Page 21 of Paparazzi

“So, you do live with someone,” he says amusedly.

“Yes, his name is Dexter, and he loves everyone but me.” I approach the kitchen cabinet to get two glasses while Thomas picks up that traitor that is my cat. He starts to purr.

“What did you do to make him hate you so much?”

“Nothing! I feed him when he meows, I clean his litter box twice a day, I give him the best space on the bed to sleep in.”

Thomas bursts out laughing, and I scowl at him. “I understand now. He basically considers you his human slave. You’ll never get cuddles from him. You’re just around to give him a comfortable life,” he teases me as he puts the red hairball on the ground and opens the bottle.

I watch him, almost holding my breath. It seems impossible for Thomas of the Jailbirds to be here in my tiny Manhattan apartment. When he offers me the glass and slightly touches my hand, an electric charge runs through me until it explodes inside my stomach. I look up, and I’m sure he felt it too. His eyes, full of desire, don’t lie. I sip from my glass without ever taking my eyes off his. Maybe alcohol isn’t the best choice when I’m in a room alone with a man I’ve dreamed of having since I was a teenager, and who I’m sure reciprocates my attraction. Someone knocking on the door reminds us of reality, breaking our tension and letting me catch my breath.

“Here’s the pizza and the parmesan bread.” The delivery guy rests the two boxes in my hand without glancing at Thomas behind me.

“Thank you. Can you give the box of bread to Charlie down the stairs as usual?”

“No problem.” He takes back one of the two boxes and waves at me.

“Who is Charlie?” my guest asks me, intrigued, when I close the door and place the pizza on the table.

“The homeless man living down the stairs.”

When I look up at Thomas, his eyes glisten, and he’s hiding a smile. He seems to want to say something, but then he closes his mouth. He approaches me slowly, takes my face in his hands, and draws me in for a kiss that makes my knees tremble. He is sweet and, at the same time, intense. His tongue caresses mine with frenzy and desire as if he wants to own everything about me, body and soul. When he walks away, my head is spinning, and it’s not because of the wine.

“The more I’m around you, the more you surprise me. The first time I walked into this building, I thought you needed someone to protect you from the drunk down there. It never entered my mind that you were actually taking care of him.”

“Don’t make me out to be a heroine. I’m a long way from it, trust me.”

Thomas shakes his head and smiles. “You know you’re making it hard for me to keep being a gentleman and not take those clothes you’re wearing off of you, right?” he confesses in a whisper. “Every time you surprise me with something I like about you, you make it impossible for me to stay away.”

“I know. I’m not having much success keeping you away either,” I admit.

Thomas smiles before sinking his fingers into my hair and pulling me in for a new kiss. His tongue caresses mine at a slow, almost hesitant pace. Then it becomes more and more frenetic, full of passion, invigorated by my hands that slip under his sweater and caress his smooth skin. A groan escapes his lips and my reason—the one that tells me to stop and send him away—goes out the window. We forget about the pizza and the wine. Right now, the only thing we both seem to need is skin on skin, and his breath mixed with his kiss makes a shiver of pleasure run along my back.

It’s as if, since the beginning, a force has lured us toward each other with no chance of escaping it. It wasn’t enough to avoid giving him my phone number because, one way or another, we found the way that led us to this moment, with a desire to make love we can no longer control.

His hands follow my hair down my back to my hips and lure me in with a force that leaves no doubt about how much he wants me. His erection presses against my belly, making me surrender and press into his body as if I could merge with him. Thomas pulls back just enough to sit on the bed and draw me to straddle him without ever taking his lips off mine. His fingers slip under the fabric of my shirt, caress the skin of my back, making me groan.

I leave his lips panting, grab the sleeves of his jacket and slip it off. His eyes are full of desire and scrutinize my every movement with lust. His sweater slips on the floor along with the jacket, and my heart leaps into my throat. The toned physique and muscular arms with their raised veins drive me crazy. I want everything about him, every single inch of skin that covers this statuesque physique. I want to kiss his body and caress it with my hands until I memorize every single muscle, tendon, vein I can reach.

For years, I dreamed of how this moment would be, and my imagination did not even remotely conceive of the beauty of the man I am facing. I stop to admire his desire-laden blue eyes, the dark hair that falls across his cheekbones like the first time I met him, his solid arms and sculpted abs. His hands tighten around my hips, pushing me toward his erection, giving me a shiver of pleasure that rises from my lower belly up to my stomach. I close my eyes and moan.

I can’t resist. I go down to taste that inviting skin, deeply inhaling the sweet scent that always seems to accompany him. I can feel him holding his breath when I taste his abs with my tongue and, as I climb back to his chest with light kisses, his hand slips into my hair, clutching it in a light grip at the back of my neck. He’s losing control faster and faster, kiss after kiss, bite after bite, as I approach his neck like it’s all I need to survive for the rest of my life.

I go back to his lips, but Thomas pushes me away gently. He grabs my shirt and lifts it over my head in a quick gesture. With one hand, he unhooks my bra and leaves me naked. He opens his eyes wide, inhales deeply, and holds his breath. When he comes back to look me in the eyes, I know there’s no turning back from here. We’ve crossed the point of no return. I get up, slipping off my pants and panties as I watch him get rid of his clothes and stick a condom on his erection.

I go back to riding him slowly but without stopping. I become one with the man I have dreamed of for a lifetime. His tongue teases my breasts, his firm hands grip my hips and dictate the rhythm of my movements as I sink my fingers into his hair and pull it hard. I moan with an orgasm that makes my legs tremble while he thrusts under me, getting more intense, fast. The guttural sound filling the room when he reaches his peak of pleasure is the sexiest sound I’ve ever heard.

I collapse on him, panting, while his arms wrap me in a heat I haven’t felt in a long time. I hear him giggling, and I look up just enough to meet his gaze. “I think the pizza is cold.”

“Apparently, you’re supposed to skip dinner tonight.” I smile at him without turning away.

“We could always tuck under the blankets and eat it in bed.”

His proposal floors me. It’s the only thing I’d like to do for the rest of my life, and I don’t know if there’s ever going to be anything beyond tonight. However, I decide not to spoil this moment. I get up, move the blankets and slide him between the sheets, then I go grab the bottle of wine and the pizza and return to snuggle up next to him.

“I confess that when I realized you were a fan, I thought you’d have posters of us over your bed,” Thomas chuckles, looking around for the first time since he walked in.

I smile, chewing a piece of pizza I pounced on. “I did. I took them off the walls of the bedroom when I moved into this apartment, but I never hung them again... You know, when you pretend to be an adult and decorate the apartment decently?”

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