Tonic (25 page)

“Ew, kissing!” Bubbling laughter rolled out of her like tinkling bells. “
Anni loves Hairy, Anni loves Hairy,
” she sang, wiggling her hips back and forth to the words, and Roxy appeared, smiling at us conspiratorially.
 

“Come on, Bunny. Leave Anni and Hairy alone or you might have to see more kissing.”
 

Ew!
they both said as Roxy ushered Kira into the bathroom, winking at me as she closed the door.
 

Annika cupped my jaw and kissed me sweetly. “Come on, Hairy. Let’s get you to bed.”

I found myself smirking, my hand slipping down her arm to twine my fingers with hers as I followed her to her bedroom.
 

“Hairy, huh?”

She shrugged. “Short for
That Hairy Fucking Guy.
You used to bug me, remember?”

I chuckled. “Seems like a million years ago,” I said as I stepped in behind her.

And then the door was closed, and the quiet enveloped us in the dim light of her room. The rest of the world disappeared right then, right there. She walked across the room to her bed and turned to face me. Her fingers slipped into her hair and untied her bun, the loose locks tumbling down around her face, her eyes locked on me.

I didn’t move — she’d pinned me with her eyes, and I stayed just where I was, watching her. Long fingers worked the buttons open one at a time, neck down, leaving the white, tailored shirt open, exposing a sliver of her skin and bra. Her black pants were high-waisted, circling the smallest part of her, just below her ribs, and I held my breath as she unfastened them, bending to slide them down her legs.
 

Everything about her was beautiful, the light shining through the back of her shirt, casting a glow around the shadow of her body, and when she rose, her eyes were open, her soul open, and I could see her. All of her. And she was mine.

I stepped into her, slipping my hand under her shirt to the soft curve of her waist, pressing my forehead to hers as she wrapped an arm around my neck, fingers in my hair. And she closed her eyes behind a curtain of lashes as my heart pumped in my chest like it was reaching for her.

Her eyes didn’t open as she lifted her chin, finding my lips without the necessity of sight, the softness, the sweet demand of them against mine all I wanted, all I needed.

There was no urgency, not now, not yet, and I reveled in her as she touched every one of my senses. The sight of her alabaster skin in the soft light as I slid the shirt off her shoulders. The sweet scent of flowers as I ran my nose up the line of her neck. The sound of her sigh, a hot breath in my ear. The feeling of her body under mine as I lay her down and she wrapped herself around my waist. The taste of her lips — lips that would be the end of me.

She was everywhere, and I was lost.

I broke away and ran a hand across her throat and down, fingers dipping in the hollow, skating down between her breasts. Ink and milk. Black and white. Her and me.
 

She lay stretched out underneath me, hair lying around her face like a halo, legs parted and hooked around my thighs, arms bracketing her head, hands clasped above it, eyes full of heat and want and something else, something more. Maybe she saw all of me, too. I wanted her to. I wanted to give her all of me and take all of her, so I did, the way I knew how.

Her skin between my lips was the sweetest pleasure, and I moved down her body, my hands on her thighs, opening them wider as I trailed my nose toward her hip. Her panties were silky, slick and hot in the center, and I pressed my thumb to the sensitive tip of her, dragging my middle finger up to the crease, my eyes on her face as her chin tilted, lids fluttering closed. She moaned, and heat burned through me. I wanted to be the only one to hear that sound. I wanted my name to be the only one to leave her lips. I wanted her. Indefinitely.

I closed my eyes and opened my mouth, closed my lips over her and sucked, slipping my thumb in the leg of her panties and into her heat.
 

Her fingers were in my hair and mine on her thighs, pushing them against her ribs, wanting her open, wanting inside of her, first with my hands, then with my tongue. The rest of me would find its way later, but for that moment, I would own her with my mouth alone. I licked up the line of her, sucked and teased, rolled and moaned with her in my mouth until her legs shook under my palms. I rested them on my shoulders, freeing my hands to rid us both of the satin in my way with a fist full of fabric and a flex, shredding it.

