Lauren Blakely - After This Night

Eventually she came back to earth, and he reached for her, nuzzling her neck, kissing her cheek, unable to keep his lips off of her. A kiss on her shoulder, another at the hollow of her throat. He stopped kissing her to trace her arm, holding her gaze as he did. “I want that every day. I want you every day,” he said, his voice rumbling over her skin, drugging her with its sexy warmth.

“Me too. So much,” she said, still high on him, them, the moments that had stitched together into bliss. Maybe that’s why she felt bold enough to say the next thing. “It was different this time, Clay,” she murmured.

“How?”

“I don’t know. Maybe more connected. This is going to sound crazy, and you know I don’t talk this way. But it felt deeper. Like we were the same,” she said, a flush creeping over her cheeks as she opened her heart to him more and more every time. But she wanted him in now. She didn’t want an arm’s-length Clay anymore. “Does that make sense?”

“Yes. Do you know why it felt deeper?”

“Why?” she whispered, and the moment felt suspended, like they were on a bridge, holding hands, about to jump into the water below.

“Because there aren’t secrets anymore between us,” he said, brushing the backs of his fingers against her cheek, softly, oh so softly that she melted into his touch. “Because we’re in this together.”

“That’s all I want. To be together with you,” she said, the warm rush of falling blotting out everything else in the universe. Surely, nothing existed beyond these four walls. The city had disappeared and they were all that was left.

“No more lies. No more secrets. Only the truth,” he said, his voice strong and steady.

“Only the truth,” she repeated, and nothing had ever felt more true than this moment. “Like this. How I feel for you is like nothing I’ve ever had before.”

“Me neither. I can’t get close enough to you, Julia,” he said, linking his fingers through hers, and that gesture, so tender and loving, was like stripping off a final layer. “I can’t have enough of you. I want more of you. All the time.”

“You can have all of me,” she said, watching the reaction in his eyes. As if she’d given him all he ever needed with those words.

“You’re all I want,” he said, and it felt like a promise of what they might have together.

“What will you do with me after tomorrow night, once I have all this free time?” she asked, shifting from the intensity of their admissions to something a touch more playful, like they’d always been together. They’d had that from the start, from their very first night. She loved that they had so many sides.

“I figured you’d have your fill of poker, and be ready to move onto bridge. Strip bridge,” he added, raising an eyebrow.

“We could try canasta, even. Or if you really want to go wild,” she said, punctuating her words with a quick trip of her finger down his strong arm, “we could do Go Fish.”

He pretended to fan out several cards in his hands. “Julia, do you happen to have any sevens?” he teased, as if they were playing the kids’ game.

She mimed handing over a pair. “I’ll miss my lucky sevens,” she said with a pout.

“We’ll make new luck. Because I know what we’re going to do with all your free nights.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m going to take you to Vegas. Play for fun. We’ll play blackjack.”

“I’d love to go to Vegas with you.”

“You can meet my brother. We’ll go to Brent’s comedy club, then I’m going to take you to one of those late-night clubs in the Bellagio, where it’s dark and smoky and the music is low, and you’ll dance with me.”

“You dance?”

“Gorgeous, with you and me, dancing would be foreplay. I’d have you grinding against me on the dance floor,” he said, flipping her around so her back aligned with his chest.

She wiggled her rear against him in demonstration. “Like that?”

“Yeah, keep practicing that,” he said, low and husky in her ear.

“We’d play the slots, too,” she added, keeping up their Vegas dreams.

“We’d lose money and not care,” he said, brushing her hair off her shoulder. Planting a kiss on the back of her neck. Making her shiver.

“See a show.”

“Fuck in a limo on the strip,” he said, tracing her hipbone with his strong fingers.

“Fuck in the elevator,” she said, sliding her leg through his, wanting to be wrapped up in him.

“Leave work behind. Leave the past behind.”

“Not look at my phone. Not think about my phone.”

“No one could reach us,” he whispered. “We’d get drunk on each other.”

She turned back around, needing to look at him, to see him. She ran a thumb over his lips, watching his eyes float closed as he hitched in his breath. “I’m already drunk on you, Clay.”

“Stay that way,” he said. “I need you to stay that way.”

