all. Nothing like that.” My fingers gripped the edge of the sofa tightly. Was Alistair calling me?

The thought sickened me. With excitement, with fear, with worry, with all of the above.

“You going to check it?” Nicolas asked.

I picked up my phone cautiously as if it was going to explode. “Uh … I’ll listen to the voice mail later.”

“Whatever you say.” Nicolas yawned and disappeared into the entrance hallway. Sounds emerged from the corridor as he unpacked his backpack, followed by the clattering of his bicycle being stowed away in the hallway closet.

I stared out of the dark windows while slowly rotating the phone between my icy fingers. To my embarrassment, my hands quivered slightly.

I still had two weeks left with Alistair. Today was only Monday, exactly a week since we had started this precarious dance along the edge of sanity. Despite every lie I told myself, he was affecting me. He was affecting me in ways I couldn’t even understand, dredging up old hurt and current pain. They always said ignorance was bliss, and only now did I appreciate the true meaning of the phrase.

Things had been simpler even twenty-four hours ago. The ignorance of Alistair, not knowing what he or I was capable of. Now the possibilities were strewn about in front of me, in equal parts terrifying in their joy as well as their grief.

I flicked on my phone screen. Notifications of two missed calls and one voice mail flashed back at me.

The calls weren’t from Alistair.

They were from Gertrude, which wasn’t as bad, but they definitely were about Alistair, so I wasn’t about to do a jig on the living room carpet.

I pulled up my voice mail and put the phone next to my ear. Gertrude’s clipped voice spoke back. “Ms. Reynolds, Mr. Blair is requesting your presence at a property inspection tomorrow at eleven a.m. The location is on the Upper East Side, and the address—are you writing this down? Make sure you write this address down—the address is …” And she rattled off the address and ended with her compulsory “don’t be late” and a harsh click.

It was short, bereft of details, with the barest of justifications.

“Making Gertrude do your dirty work for you, Alistair?” I muttered to my phone’s screen, tossing it angrily to the couch pillows besides me.

The thought of facing Alistair, tomorrow no less, was nothing less than frightening. What would I say? How would he act? What would we do? How much did this change things? Could we go forward? Would I still be able to finish the article? What would happen if someone found out? I’d have to disclose it if I ever even dreamed of publishing the piece.

I hated Alistair. I hated him for putting me in this position and doing this to me, for being so cavalier and reckless with his actions, with my emotions. What did he think he was doing, who did he think he was, just kissing me like that? It was so irresponsible of him, so inconsidera—

“Did you say something?” Nicolas popped his head around the corner from the kitchen.

I whipped my head to Nicolas, my eyes wide, my train of thought derailing and exploding in a fit of anxiety. Had I been speaking aloud? How much had he heard? “What? Huh? No? Fine. Fine.”

“Monosyllabic panic noises? Yeah, everything is fine. You want to talk about it?”

“Nope. Nothing to talk about. Fine. Everything is fine. No.” I shook my head, to reinforce the nothingness to talk about.

Nicolas shrugged and tossed the bottle of water he was holding in his hands in the air. “Fine, whatever you say.” He caught the bottle and pointed it at me. “I’m going to bed, feel free to ramble in solitude.”

I gestured with a weak wrist towards the back of the apartment. “I did laundry too. Your sheets are in the dryer.”

Nicolas chuckled as he rounded the corner to the hallway. “Thanks.”

My arms were crossed and I considered the building before me. It was massive, with white walls and gold accents that dominated the architectural designs, down to the peaked golden gables looming over the street. The building took up the entire city block, with nothing but white brick walls betraying an entrance to speak of. I had to walk around two corners before I approached the tall wrought-iron gates, harsh black in stark contrast to the wide French-style arch that stretched over it. Carved medallion accents were stamped down the thick stone columns that flanked the black gates. The gates were tipped with golden arrows that didn’t do much to calm the severity of the barrier.

That was not a welcoming gate. That was a gate to keep people out. Two security booths were situated behind the columns, the rent-a-cops wearing suits.

So I stood, across from the golden palace with its black gates of doom, my arms crossed and a scowl on my face.

I hadn’t woken up in the best mood and I couldn’t say I’d improved through the morning.

“Deciding whether to run the other way?”

Almost by instinct, my gaze whipped to the sound of the masculine voice coming from my right. Alistair, walking down the street towards me. In a suit, natch, perfectly tailored, of course, looking tall and put together and completely at ease.

I wanted to throw him a rude hand gesture. I narrowed my eyes at him as he approached.

“No,” I answered sarcastically. “Just … admiring the architecture.” I gestured towards the building facade. “You think they added enough gold? I’m not sure. Maybe I should write to the board—I don’t think it’s understated enough.”