Page 25 of Fourth Wall

“Maeve…” he warned.

I looked down at his lips and then finally closed the gap between us. I pressed my lips against his, and I felt myself being transported to another world. His mouth was as thick as it looked, and he opened easily for me. As our mouths intertwined, his hands pulled my waist in tighter.

My body molded seamlessly into his, an undeniable magnetic pull drawing us closer. The chemistry that I had stubbornly denied now blazed between us with a real intensity. In that stolen embrace, time lost its grip, and the world faded away, leaving only the intoxicating taste of desire on our lips.

It was a moment of surrender, a moment when the truth could no longer be concealed. The fire that had silently smoldered between us erupted into an inferno of passion, defying all logic and expectation. It was as if somehow this unveiled a connection that transcended the ordinary, rewriting the rules of our own desires and awakening a hunger that could no longer be denied.

Our lips parted as we took each other seamlessly. There was an electric current between us. It was undeniable. It was there. It existed. I had no desire to stop as I pushed my mouth open and let my tongue slip into his.

14

Christian

Holy shit.

She came onto me with a confidence even I barely recognized. Suddenly, we were kissing. Yet, it was so much more than just kissing. Something else was happening between us. I wanted more, but I knew I needed to stop.

I was aware that if I stopped it, it would deal a blow to her self-assurance so I kept kissing her, fully aware that I was about to screw up everything between us, just like I always did. Relationships were never my forte. That was why I preferred one-night stands. There was usually nothing messy to clean up afterward. My ex divorced me because my work addiction was too overpowering. Adding sobriety to the mix only made things messier, and Maeve and I were already tangled in a mess.

With as much gentleness as I could muster, I pushed her away from me.

"Maeve.” I locked eyes with her, desperately hoping my expression would convey that I didn't actually hate kissing her. In fact, if I continued doing it, I would end up throwing her forcefully over the desk and fucking her because all I could think about was how much I wanted to devour her.

But I needed to stop before this fucked everything up between us. I just had to wait six months so that she could have her kids and the custody situation with her ex sorted out. I promised myself that if I still felt this way after the six months, then I could fuck her. Right now, I didn’t want to fuck this up, so I was doing it to protect us. Both of us.

“Oh,” she exclaimed quickly and moved away from my thigh. She looked down, and I knew she saw my raging boner. “I am so sorry.”

Turning her head away from me, she started to fuss with her hair and adjusted her shirt that had ridden up from my hands.

Fuck. I fucked up. She was confident, pulling me in here with ease, and I knew I would fuck things up. But I was trying to think above just wanting to fuck her for a second. I was trying to be the bigger person no matter how hard living here with her would be. Now that I knew what her mouth felt like, I knew all I would do was imagine her pretty pink lips wrapped around my cock as she swallowed me whole.

“I’m so sorry. I-I just thought…” Fuck. She was overthinking. I could see the wheels literally spinning in her mind.

“It’s just…complicated, Maeve.” She hadn’t turned her head in my direction. In fact, she kept staring at her feet this entire time. She grabbed the handle of the door to the office.

“Right, yes. Complicated.” None of it was a complete sentence. She was panicking, and I desperately wanted to comfort her. I hated seeing her like this.

“I’m going to go.” She opened the door and looked back at me in the briefest of moments. I met her watery, tear-filled eyes before she left. “Anyway, thank you for everything, Christian. It doesn’t go unnoticed.” With that, she walked out.

“Fuck,” I murmured angrily as I ran my hands through my hair, throwing it up into a bun on the top.

I gathered myself physically and mentally before gaining enough courage to head back outside.

Everyone was admiring the pool. Julian stopped me and gave me a pointed look. “You good?”

“Yeah, man.”

“Need to call your sponsor?” he asked me quietly.

“Nah. Thanks, though.” I gave him a pat on the back before I stood there and listened to the conversations around me. I was nodding like I was part of the whole ordeal, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Maeve. The blush had left her face from earlier, but she was perfection, and I had totally just made everything weird as fuck between us.

A few hours later, everyone had left except for Pat and Sarah.

“We should get going.” Sarah looked at the now quiet living room where we all were sitting.

“Do you have to?” Maeve asked her mom, who only responded with an empathetic smile.

“You’re a big girl, sweetie,” Sarah responded as I just watched them. Many times, I would beg my mom to stay with me, but Iwas maybe five years old. There was something sweet about this interaction.

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