“I will.”

He didn’t want the time with her to end. He didn’t want anything with her to end.

As he stepped into the elevator after dinner at an Italian restaurant that evening, he was painfully aware of the ticking clock marching towards tomorrow’s game, then Sunday morning when they’d meet Charlie at eleven, then Sunday afternoon when he’d put her on a plane and let her crisscross the country. As they reached his floor¸ the thought of sending her home again was like a cut inside the mouth, an annoying reminder that couldn’t be ignored. Because he wanted so much more with her. He wanted these moments to unfold every damn day.

But all he could do was make the most of this moment.

“I have a gift for you,” he said when they were inside his home.

A smile teased at her gorgeous lips. “A gift? I love gifts. However did you know?”

“Of course you love gifts,” he said, with the confidence of knowing her.

“Why do you say ‘of course?’” She leaned against the doorframe in his kitchen, tilting her head to the side in curiosity.

“Because,” he said, running his fingers across the top of her skirt. “Because you know how to enjoy things. Because you don’t deny yourself. Because you let yourself feel pleasure and want. And that’s the kind of person who likes gifts. The kind of person who knows how to enjoy life.” He lowered his head to her neck, unable to resist brushing his lips against her soft skin. She shivered, and grabbed onto his shirt, tugging him close. “My point exactly,” he added.

She broke the embrace and made grabby hands. “Gimme, gimme, gimme.”

Stretching his arm around her, he scooped up the pink box that he’d left on the counter that morning. He handed her the gift, and tried his best to record every frame of her reaction. The way her eyes lit up as she ran a palm across the box, then as she untied the satiny white bow, letting it fall onto the counter. She lifted the top and peered inside.

“Ooh,” she said appreciatively, then took the black thigh-high stockings from the box, and laid the box on the counter. “Your favorite thing.”

He nodded.

“You want me to put these on now?”

“No. Save them. I need you to wear them tomorrow night.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Why?”

“It’s my poker handicap.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t want to win tomorrow. If you’re wearing those, I won’t, because it’s all I’ll think about,” he said, brushing his fingertips from her knees up her thighs.

Her lips parted as he neared the apex of her legs, but she pressed a hand against his chest, holding him back. “I want to win fair and square. I told you that. You promised.”

“I know you do. But you don’t need to prove to me you can beat me, Julia. I’m on your team,” he said, grabbing her hand and linking his fingers through hers. “And I need you to wear those tomorrow night for me. Say you will.”

He watched her. Her shoulders rose and fell, and she didn’t speak for a moment, as if she were considering it. “Why do you have to be so damn convincing?”

“It’s my job to make a good argument.”

“You’re too good at what you do. But I’d wear them for you anyway. And since it’s evidently Christmas early at your house, I suppose it’s as good a time as any to let you know I have something for you.”

“I love Christmas,” he said as she took his hand and guided him upstairs. When she reached her suitcase, she unzipped it and dipped a hand into the inside pocket.

“This is a surprise, so close your eyes.”

He did as she said. “I love surprises too. Did you know that?”

“No. But that suits you as much as you said my loving gifts suits me.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because of the time you surprised me at my apartment. And then at McKenna’s wedding,” she said, as her heels clicked across the floor, and he felt her near him.

“Hold out your hands,” she told him, her sexy, sultry voice turning him on.

He opened his palms. “Put this on me,” she said, and he felt soft fabric fall into his hands.

When he opened his eyes and looked down at his hands, he breath caught. A silk scarf was in his palms, and she was stripping off her clothes. “Blindfold me,” she said.

He flashed back to their night in San Francisco last month. She’d told him it was the only thing she didn’t want to do. “The thought of it makes me feel a bit too vulnerable, and for a woman with trust issues, well, I’m not sure it’s the best kind of kink for me.”

“But you said,” he began, but his words were swallowed dry as he watched her clothes fall in a heap on the floor, and she wore only her lace panties and heels.

“I know what I said.” She ran her hand down his chest, her touch sending tremors through his body. “But things changed, and I want to do this for you. This isn’t the same as you helping me out of my troubles, but even so, I want to give you what you want. Let me do this for you.”