My eyes were closed, hands and lips busy, my heart pounding in my ears as her thighs clenched. When I finally looked up, looked at her — hands on her breast, bra pulled down, fingers clenched around her nipple — she was looking down at me, her eyes full of exquisite pain and pleasure. And the second our eyes met, she gasped, then shuddered, then squeezed me with her legs, her hands, the rest of her pulsing against my hand and mouth as she gave me what I wanted.

The moment her body relaxed, she whispered my name, and I knew I’d do whatever she asked of me.

But I’d take my time, moving up her body with my lips to her skin, in the circle of her arms, and when I reached her mouth, she took mine with the possession I felt for her. So I gave it right back, telling her with my fingers in her hair, with my lips pressed to hers, with my body pressing her into the bed, that she was mine.

Her hands moved across my body, under my shirt, across my abs, to my chest. Everywhere she touched was on fire, branding me.

I broke away only long enough to pull my shirt off before my lips were against hers again, her hands fumbling at my belt, unfastening my pants, pushing them over my ass, freeing the rest of me. She halted the kiss to look down at her hands, pressing her forehead to my lips as she watched her fingers close around the length of me, and I sucked in a breath at the contact, flexing into her palms.

She squeezed gently, and I dropped my head, whispering her name with my lips to her ear, and hers to mine as she answered with a single word:
Please.

I throbbed in her hand and pulled away, kicking off my boots, then my pants as she muttered something, reaching for my cock, back arched as she ran her fingers up the length of me, guiding me toward her, pressing me against her core.
 

I drew in a breath at the contact of my bare tip against her hot, wet center and pulled back.

“Hang on,” I begged her or myself, reaching over the bed for my pants, praying my wallet was within reach.

“No,” she begged, fingers digging into my ass, pulling me down as she lifted her hips, angling for me. “It’s safe. I’m safe.”

Safe.
I knew what she meant, but my heart clenched, and I slipped a hand in her hair. “You sure?”

“Yes. Fuck, Joel, yes. Please.”

It was all the permission I needed. I lowered my face as I lowered my hips, pressing my crown against her, flexing, sliding into her as I watched her face smoothing with every inch I filled her, stopping at the end, staying there for a long moment as I brushed her face with my thumbs, felt her all around me, our bodies connected. It had been years since I’d been bared this way, my heart, my body.
 

I’d forgotten. I’d forgotten how to trust, how to feel, how much I needed to be felt.

I took her lips, slipping my tongue into her mouth as I pulled out and flexed, pumping into her. Then again as her legs curled around me. Again and I was already close, but so was she, my body clenching, muscles contracting in waves as I rolled against her. There was no pride, just the honesty of that connection, just her body around mine, mine inside of her.

My name again, as if from a distance, and I wondered if she’d said it aloud or if her body had whispered it as she held me, as I rocked into her until the build was too much, my heartbeat too much, Annika too much. And I came with a soft cry, filling her, pumping my hips to get as deep as I could. She was right behind me, her hips swinging, sliding me in and out to the rhythm she needed as her body let go again.

I buried my face in her neck, eyes pinned shut, fingers clenched in her hair, clinging to her as she clung to me. I couldn’t let her go.

Annika

WHEN I WOKE THE NEXT morning, I was surrounded by Joel.

His big arms held me into his chest like a velvet cage, his legs scissored in mine and beard tickling my forehead. I’d never been so comfortable in my whole life. He was just like Papa had said — a big, hairy bear, silly and sweet and ferocious, all at the same time.
 

I probably should have been hot, but I wasn’t at all, even though he radiated heat like a furnace. It was helped by the fact that we had a sheet draped over only the bottom half of us, but it was as if our bodies just regulated to each other rather than contributing heat. I could sleep wrapped up in him like this every night, and the feeling was so strong. I pushed away an errant thought of sleeping without him like a plate of lima beans. I didn’t want to be without him. And as strange as I should have felt about that, I didn’t. Not at all. In fact, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world.

He pulled in a noisy breath through his nose, signaling consciousness, but I didn’t pull away or give him room, squeezing him instead, nestling under his chin. His answer was the tightening of his arms around me.

“Time is it?” he mumbled.

