Then two.
Then one.
A heartbeat away from my lips, and his hand grips possessively and angles me closer. “Tell me to stop, Cherry Pie.”
“Not a chance, Diner Dude.”
Stopping is no longer an option. He stamps his mouth on mine, claiming it as his and ruining me for all others. That’s what they say, right? I’ve never experienced it so it’s always sounded like hyperbole. But now I understand. Oceans of newfound knowledge hit me.
Kisses aren’t supposed to be the main event, but this kiss rages through me and sets every part of me ablaze. He still maintains a hand on my hip while the other cups my jaw and holds me in place for a thorough, professional invasion. The scrape of his facial hair adds a deliciously rough element to the kiss, sending my entire body into sensual oblivion.
After seconds, minutes, eons, he leaves my lips, and with them a shattered shell of the woman who existed before.
His voice is husky when he speaks. “You’d better go before I take you against this wall.”
Wall? I look behind me and sure enough the building has a wall as buildings usually do. Bonus: I’m backed up against this wall, like an Abby Sandwich with Diner Dude on one side and the wall on the other. The weight of him feels so damn good and I have to rewind to what he said.
You’d better go.
But I don’t want to. I want to drag him to my bedroom and fulfill the promise of that kiss.
“Maybe we could …” I flick a glance down the block, which isn’t even my block, hopefully leaving it obvious about where the could in that sentence might lead.
He leans his forehead against mine and closes his eyes. “Don’t tempt me.”
“Not good with temptation?”
“You’ve seen me with pie. What do you think?”
“I think maybe you should kiss me again and then say if you still want me to—”
His mouth is on mine before I can finish. Hot, wet, hungry. His hip hand slips so now it’s a butt hand, meaning my butt, and the long, slow squeeze of my ass cheek is about the filthiest, sexiest thing I’ve ever experienced. I want that hand all over my body, between my thighs, rubbing and stroking me to a screaming, shaking mess.
He pulls away, blows out a breath, and brushes his lips softly over mine.
“I’d like to get to know you a little first.”
My heart catches hard. He’s turning down a sure thing and though it’s enough to make me swoon, I wonder if this is the end of the road for us. If I’ve got it all wrong.
“Best be gone now,” he whispers, as much to himself as to me.
It’s hard to pull away but I manage. Just.
Yet in this strange, in-between moment, I feel I need to be as honest with him as he was with me. “So, this isn’t actually my block. I’m a couple more away but I didn’t want to offend you.”
“Not offended. How about I wait here and you text me when you get home to say you made it okay?”
That seems like a reasonable compromise, considering I’m feeling anything but reasonable. My blood is humming, my body is alive with crazy, hot need.
But I rein in my worst impulses and nod my agreement to this plan. If I text, then it’s like we’re continuing our conversation. The night won’t be over.
I walk away, and just before turning onto the street where I actually live, I look behind to see him still standing at the corner, hands in his pockets, the streetlight shining on his blue-black hair, making him look like a fallen angel.
I give a small wave.
He nods back.
And I know: this is only the beginning.
Four
Roman
I turn the key in the door quietly, conscious that it’s later than my usual. Of course if the date had gone well, I would probably be on some slinky slither of shame right about now because there’s no way I could get away with staying out all night, not as a responsible dad. But the date had not gone well.
It had gone spectacularly.
That’s probably a strange reaction to getting stood up and not getting laid, but I can’t help the vibrations rocking and rolling through my body. That kiss … it’s been a long time since anything excited me that much. Which says plenty about my sex life.
I might be divorced for all of eleven months, but my sex life had withered on the vine long before that. Sure, there’d been sporadic bursts of hate sex with Tori, my ex. No affection, little comfort, just release. After every encounter I’d wondered how I’d screwed up so much with my choices, how I had failed to see that this woman—the mom of my beautiful kid—wasn’t cut out for that life. Stability, motherhood, wife.
Or wife to me.
She used to laugh at other married couples, saying how dumb they were, while we were married. Like the institution was a big joke and we were the butt of it. Never mind that a family life was everything I’d ever dreamed of, especially as I’d lost both my parents young.
Now I’m here in Chicago, trying to craft a different version of that life. Not with Cherry Pie—no, that’s just physical, visceral, something that proves I’m still fucking alive. The life I’m rebuilding is for me and Lena.
“There he is!”
My tip toe move past the living room doesn’t quite pan out. With the raise of the dimmer light, I find myself face to face with Chiara, sitting on the couch. Sure, who needs a mom when I’ve got a nosey sister?
“What are you still doing up?” I sound like a surly teen.
“It’s only 12:30, old man.” Chiara places her wine glass on the table and pats the seat beside her. “Let’s chat.”
I groan. “Listen, I’m kind of tired. Just tell me how Lena is and we can do the post-mortem of my night in the morning.”
“Nope. I want all the details while they’re fresh.”
I know when I’m beat, so I take a seat and pick up her wine glass. More to stall, though I’m not sure I want to remove the taste of my sweet redhead so soon. I put it down without taking a sip.
“Date was a no show.”
Her dark brows pull together. “What? Then where the hell have you been all night?”
“I went to get pie.”
“Which is code for …”
“Pie. It’s code for pie.” But I would never think of pie again without remembering the flood of sensation produced by that kiss.
Chiara is watching me closely so I need to be careful about showing my cards. She’s my twin, five minutes older, but acts like it’s ten years. It’s always been that way. She’s a caregiver to the core and when I told her Lena and I needed a fresh start, she moved heaven and earth to make it happen. I like to think she needed me as much as I needed her, given that she’d been going through a rough patch with her wife, Devi, who is working with a tech start-up in Europe. It’s putting a significant strain on their relationship.
I thought it would be a pain living in the top floor apartment with my sister on the first floor, but it gives us both a chance to employ our hero complexes. Free child care, too, though I don’t let Lena hear that. Eleven-year-olds balk at the child label.
“Yeah, but something happened,” Chiara says thoughtfully. “You’re … wired.”