She was quivering atop me, her thighs tensed and her mouth open against my neck, and before she finished, I went off too, lifting my hips off the chair as I fucked her as hard as I could through our clothes. The climax tore through me, but I didn’t stop, I couldn’t stop, my balls cinched, my dick jerking, everything slick and hot inside my pants and Sunny limp and breathless on top of me, and I stopped thrusting only when I realized that Sunny was kissing me again.
And I wanted to savor every moment of it.
I didn’t know how long we kissed like that—long enough for everything to get cool and sticky in my lap, long enough that my stomach rumbled for lunch. Long enough that when we came up for air, Mr.Tumnus had come in and curled himself into an angry cinnamon roll under the chair.
Sunny looked dazed when she looked down at me. “I can’t remember the last time I made out like that. Especiallyaftersex.”
“I’ve got no complaints about your brand of just kissing,” I said hoarsely.
She laughed a little and brushed some hair away from my face. I knew it had to be tangled all to hell, and I couldn’t have been happier about it, and I started laughing too.
In the low light of the studio, I could just barely make out the flecks of gold in her dark eyes, the creases in her full lips. She was exquisite—something more than beautiful, something more than sexy. Something that was laughing while sticky and cold feet wedged under calves and scrambled eggs and childhood nannies and grief and watching someone looking down on Christmas Notch at night, their face full of wonder.
And this—this—wanting—it was so huge in my chest and almost painful, but amazing too, and I just wanted to give herthe world and the moon and the sun, I wanted to give her a finished screenplay and warm feet and as many melodramatic cats as she wanted, and anything she could ever need, anything that would be a sliver of what she made me feel just by being her.
I wanted to be something more than roommates with benefits.
And when she looked at me like she was looking at me right now, I had to wonder if maybe she wanted something more too...
Chapter Seventeen
Sunny
“Idon’t understand why we had to invite themhereto eat,” Isaac said as we set the table.
“You barely like leaving the mansion,” I said as I followed behind him, swapping out the silverware so the table was correctly made. I might not have been able to cook, but I sure as shit went to etiquette classes during the summer between sixth and seventh grade. “And Steph and Teddy are basically family.”
“To you,” he muttered. “And I prefer to meet people somewhere else for things like meals so I have a place to escape to. If they come here, to my abode, then I just have to wait for them to be ready to leave and who knows how long that could be? What if they get snowed in? What if they drink too much?”
“I promise to be cute and charming as I kick them out or helicopter them back to the inn if we’re struck with a sudden blizzard or if they drink like college girls. Plus we deserve some human conversation after we worked all day. Do you know how tired I am of indenting new paragraphs?”
He turned around, his scowl slipping until the doorbell rang.
“They’re here!” I sang as I reached up to kiss his cheek and then ran for the front door.
Standing on the steps of the mansion was Teddy Ray Fletcher in a cable-knit sweater with a Hawaiian shirt sticking out at the collar and a pair of joggers. Beside him, Steph wore a black jumpsuit and a floor-length red wool coat with the kind of heels that some men paid to be stomped with.
“Come in, come in!” I said as I pulled the door back to welcome them inside.
Steph stepped past me and threw her coat over the hand-carved banister that was definitely made for the hands of tubercular heiresses and not coats. “I need a goddamn drink.”
Teddy held up two bags full of takeout as I shut the door behind him with a shiver.
“Thanks for picking up the sushi,” I said. “We really were happy to make scrambled eggs though. I even picked up frozen waffles at the store.”
Steph laughed. “Were you going to offer us a cereal bar too? What are you two living on up here anyway? Holiday Inn breakfast selections?”
“But have you made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with two frozen waffles?” asked Teddy.
“You are one of the greatest minds of our time,” I told him as I squeezed him with a hug, his arms pinned to his sides. “Have you missed me? I’ve missed you.”
Isaac stepped in and relieved Teddy of his bags while I continued to squeeze.
“That depends. Have you written your screenplay yet? The Hope Channel wants to slate it for next season.”
I immediately let go, completely betrayed by his willingness to remind me of my contractual obligations. “Why would you say that? Why would you just go and ruin a perfectly nice night?”
I marched off into the formal dining room, which had a long and glossy dark mahogany table that sat at least twenty, but Isaac and I had set the table for four all cozy-like at the far end.
