“Auburn, time to wake up.” I tried to gently wake her from sleep after we’d gotten my car from the lot.
“Where are we?” she asked sleepily. Her curls were in a bun atop her head, and she gently lifted her head and rubbed her eyes.
“Your house.”
She sighed. “This may be forward.”
I didn’t want to say anything, but I loved the way her voice was still deep and raspy from being asleep. “What’s that?”
“Do you want to come help me bring this stuff up and see my apartment?”
“I was actually going to ask if I could stay here tonight. That may be forward of me, though,” I repeated her words.
She laughed and then shot up from her seat as if the sleep suddenly left her. “No. Oh my God. No. Not forward. Wait. Please?”
I huffed out a small chuckle as I pulled into a spot in the front of her building. “I want to see how you live.”
She sighed and dropped into her seat. “Thank God, because I don’t think I could’ve brought my bags up alone.”
57
auburn
“I know it’s much smaller than your place, and now that I look at it, it’s a fucking mess.” Emma would have laughed at me if she was sitting here. She used to tell me that the only time my habit of shoving clothes into drawers without properly organizing them would come back to bite me was when my underwear drawer was left wide open. We kicked off our shoes at the door and walked into the apartment.
“Stassi came in here for my passport too—how fucking embarrassing she had to see it like this.”
Ledger dropped my bag over where my bed was. I felt ashamed of it. Here was this guy who paid for us to fly first class across the world on a whim, and I was excited about him seeing my place, which could fit inside his kitchen alone.
“This is…so bright and happy.” He walked around to the bright-yellow comforter I had gotten along with the boho lamps, thankful that I had done something to my bed before I left.
“Oh, yeah. Sometimes it can get so dreary in Chicago, so I figured it needed some color.”
Ledger walked around, his giant self taking up a lot of space as he ran his fingers along every single surface as if trying to imprint it to memory.
“It’s so you,” he murmured, and turned around, walking toward me.
“It’s messy,” I said, before he paused and came back over to where I was standing in the room.
“It’s yours,” he whispered, his lips pressing down onto mine. “I love you.”
Ever since we had said it to each other, he couldn’t stop saying it. He’d repeat it over and over again, and I let him, because I deserved to hear it.
“Ledger,” I moaned, letting his name roll off my tongue slowly.
“I want to fuck you on every surface of this place so that when I leave, all you can think about is me and how you’re mine, and all you can smell is me.”
Fuck. Me.
This man knew how to tell me what I wanted to hear. Every whispered promise, every soft look, stirred something deep inside me—a craving to be his, not just for a moment, but always. In his presence, time seemed to stand still, and I found myself lost in the depths of his gaze, willingly surrendering to the enchantment of his love.
“Yes, please,” I begged, dropping down to my knees and waiting as I heard him undo the belt from his loop.
“I’m going to fuck your pretty mouth first and then make you come. Do you understand?”
I nodded as his hands went to his zipper. “You look so pretty on your knees waiting for me, Sunshine.”
I could feel the heat warm my cheeks and wasn’t sure if it was from the sun or the fact this man was speaking all the words I wanted to hear.