Love Will (24 page)

“Only in your case, your creator has put these two auditory organs on the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. So while, yes, people may see the ears from time to time, they do tend to get lost in the rest of your appeal.”

“Will,” she whispers in a sigh.

“And whose soulful eyes are those?” I ask.

“Momma’s. They’re her lips, too.”

“I can’t talk about your lips without my brain immediately going to indecent places that would embarrass
your
momma
,” I tell her just before kissing her. “Since I met you, about seventy-seven percent of my time is now spent thinking of things I want those lips to do to this body.”

She giggles. “What about the other twenty-three percent?”

“I think about things I want this body to do to your…” I swallow. “
Lips
.”

She quirks her brow at me. I nod my head. “Momma would be
very
embarrassed right now.”

“Was she a little old fashioned?”

“Hell, no!” she says. “She’d be embarrassed that you were here
telling
me about things you want to do and not just
doing
them.”

My jaw drops as I look at her, surprised. “Here I’m trying to be romantic on our last night together,” I say. “And I’m not sure I’ve ever really done
romantic
before. Obviously, I’m doing it wrong.”

“Oh, no you’re not,” Shea assures me. “You’re doing it too well. If your goal is to have some sweet pillow talk, you’re way too good at romance, because I’m already
beyond
the talk again.”

“Wow. Yeah, I’ve never in my life done
pillow talk
. I’ve really never done this… this… sex where you lie in blankets with someone afterwards and hold them in your arms. I rarely even have sex with people lying down.”

“Wait a minute. What?”

“No… this is way too intimate.”

“What do you do?” she asks me.

“Oral sex is
very
popular in my routine… hence the reason I stopped you from going there tonight. Don’t get me wrong, I love it, but… that’s what I do with all the girls.”

I watch her for her reaction, and can see the disappointment in her expression. I
should
see it. I should be confronted with it, because I shouldn’t get away with that lifestyle and suffer no consequences.

“So I have a great chair in my bedroom that’s perfect for giving and receiving…”

“If we end up becoming a thing, I’d like to burn that chair,” she says. “And you better point out which one it is before I so much as shed a hair on it.”

“Honestly, I would never want you near that chair. That would be completely… disrespectful to you. So you have my word.” I pick up a strand of her long, soft hair and wrap it around my finger.

“Thank you.”

I sigh before continuing my confession to her. “I also have a lot of wall sex.”

“Wall sex?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

“I’ve never…” She blinks a few times, then shakes her head. “I’ve never had wall sex.” I laugh lightly. “I’m not kidding. I want to try wall sex.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not up for wall sex at the moment,” I tell her, still exhausted from our first round. “But sometime… trust me, there will come a time when it’s urgent enough that wall sex is required.”

She starts to pout with her lips.
Those
lips. I surround her with my arms and kiss them fully, letting her take my breath away and getting worked up again in the process. I still don’t really have the energy to act on it, but I think I could kiss her all night.

When we stop to catch our breaths, I do some deep breathing to try to calm myself down. “So what are your plans for… after?” I ask.

“Well, I’m going to have a closing party, sale and auction to get rid of all the assets,” she explains. “A lot of people want the vintage furniture, and the appliances are just a couple years old. And all the stuff in the shop… I’d like to make some of the money back from that.”

“Yeah.”

“I have a lot in savings. My parents planned ahead, and taught me and Sarah well.”

“Well, you’re way ahead of me there. I’ll probably be paying off credit card debt until I’m one-hundred-and-seventeen.”

“Yikes.”

“Yeah. The music equipment, going out with friends all through college… it added up really quickly. In fact, being on tour is probably the first time in my life I haven’t been contributing to the problem, and that’s just because the band’s been picking up the tab on most things these days. Fiscally responsible, I am not.”

“Finally, a flaw,” she says.

“Whatever! You’ve seen quite a few…” I remind her.

“I can hope that most are in the past, though,” she says. “This one affects your future.”

“I guess it does.” She’s quiet and starts to pick at the frayed edge of one of her blankets. “Is this a
deal-breaker
flaw?”

She smiles up at me. “No,” she whispers.

“So after you close up shop…” I say, urging her to continue.

“I have some friends nearby with an extra room. They’re going to let me stay with them until I figure some things out. I’ll start to look for restaurants who need a sous chef. Maybe smaller ones in need of an executive chef. My mom was classically trained. She taught me everything she knew.”

“You wouldn’t want to open your own place?”

“Someday. Now’s not the right time.”

“So, uh… here in Minneapolis?”

“That’s the million-dollar question,” she responds.

“So you’re open to other cities?” She nods her head. “What about New York City? I mean, aside from the fact that it’s the greatest city in the world and I come from there… I’m pretty sure it’s the food capital of the country.”

“Are you sure of that?” she asks me, knowing I’m no expert in this topic.

“Well, we have everything there.”

“I’ve been there,” she says. “I know there’s a lot of opportunity. There’s also a lot more competition. And it’s
so
expensive.”

“That’s the truth.”

“You said you’re going back to New York after the tour?”

“That’s the plan.”

“And what will you do?”

