forehead crinkles. ‘I know.’
He reaches across, his touch on my cheek light and surprising. ‘I wanted to make sure you were okay.’
My eyes are wide when they lift to his face. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
Relief is palpable. My genuine confusion seems to warm him and he smiles. ‘Jesus. I thought I might have scared the shit out of you with all the tying up and blindfolding...’
‘The makeshift nipple clamps,’ I remind him with a teasing smile.
‘Yeah.’ Regret is back in his voice. ‘All that.’
‘No.’ I bite down on my lip, knowing I need to be honest with him. ‘You didn’t scare me.’ My reaction did, though. The depth of my desire for him. The way I needed him. The way I really didn’t want to leave him.
‘Jesus, Olivia. Why’d you run out, then?’
I shrug. ‘I didn’t run out. I just woke up and thought it would be easier if I came home.’
His laugh is a beautiful sound. Neither of us speak for a moment, but the silence is filled with the ebb and flow of thoughts and wants. He sips his wine, his eyes trained on my hands as they work, expertly shaping the gnocchi, one by one.
‘But you’ve never done that before.’
I bite down on my lip as I grab another piece of dough. He reaches across and pads his thumb over my lip, reminding me forcefully of how he did that last night.
‘No.’ I answer directly, with no need to dissemble. ‘I’ve never done anything like that.’
I don’t return the question. He was too confident with the belt, the blindfold, for it to have been his first time with that kind of kinky shit. An image of his vibrant sex life with other women is the last thing I want in my head so I smile brightly in the hope of dismissing it.
‘And did you like it?’ he prompts, his expression inscrutable.
My insides heat. I nod, almost incapable of speech.
‘What did you like?’ he asks.
I am embarrassed. Not by what we did, but at the discussion, in my kitchen, over gnocchi I will tomorrow serve to my parents.
‘All of it,’ I say, stumbling over the words a bit. He laughs.
‘And you’d like to do it again?’
Is he asking to make me admit the fact? Or because he needs to hear it? He’s not an insecure man. I know that to be true. He is the definition of confidence and, if anything, he goes beyond that, to blinding arrogance.
And yet he is asking me for something and I know he needs to hear my answer. ‘Yes.’
He simultaneously expels a breath and smiles—a smile that completely changes his face.
My heart races.
‘Would you like to stay for dinner?’
The question surprises us both. He stands up then, sipping his wine before moving around the bench and placing his hands on either side of me. His body presses into my back and his lips drop to my neck, nipping my flesh with his teeth, buzzing my skin with his stubble. I moan and drop a piece of gnocchi into the flour, so that a little cloud of white erupts from the benchtop. I don’t care.
My fingertips are numb.
His hands slide under the front of the apron, finding the hem of my shirt. He lifts it up, running his palms across my stomach and higher, to the swell of my breasts. He is gentle with them today, cupping them reverently as his tongue moves along my shoulder. I shiver against him and feel the hardness of his cock, just behind me.
He runs his hands lower, one hand pushing inside the elasticised waistband of my yoga pants. His fingertips brush against me, teasing my clit, teasing me, and I moan as pleasure radiates through me, all fiercely hot and burningly commanding.
I am panting against him as my pleasure mounts. How can my body feel like this again, now? It is as though the day has passed in a strange suspension of our natural state, and now we are back exactly where we were.
I breathe hard and fast and he moves faster and whispers in my ear, words I am too drugged by desire to catch, words that are low and soft. I feel his breath in my ear as his fingers rob me of any ability to think. I am his, for a song. I am his, for anything.
My fingertips dig into the benchtop as an orgasm explodes around me. It is fierce and all-consuming. I stand in my kitchen, the air thick with my passion, my skin pink, my breath rushed, and I wait for the world to stop racing.
I spin in his arms and stare up at him, my eyes round, my face flushed. I want him. I need him. I am lost to him. He understands, I know he does, and yet he steps back, a smile on his lips promising me things he is withdrawing right before me.
‘I can’t stay.’ The words aren’t even tinged with regret. My stomach swoops—not in a good way. He moves back towards the door and my hungry gaze chases him in confusion.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I have to go.’ He presses a hand to the doorknob. ‘I just needed to be sure.’
‘Of what?’
‘That you’re okay.’ His smile dazzles me then, almost as much as his concern.
I gape, though, so close to being with him and yet so far. ‘You don’t have to go right now, surely...’
‘Yeah, I really do.’ He laughs softly as he pulls the door inwards and then he leaves. Evaporates. Disappears.
* * *
I walk away from her to prove that I can. I walk away from her when I want to stay because it feels somehow vitally important. I don’t remember the last time I wanted someone like this. I don’t think I ever have.
In fact, I know I haven’t. This kind of desire isn’t welcome. I like my relationships to fit neatly into the space I allot them in my life. Snatched nights to suit my schedule, weekends away when I’m between cases. Always over when I say, and most definitely ‘out of sight, out of mind’. Olivia is the first woman to break into my mind and obliterate any box I might have hoped to contain her with. And it’s only been one night.
But what a night.
The law school ball. My apartment. Everything we wanted for four weeks exploded and we were powerless in the wake of that.
Sleeping together is absolute madness but I can’t see either of us stopping what we’ve started.
So finding a box and putting her—this, us—into it is crucial. Control is crucial.
Controlling this, her, what I want and need from her, remembering that this is just an infatuation—this is all important, and so I walk away from her to prove to us both that I can.
I need to be strong so I walk away when all I want to do is
