Did I lose you
No
Yeah, maybetonight
I’m going to need you to use your words
I was hoping you might be free tonight, yes
For sex
Is that enough words?
I’ll be there in fifteen
Wear the shirt
“Bossy,” I mutter.
But I wear the shirt.
It’s warm and cozy in the condo, but cold outside. The first blast of winter hit Quebec and eastern Ontario today, and when Garrett arrives, he’s wearing a heavy parka over jeans and boots.
Snow dusts the tips of his golden brown hair, and his cheeks are pink slashes above a close-cropped beard that’s new.
He always felt too big for this small condo, especially in those last few months as our relationship fell apart. The little break again since the end of the summer has only exacerbated the effect. Now his larger-than-life presence—big, broad, and painfully tense—fills the air around me, making it hard to breathe.
“You rang for service?”
“Don’t say it like that.”
He tugs off his gloves and goes to put them on the side table that used to be beside the door, but I sold it last week.
After staring at the empty spot for a second, Garrett lets the gloves fall to the floor with a wet thunk.
Then he unzips his jacket.
Tonight he’s wearing a dark grey ribbed Henley that clings to his broad chest.
I want to cling to his chest, too.
He hangs up his coat (on the hooks he installed when we moved into this place four-and-a-half years ago) and then gestures at his feet. The unspoken question is,do you even want me to take off my boots?
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” I burst out. I don’t need this performance. If he’s changed his mind, he can just go. We’re already broken up, he can just jog back down to his truck and head on out of my life, never for our paths to cross again.
I go to open the door, to shove him out to the hallway, but as soon as I’m within arm’s reach, he scoops me up. All the air whooshes out of my lungs and I make a little sound,unfff, that barely escapes before his thumb brushes across my lips.
As if to remind me we get along better when we don’t talk.
Because when we talk, we fight. But we don’t fight when he closes the gap between us and drags his nose along my jaw, then the tip of his tongue along the outside curve of my ear.
No, we’ve never had a problem with instant chemistry.
My arms go around his neck, my fingers pushing up into his hair—it’s getting longer each month, like he hasn’t bothered to cut it even once since we broke up—and under his shirt, needing to touch his back.
His lips are cold but the rest of him is hot. Hot muscles flexing beneath my fingertips. Hot mouth sucking on that spot halfway down my neck that makes my knees weak.
It isn’t fair, how well he knows my body. How easily he gets my blood pumping.