“Go back to work and school. When I left, we were designing a very specialized satellite to research gamma-ray bursts. We’re trying to prove the existence of a high concentration of GRBs–sorry, gamma-ray bursts–that could turn out to be the largest structure known in the observable universe.

“It would be incredibly significant, and I want to be a part of it… but I really need my PhD to continue on the team indefinitely. It shouldn’t take me long to get it.

“The band doesn’t know, but I’ve kept in touch with my former boss. They’re holding my spot for me. And my coworkers still send me emails with their hypotheses and questions. We bounce ideas off each other. That’s probably why I can’t truly get my mind to stop grinding on math problems.

“Yeah, I’d like my brain to settle down… but on the other hand, it’s what I love.”

“I can tell,” she says. “Your eyes just lit up, talking about it.”

Chapter 11

I’m not moving as quickly as I should be in the morning, but the thought of leaving Shea in an hour is not a pleasant one. I’m anxious to get back on the road, and the time away from the guys is just what I needed, but I can’t deny that there’s a strong connection between me and the woman on the other side of the bathroom door.

After towel-drying my hair and slipping on my boxers, I walk out, clean from my shower. Shea had already been awake for an hour, getting food prepped in the kitchen with one of her assistants, but she had returned to the apartment, and was waiting to spend a little more time with me before I had to go.

I toss the towel back to her bathroom floor on my way toward her. She doesn’t look away from whatever’s on her mid-size TV.

“What are you watching?”

“An old movie.”

“What is it?”

“Atonement.”

I sit on the arm of her couch and stare at the vaguely familiar actor and actress. “What’s it about?”

“This author who, when she was a jealous little girl, told a lie that kept her sister and her sister’s true love apart for… I don’t want to ruin it for you.”

“It’s okay. Go ahead.”

“No, it’s really good. You should watch it sometime.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I say, standing up and moving closer to the scene as the two characters get passionate in a library. “What’s happening now?”

“Shhh!”

I’m quiet, watching as they obviously begin to have sex with one another, but proceed to get caught by the little girl, just as it was getting steamy. It clicks, and I turn around. “Wait… Shea, is this what you think wall sex is like?”

“Yeah…”

“Oh, no…” I say, walking toward her. “No, it’s not. No, it’s not like that at all.” I point back at the television, even though the movie has progressed to something more dramatic and far less sexual. “That was romantic and beautiful. Wall sex is gritty and passionate–”

“That was passionate.”

“You’re right, it was, but–I should find some porn for you to watch.”

“Will!”

“Reality never hurt anyone, Shea,” I say, half-joking with her.

“Can we try it like that?”

“Like
that
?” She nods. “I mean… do you even have a ladder?”

“Do
you
use a ladder?”

“No, but… I don’t understand the ‘like that’ part of your sentence.”

“The romantic and beautiful part.”

“Okay, yeah,” I start, sarcastic. “You want to have romantic and beautiful
wall sex
?”

She nods once more. “I have a stool, if that will help,” she offers.

“We don’t need a stool.” I shake my head and laugh at her. “Your knees will be too weak to hold you up. That’s
my
job.”

“That’s awfully confident of you.”

I put my arms on the back of the couch on either side of her head and move in to kiss her slowly. “Get on your feet.” She puts her hands on my biceps and pulls herself up. “Is there a preferred wall?”

“I think they’re all equally sturdy.” I glance around and decide on the one that her desk is against.

“Go out your front door.”

“What?” she asks.

“You’re right,” I say, finding my jeans and pulling them on.

“What are you doing?”

“Wall sex isn’t just about the sex… it’s the urgency… the need… the immediacy.” I put on the shirt that I’d packed to wear today and fasten most of the buttons.

“I’m not understanding why you’re getting dressed,” she says.

“Because I want to do this right. You look amazing, by the way.” I eye her flowing skirt and wonder if she’d dressed with this in mind. “Perfect. Kiss me.” She grips my shirt by the lapels and holds me close to her, making it difficult for me to breathe. By the time we part, I’ve got an immediate and urgent problem, but I make my way out her front door anyway.

One of her employees looks at me curiously.

“Awww, fuck,” I murmur, then knock on the door.

“What are you doing?” she laughs, looking at me, utterly confused.

I push past her and turn around, backing her against the door to shut it with a bang. Tugging on a strand of her hair, we’re kissing again. This time, they’re deep kisses, our tongues fully entwined mixed with desperate gasps of air. That’s the
need
I was telling her about. I pull the soft sweater she’s wearing over her head and practically grope her over her bra.

Romantic and beautiful
, she’d said. I take a deep breath and move both of my hands to her waist, trying to slow down.

“Ahem,” I say to get her attention, because I’m not sure she even remembers her request at this point. She seems pretty on board with the direction this was headed, but I still want to try to live up to her expectation. “Tell me, who’s this motherfucker I have to thank for this, by the way?”

“What do you mean?”

“This actor…”

I can see the blood pool in her cheeks. She totally has a crush on him. “James McAvoy.”

“James… Fucking… McAvoy… Thank you for the challenge of
romantic and beautiful
wall sex. I accept.” She bites her lip. “You thinking about
him
now?”

“No!” she says, laughing.

“You sure?”