A Sip of You(54)

“Let it happen,” he ordered, his voice harsh and husky. The sound of him, raw with passion, sent me over the edge. Pleasure slammed through me as the heat of his cum filled me. His hands grabbed my hips, pulling me flush with him as my body clenched and released and writhed with pleasure.

When he pulled out, my knees buckled, but William caught me. Tenderly, he cleaned me and himself, then shut off the water and dried me. I sat on the bed for several minutes, wrapped in a towel and waiting for my legs to regain their strength and my heart to stop racing. William, seemingly unaffected, dressed slowly, and I admired his body as he went through the mundane chore. Why had I ever doubted I was in love with him? I felt safe with him, complete with him, and I knew I would never get enough. I couldn’t even stand, and still I wanted more of him.

I wanted to tell him how I felt. I wanted to share that with him too, whisper my love, press my heart to his, hold him. But I couldn’t. Not yet.

Finally, I got up and got dressed. We left at the same time, and he gave me a toe-curling goodbye kiss at the door to my building. “Come over for dinner tonight,” he said.

“Tonight?”

He put a finger on my lips. “You haven’t been to the penthouse for a while and I have something I want to show you. So yes, tonight.”

“Ok.”

He kissed me again and was gone. I closed my eyes and sighed, the secret I carried feeling heavier than ever.

***

I headed over to Beckett’s, taking the L to Lakeview so I didn’t have to dig my car out of a snowdrift and then drive on the slippery roads. Normally I checked email on the train, but today I couldn’t concentrate. I couldn’t stop thinking about Jeremy and my morning with William. I almost missed my stop. At Beckett’s apartment, he and I worked for most of the morning on the shots for Fresh Market. Finally, we were satisfied—and I reminded Beckett again that his “cherries in the snow” idea was positively brilliant—and we decided to take a break before going over the images one last time and hitting send. Beckett called Alec to make plans for the evening, and when he was through, he sat beside me on his couch. “Everything doesn’t have to be so complicated, Cat.” He set a bottle of water beside me and sipped from his own.

“Jeremy makes it complicated,” I answered, clutching one of Beckett’s pillows to my chest and staring out the bay window. He lived in a cute courtyard building. His one bedroom was small but he’d made great use of all the vintage features, playing them up so the style was classic but still modern and comfortable. On the wall across from me was a framed black and white of Beckett and me at high school graduation. We looked so young and fresh-faced. That was before Jace and Jeremy.

“Jeremy is a minor complication. Can’t you just forget him?”

“I wish I could. But…I didn’t tell you everything the other night. There’s more.” I then proceeded to confess all, about Jeremy and his lame apology for his mother, and then about his saying that he wanted me back. And I filled him in on my fight with William, about Anya, about William’s security people secretly trailing me to the airport, and how he said I shut down and ran before I ever gave him a chance to explain himself. “And the topper was that he thinks I was intentionally with Jeremy, talking to him about Jace, because I still can’t let Jace go. Like leaving me at his house for a few days upset me so much that it drove me back to being a grieving widow who couldn’t get over her dead husband. And then he promised me he’d always come back and that he’d never leave me. How about that?”

Beckett just looked at me for a minute. “Seriously? He really said all of that?”

“Yeah, he did.” I waited for Beckett’s response, which wasn’t instantaneous.

“He’s totally got you pegged. I’m impressed.”

“What?” I couldn’t believe Beckett said that. “Shut up! He does not! It wasn’t like that at all. And that’s not what I am. I care about William, and I want to be with him.”

“But, Cat, you told me on the phone less than an hour after you got to Napa that you weren’t ready. His fabulous manse wigged you out so badly that you were about to throw in the towel then and there. And you were upset that he left you. That’s all you’ve been talking about for days. How William abandoned you at his luxurious Napa Valley estate and left you all by yourself and didn’t call you. Maybe you didn’t seek out Jeremy to console you about Jace, but come on. You had the dream. That means something. And you were obviously scared to be alone. Not haunted house scared, but definitely not comfortable on your own. You freaked out, right? So maybe he has a point. Maybe you aren’t all in.”