Page 58 of Love Me Like It's Real
Nothing about tonight should be making me want this. Nothing that’s happened tonight should make me change my mind or resolve, and yet that kiss…it lit something inside me that I can’t extinguish. Something that’s sent me tumbling into something selfish. Into my own abyss of need and want and it won’t be sated until I am.
The whole time I’m home trying to put the girls to sleep is torture, because all I can think about is him, his kiss, his touch. Hell, even his story is something that makes me feel some kind of way about him. The way he was betrayed, the way he backed away from love because of it…it makes me want to shelter him, to protect him.
It makes me want to prove him wrong.
I leave their room knowing they’re still awake but by the time I have a shower—I need to shave—they’re out like a light.
“Okay. I…I’m off,” I tell Cheyenne who is, like usual, buried in a book or another and not even the good kind. Just boring old textbooks that are going to get her into college or whatever.
“Okay, Mr. Spring…” something hangs in the air in her words although I’m not quite sure what it is.
She’s not stupid. She knows where I’m going and what I’m about to do. She’s sixteen for crying out loud. But that’s not what it is.
“Did you need to tell me something?” I ask her as I put my coat back on.
She opens her mouth but no word comes out. She just shakes her head and I open my front door.
“Just…be careful,” she whispers and I pretend I don’t hear.
I don’t need an excuse to listen to reason. I need to do this. I need to get this out of my system. I need to see if Hayworth is able to put out the fire burning inside me. This yearning that threatens to scorch me to my core.
I type in his address on my phone and drive there with relative confidence. Maplewood is easy to navigate even if I’ve not been here long enough to know every nook and cranny of the town.
I find his car parked in front of the apartment block and pull up behind him then I buzz his apartment number. The crackling noise of the door comes through in an instant, letting me into the building.
I take the stairs to the second floor and find him there, standing by the door, in a white T-shirt and sweatpants and my cock throbs again, taking my breath away as the realization of what I’m about to do hits me, threatening to immobilize me.
“Everything okay?” he asks, his smile wavering just a smidge.
He looks clean and freshly showered and when I nod and walk toward him I smell his fresh, cool deodorant, which only sends me reeling further into my daze.
“Yeah, I’m good,” I say and he lets me into his apartment.
It’s modern and minimal but feels lived in. I expect a bachelor pad but it appears tidy. Perhaps a little too tidy. A piece of fabric caught in a cupboard door fills in the picture in my head of Hayworth rushing to clean any mess visible in the apartment before my arrival.
“Would you like a drink?”
I shake my head and take a seat on his couch. “I’m driving.”
He sits beside me, facing me, and smirks. “Not for the foreseeable future,” he all but purrs and that doesn’t help the straining hardness between my legs one bit.
“Oh really?” I purr back, not even recognizing myself or my voice.
“Uh-huh. So…what’s it going to be? Beer? Wine? Scotch?” He starts getting up but I can’t take it anymore. I grab him by the shirt and pull him down to me.
“I think I’d rather have you,” I say and drive my lips between his, reigniting the flame inside and the memory of the kiss by my doorstep.
He pushes me back with the force of his kiss and I slip my tongue into his mouth, wanting to taste him once more.
He sits on my lap and deepens our kiss with an eagerness—a hunger—that sends shivers down my spine. He wants this. I want this. This is happening.
I don’t know how long we stay connected, but the more we do the less I can taste the minty flavor of his toothpaste, and the more I can taste him, his essence, and it’s even more intoxicating.
I do come up for air and when I push him back, he collapses beside me, his legs sprawled all over me.
I rest my head against the cushion and he does the same, gazing into my eyes, mouth agape, chest rising and falling rapidly, Adam’s apple bobbing as if it has a life of its own. I can’t stop staring. I can’t stop watching him. He’s utterly handsome and sexy.
“What?” he asks.
