8
Diversification
“Hurry up—”
“Stop moving.”
“Aleksa—ah, fuck... I’m right—right there,Jesus—can you just—fuck, there, there—”
“Don’t rush me.”
Lili lets out a sound of frustration. “Please,” she pleads angrily. Her toes press against his shoulder blades. “Just—fuck—come on, come on—”
His hand sprawled over her stomach presses down, holding her in place. “Patience.”
“No,” she whispers, frustrated. “No more patience—”
“Settle down, or I’ll leave you like this,” he says, drawing away to look up at her better: her legs slung over his shoulders, his lips gleaming in the early light from the window.
Knowing she might pay for it later, Lili grabs his hair, and pushes him back down. Aleksandr just laughs, settling between her thighs again. “She has bite,” he remarks, spreading her legs wider. His mouth is hot against her, and Lili’s grip in his hair tightens. She lets her head fall back against the pillow, so close. Fever heat starts to break—a low moan from her lips, as she shuts her eyes, as he makes her come, as he holds her down, her hips straining off the bed. “There you go,” he murmurs, coaxing her through the aftershocks. Between them, her own breath—cracking, panting—is obscene, but bright; her body is ringing like a bell. “If I didn’t have to go towork,” he says, kissing along her inner thighs, “I would make you do that again and again.”
“Work is actually a collective societal delusion,” Lili gasps out, pleasure still skittering through her.
“Of course, it is.” He grins, sitting up, checking the fit of his cuff links. He’s fully dressed, but as he adjusts his belt, she can see that he’s hard.
“Do you need help with that?” she teases, a bit breathless.
Aleksandr smiles, rueful. “I can wait a few hours.”
“Optimistic to think we’ll be having sex again in a few hours.”
“Is that a challenge?”
Lili lifts her chin. “I don’t know, is it?”
“For someone who’s already gotten off multiple times this morning, you’re very belligerent,” he observes.
“I could have been faking it.”
He laughs, amused. “Sure.”
Lili pushes up onto her elbows. “How would you know?” she retorts. “I could have been faking it all this time, and you just wouldn’t have notice—ah—”
Aleksandr slides his fingers inside of her, three all at once. Lili falls back with a hiss at the chill of his ring, the sudden surprise of it. The metal of his watch presses cold against her, too. “I know when you come, Lili,” he warns. She inhales sharply as his fingers start to move. “Trust me. You get even tighter, when you’re close. Even after I’ve made you come a few times, loosened you up.” He lowers his head to kiss her hip bone. “Your thighs start to shake, and your breathing, it’s like you can’t finish one breath before you take the next one. I could listen to that all day, the way you sound when you’re about to come—ah, there it is,” he says, a low laugh, as a stroke of his fingers elicits that response.
But then he’s pulling away, pressing a last quick kiss to her stomach. Lili whines as the warmth of him leaves her.
“Do you have to go to work?” she complains, sitting up in bed. “It’s the weekend.”
“Doing what I can to make the Protestants proud.” From the foot of the bed, he grabs his discarded suit jacket—pressed, British cut, Savile Row today. His hair is still slightly damp from his shower earlier, gettingready for work while she was still half-asleep. Heading out the door, he’d leaned down to kiss her, brushing her hair over her bare shoulder. A kiss that kept going, as she’d pulled him back into bed.
Her phone buzzes on the nightstand. Grabbing it, Lili swipes it open to a fresh email from Eileen, asking if she has bandwidth to also tackle the employee schedule for August, in addition to the volunteer one. She’s tacked on a postscript:I’m also around anytime to talk about the job offer (salary, start date, etc.)! But totally respect if you just need time & space to consider. Let me know.
A strange combination of giddiness and apprehension sways her, like vertigo, at the thought of the job offer. She needs to think this through—needs to talk to Kerr, too, she supposes—but it can wait a little bit longer. She taps off a quick response to Eileen—Yes, happy to do the employee schedule. I can have it to you by Monday? Would love to discuss the job offer when we’re next both on shift together—before swiping through to her calendar.
“We have the party tonight,” she reminds Aleksandr. “Jamie’s big birthday thing.”
“Yes,” he says, tugging on his sleeves so his suit settles better—slope of the tailoring, subtle seams over his shoulders. “InGreenpoint.” Distaste rasps in his voice.
