Page 62 of The Wallflower Manifesto
“No,” she said, flinging droplets of water from her fingers, shifting her weight as she puddled on the floor. “I need …” She glanced over her shoulder at Abe, who’d been watching all of this while gripping the bannister of his staircase. “I need Mr. Murphy’s help too,” she decided. “Many things are in play. You will understand soon.”
And he’d accepted it. Blessed heavens, he’d just nodded and gone and closed the door behind him, leaving her soaked and alone with Abe Murphy.
“Millie,” he said, after the door had been closed for long enough that they could believe it would stay closed.
She looked at him. Looked at him all rumpled and casual and dry and standing there like that, gripping that bannister like she was about to pull him out to sea, and she took a step toward him. Like he could save her, maybe.
“Millie, are you going to tell me what the hell is going on?” he asked warily.
Two more steps. Closer. Almost touching him.
“No,” she said.
And then she kissed him.
She held him by the neck, her fingers cool and damp against the dry heat of his bare skin. She melded her wet, exhausted body against his, and she kissed him like she needed it to stay alive.
He kissed her back, tentatively at first like he was misunderstanding this kiss as an apology and not a demand, but it changed quickly, almost imperceptibly. He reflected her heat with a bursting flare of his own, and when he pulled back, the nonsensical nature of how this day had unfolded starting to needle its way into his mind, she made a noise of frustration.
“I’m confused,” he managed, breathy against her lips.
“Good,” she said, pulling him back for more. “So am I.”
He groaned, sinking his hand into her wet, tangled hair and giving her what she wanted. What she needed. She felt the rainwater soaking into his shirt, transferring from her dress and her rain-lashed skin.
He pulled away, something sharp and feral flashing in his eyes, those eyes that were always so soft and sparkling with amusement. He grabbed her by the hand and pulled her up the stairs.
“Let’s be confused in my bedroom,” he said, his voice firm and brokering no argument as she hastened after him. The warmth of his hand over hers seemed to travel up her arm and then out into the rest of her as he led her to his door.
She felt his hands on her hips, on her waist, as he flung the door open, somehow managing to exist both behind and ahead of her as he pulled her into his domain. He was moving like a predator. Disorienting her like prey.
She found herself pressed to his wall, her cheek turned to the side as the heat of his breath fell into her ear, his teeth grazing at her lobe. She could feel the deftness of his fingers, working their way into the ties at the back of her dress and jerking them apart one by one.
He was not quite rough, but it certainly wasn’t gentle. This wasn’t polite or careful or shy in any way, not like she’d been led to believe it would be, should she ever get to experience it. She could feel the length of his erection, the persistence of it, pressed tightly into the small of her back.
She surrendered to it, allowed herself to whimper, to feel her dress pushed from her shoulders and down her waist.
She shivered at the growling sound he made, like a primal approval, when the fabric briefly caught on the flare of her generous hips and bottom. She leaned into the sharp flick of his tongue on her neck, consuming the beads of sweetwater rain that lingered on her skin.
She wiggled to get the dress loose, swaying her hips in a way that wasn’t meant to be provocative but certainly appeared to inflame Abe. He made a sound low in his throat like hunger. No, not hunger. Like famine.
She didn’t even feel him untying her half stays. They simply went sailing across the room, as though they’d never belonged there in the first place.
She let him spin her, let him maneuver her, still trapped against the wall but facing him now, seeing how unraveled he looked, how his eyes glinted in the low light. No one had ever attempted to handle her body like this, not ever. She’d never felt another’s will upon it, and oh, it was intoxicating to let go.
She reveled in choosing helplessness. She pushed her entire being into flesh under his hands as he grazed his fingers over her shift. He held her gaze, daring her to resist the urge to close her eyes and escape into sensation, to stay here with him and acknowledge the forbidden things that were required to feel that way.
And she did.
He didn’t take her shift. At least, he wasn’t taking it yet. Her brain attempted to question it, to raise her typical threads of curiosity, confusion, observation, but something was stopping that; something had put a full damper of steaming water on her instincts, and answered, impatiently,because he likes it.
That had to be enough. She couldn’t force any thoughts beyond it, not with the gentle rasp of muslin being pulled tautly against the nakedness underneath.
He touched her boldly, cupping her breasts, stroking the soft flesh of her stomach, her waist, her hips. His eyes shone,somehow reflecting more light by far than the sliver of the moon that watched through the window. He looked for acknowledgement in her face of the fact that it was him, that it was his hands on her. He imposed that awareness through his own satisfaction in it.
And once he saw what he wanted, once he knew she felt what he felt, he reclaimed her mouth, kissing her with everything that had transpired since that first day, that first blush when something sparked between them. He poured it all into her mouth, into her body, into her soul.
She found the power of her own hands, her fingers reaching up toward him first of their own accord and then in ravenous deliberation. She fisted her hands in his shirt, arching into him, accepting every red-hot emotion that he had tempered into his kiss.
