Page 90 of Nerdelicious
“You don’t want to be social, but you wanted me to come over?” Scarlett asks.
“With you I can be bleak and miserable. With my coworkers, I have to put on a face like I’m happy and normal.”
She pauses. “Aren’t you, though? Happy?”
I stop at a crosswalk, waiting for the light to change. “I mean. I am in some sense. I’m ecstatic about my job and apartment. But... I know, I can’t base my entire happiness on someone else, and I’m not, but I miss him, Scarlett.” I can’t stop the thickness from entering my voice.
“I know, Fred. Why don’t you go home, take a bath in that awesome claw-foot tub, order takeout, and call Beast? I bet you’ll feel better.”
I swallow. “You’re right.”
“And call me in the morning, okay?” There’s something off in her tone, like she’s distracted, but it’s probably just Guy or one of the kids. I don’t want to push her on it, and I’ve reached my building anyway. We hang up and I get out my keys for the front entryway.
The elevator has aDo Not Usesign so I trudge up the stairs. I guess it’s a good thing. This is the only exercise I get. I exit the stairwell onto my floor and halt.
Down the hall, a large figure sits in the hall, head tipped back against my door, eyes shut.
Oh my Chuck.
“Beast?” The word, only a whisper, may as well be a gunshot.
He jerks up. Our eyes meet.
“Am I hallucinating?”
He smiles at me, shaking his head no. He lumbers to his feet, and I’m already running.
Heart pounding, I leap into him in a graceless move that should send us both sprawling to the floor. But he would never let me fall. He catches me, holding me up against him while I rain kisses all over his face.
I hold his face between my hands, tracing his features with my eyes. He’s thinner. Grey smudges line his eyes, and there is enough stubble under my fingers to indicate he hasn’t shaved since at least yesterday morning. “You’re here. You’re really here. I’ve imagined you here, but I can’t believe this is real.”
Then we’re kissing again. I lift my legs to wrap them around his waist and he grasps my ass in his giant palms.
He leans back against my door, his mouth devouring mine like I’m a succulent dessert and he hasn’t eaten in months. I start unbuttoning his shirt and then my neighbor’s door opens and a whistle jars us out of our kissing trance.
Flushing, I unwrap myself from Beast but his hands don’t leave me, touching my back, my shoulder even as I unlock my door and he picks up his bag from where it was sitting on the floor.
“Hey, I was enjoying the show!” my neighbor yells.
“Good night, Dave.”
“I think yours is gonna be better than mine,” he calls out as I shut the door.
We get inside the apartment and I lock the door. He drops his bag on the floor and then we’re kissing again.
This time, it’s not a consuming scorch of lips, but a tender expression of intent. Soft and sweet, full of heated emotion.
We pull apart, and I grasp his hand and lead him into the bedroom. It’s not yet dark outside, though the sun has disappeared behind the buildings, casting the sky with an orange glow that seeps through the curtainless windows.
No words are needed as we undress each other, the only sounds the whisper of our clothing as it hits the floor.
He runs his knuckles over me, from my breastbone to my navel and back up. Tracing delicate patterns over my skin in effortless seduction. Then we’re falling into bed.
He shifts over me, arms braced on either side of my head, the blunt head of him pressing against my sensitive entrance. His mouth sips at mine as he pushes inside, hard and insistent.
I grip at his lower back, pressing at him, rocking my hips to drive him deeper, but he’s inexorable, the power of him a leashed force entering me barely an inch at a time. Finally, he pulls back from the kiss, our eyes locking, and he plunges the final inch. We shudder together, holding on to the moment. My hands glide up his body to close around his nape.
His gaze is raw, possessive, full of a primal heat that echoes inside me.
