An airy moan heralded Andy’s orgasm, and I felt the spasms flowing through her, surrounding every millimeter of me and demanding reciprocity. I erupted with a stream of unintelligible babble about how good it was, that I wanted her all night, and how much I wanted her, and I kept my eyes trained on Andy while my hips slowed.
A warm, sated grin broke across her face. She looked open, calm, and unbelievably sexy. Mission accomplished.
I disentangled our limbs and rolled to the mattress, discarding the condom and dragging Andy to her side to face me.
“I think…I think I’d like to do this again. I don’t want just one night with you,” she said, her fingers gliding through my hair. “If that’s all you wanted…tell me now.”
I eyed her, wondering where the woman who repeatedly shut down my advances went. How did she go from ‘we shouldn’t do this’ to ‘I want to do this again’? What changed for her?
“As if one night would have been enough.” I pulled her closer, weaving our legs together and stroking my hand up her thigh, over her spine, through her hair, and back down again while I let her words sink in. It wasn’t enough to look at Andy anymore; touching was a necessity on par with breathing.
“But I don’t want anything to change between us at work. You have to promise me, Patrick. Just sex. Nothing else.”
The word ‘just’ knocked against every competing urge in my body until I was bruised. Her fingers threaded through my chest hair while my hand continued mapping her every rise and curve, and I would have happily given Andy the frontal lobe of my brain if she asked for it in that moment. For a second, it felt like I did.
Andy looked up, her hand paused on my chest. Her espresso eyes, the darkest brown I’d ever seen, gazed into mine. Her teeth scoured her bottom lip, and she blinked, her unapproachable veneer stripped away and abandoned alongside her panties. She was vulnerable and open in my arms, and without that spine of steel, she suddenly looked young and delicate.
“Patrick?”
I wanted her as mine. Nothing about that belonged in the ‘just sex’ category, but I knew what it was like to let her go, and I wasn’t about to walk that road again. Not unless it led to a padded cell stocked with enough whiskey for me to float away.
Regardless of how impossible her request was, I wanted Andy and I was taking whatever she offered. “I promise, kitten, anything you want.”
Her lazy smile returned, and she planted light kisses on my lips before staring at me as if she was trying to communicate something words couldn’t say.
Those eyes…they fucking owned me.
Chapter Fourteen
ANDY
Ineeded torewrite my submission for the Orgasm of the Universe contest. I wanted to do that quickly—while the memories were fresh and muscles sore—but my thoughts scattered like marbles down a staircase.
Patrick touched me with a skill I couldn’t comprehend, and my body was still reveling in the aftershocks, but the quiet was most fascinating. It was a strange feeling, really, to have everything fade away. It wasn’t entirely welcome, and I didn’t know how to handle the newly placid lake that was my mind.
The tips of Patrick’s fingers brushed over my back, and I shivered. With a deft movement, Patrick engulfed us in thick blankets and tucked my back against his chest.
“Better?” he murmured, his lips pressed beneath my ear.
I nodded, my eyes falling shut when his fingers resumed their trail along my body. The light pressure compounded the looseness of my muscles while I debated the appropriate course of action. It was the middle of the night, and Patrick wasn’t sending out any hints for me to hit the road, but having sex with my boss muddied the etiquette waters.
Patrick’s fingers traced the back of my knee, and I wiggled away from him with a squeal. I sat up, dragging the sheet over my chest, and shook my head at him. “Tickling is unnecessary after the age of five.”
He levered up on an elbow, his eyes trained on my side. His fingers passed over my ribs, and he asked, “Is that Arabic?”
I glanced down at the narrow strip of black ink running vertically down my side. “It’s Farsi.”
Patrick laughed, and brought me back to the center of the bed with an eager sweep of his arm around my waist. “Of course it is.”
My defenses flared to attention, and I narrowed my eyes at him. “What does that mean?”
He shrugged, his hand stroking back and forth over the ink. “It means that you, the most complex, mysterious creature I’ve ever met, would tattoo both rational geometry and Farsi onto your gorgeous skin.” He bent to kiss the marking, and I bit my tongue to restrain a moan. My ribs weren’t particularly sensitive but something about his lips on my skin was illogically erotic. “Is speaking Farsi one of your secret talents?”
“No,” I sighed, leaning back against the pillows while Patrick continued studying the characters. “Barely at all.”
“But some?” He peered up at me from where his head rested on my stomach. I nodded, wondering if he’d inquire further. I didn’t divulge information freely, and I knew he wanted more, but he was patient. That’s how Patrick was different—he never acted as though he was entitled to my life story. He respected boundaries. Most of the time. “What does it say? Where does it start?”
I pointed to the spot adjacent to my breast. “It starts here, going right to left. It says, ‘If you have to ask, you’ll never know. If you know, you need only ask.’”