“Dunno,” I answered against his collarbone. “Before six — my alarm didn’t go off.”

“Mmm,” he hummed. “Then there’s time.”
 

I laughed as he pressed exactly what there was time for against my stomach. And then I nipped his neck, and he growled, rolling me over to make a more distinct impression on me.
 

His lips were hungry — the rest of him hungry too as he slipped inside of me like he’d never left. It was my arms around his neck and his hand on my thigh, the sheet slipping as he rocked into me, harder and faster, hovering over me so I could see him, so I could look down the line of our bodies to the seam where they connected, and we both fell again and again, fell into each other.

It almost felt like a dream. We lay there for a little while, wrapped up in each other. He’d tuck my hair behind my ear, and I’d blush. He’d say something funny, and I’d laugh. In fact, I hadn’t laughed so much in I didn’t know how long, hadn’t smiled, hadn’t been
me
. I wondered just how long I’d been hiding, but shied away when I realized the vastness of time.

I kissed him to erase the thought, to live wholly in that moment in his arms.

But the daylight called. I climbed out of bed, my body aching in all the right places as I pulled on a black satin robe and opened my bedroom door, listening for Kira and Roxy, but they were still asleep, the house quiet. I waved Joel out behind me like we were cat burglars, and we snuck into the bathroom, stifling laughter while Kaz judged us from the hallway. Well, I was laughing — Joel just smirked, holding his clothes over his privates, which was the funniest part of all of it.
 

I turned on the shower, and we whispered and laughed some more before stepping in together. We hadn’t planned on having sex again — or at least I hadn’t. I wasn’t even sure my body could have another orgasm until I was accosted happily by soaking wet Joel, slick with soap I’d made the mistake of rubbing all over him. He was so hard, all silky skin over hard muscles. He’d been rubbing soap all over me too, which was mistake number two. Before we could even stop ourselves, I was wrapped around his waist, hot water streaming down us as he lifted me by the ass and let gravity do its work, over and over until it happened again, my body giving him anything he wanted, anything he asked for.
 

I told you — Joel turned me into an animal, and I wasn’t even sorry about it.

We snuck back out of the bathroom to the sounds of breakfast downstairs, and were safely in my room before anyone was the wiser. Joel stood in the middle of my room with a towel wrapped around his waist, running a hand through his hair, and I thought I heard my ovaries pop.

So we got dressed while I did my best not to climb all over him again, just to see if I had more hidden orgasms in my body that he might be able to coax out. But I kept my cool, and we headed downstairs to eat, effectively ending naked time with Joel for at least a few hours. I smiled to myself, thinking about working with him all day. Maybe we could sneak off. I’d definitely see him that night, but that seemed an age away.

I sighed, smiling at him from across the table as he talked to Kira about a show she was watching on her iPad, something about fingers. She sang a little song I’d heard a million times about Daddy fingers and Mommy fingers that repeated on and on, ad infinitum while Joel made her stuffed bunny dance on the table. Roxy had taken on the task of breakfast — bacon, eggs, and toast — and we ate, sipping coffee as we talked and laughed. And after I helped Roxy clean up, I found him and Kira on the floor in the living room, playing with Kaz, the two of them giggling and whispering. I swear to God, Joel Anderson giggling quietly was one of the most precious and ridiculous things I’d ever witnessed.

The whole thing felt so …
right
. I imagined him talking to a little girl of his own, one with blond hair and a button nose, with green eyes flecked with gold and blue, like his, and I was overcome by the vision.

How I’d gone from loathing him to this, I wasn’t sure. But I didn’t want to go back. Only forward. With him.

We shared a cab back to the West Side, stopping at the coffee shop down the street from Tonic to grab a cup and walk to work together, under the story that we’d met that morning over the ledgers, nothing more. Not that I’d spent my night and morning wrapped up in him. No, no, it was all business. It seemed laughable that anyone would believe it — I could feel his body calling to me like a blinking neon sign — but I prayed that they would buy it, because we weren’t ready for the ramifications of being outed.

I hated to leave him at the door of the shop, but we said goodbye cordially, and I turned for the door to the apartments, climbing three flights to get to the control room.