“Then take me.”

He growled and my back hit the wall. I was uncomfortable and completely, irrevocably aroused. There was nothing smooth, practiced, or controlled about what we were doing. Only greedy and needful. Essential. It was all passion and no technique.

I was mindless with selfishness. I couldn’t think past this moment because I wanted it so badly. So I’d taken it. It was raw, and it was real, and it was true. We both came quickly, hard, loud, and together. And I immediately wanted a repeat. Or a threepeat.

In the aftermath our ragged breaths married, and his mouth sought then mated with mine—slow, sensual, and loving. I whimpered, sore but needing him still. He laughed wickedly, grinding into me.

It’s true. We’d just had sex in the front closet of my apartment while my roommate was in the next room, likely laughing her ass off. I didn’t care. I had no regrets. Actually, quite the opposite.

When Martin carefully lowered and released me, my feet touched the ground and my legs were wobbly. I leaned heavily against the wall and tried to right my dress with clumsy fingers as he finished buttoning his pants, a devilish and satisfied smile claiming his features.

I opened my mouth to say something—that we should go make love on my bed now—but then he kissed me senseless once more, getting me hot and bothered in the closet all over again. Pulling away after several long, wonderful minutes, he whispered hotly against my ear, “The next time we make love, it will be in our home, in our bed, the one we share with each other.”

He leaned away slightly, capturing my gaze, his dazzling gaze telling me he was serious.

“But—”

“Because I can’t live without you anymore. I can’t spend any more days and nights not knowing when I’ll see you, hear you play, touch you. I won’t settle for less.” His tone was stern, implacable, as though he’d reached the end of his patience.

I exhaled my frustration, because I was already calculating how to get him totally naked tonight. “But you live in New York and I live here.”

“Then I’ll commute.”

My head hit the wall behind me and I glared at him. I couldn’t think. “This is not a decision to make right now. We need time, we need to talk—but later. Much later. Not tonight.”

“No. Talk now.” His eyes were uncompromising and belligerent, sharp and pointed, and I knew it would be nearly impossible to talk him out of this. But I didn’t want to talk him out of it, I just wanted him to cede that we had time to discuss living arrangements later. Living arrangements, cities, zip codes, commuting—that could all wait.

But right now, I didn’t want to think about being responsible. In fact, I didn’t want to think at all. I wanted to focus on feeling and touching, and logic and reason be damned.

Passion for the win!

“Martin, Christmas was…it was good, I think, and last spring we had a beautiful week—”

“Don’t you get it yet, Kaitlyn?” He sounded tortured, at his wit’s end.

Martin’s eyes captured mine and he held me, all of me, hostage with the savagery of his gaze. Martin’s hands lifted to my face, his rough calluses against the smooth skin of my cheeks and jaw, his fingers threading slightly into the hair at my temples. When he spoke his voice was raw with months of hope and need and desperation.

“I don’t want a beautiful week with you. I want a beautiful lifetime.”

***

Much to the disappointment of my pants, Martin and I did not have the sex again that night.

I started referring to it as “the sex” in my brain while we were still in the closet, because sex with Martin wasn’t ever going to be sex. It was THE sex. Everything with him felt like it should have a definite article (the) in front of it, as though all verbs became nouns and took on a special meaning.

The sex.

The cuddling.

The touching.

The whispers.

The laughter.

The words.

The feelings.

The teasing.

The love.

I couldn’t wait.

But rather than “the sex,” Martin pulled me away from Sam’s rainbow of coats, out of the closet, and to my bedroom. While I straightened myself, he waited for me, throwing his coat, jacket, and tie to my desk chair. He watched me in the reflection of my dresser mirror, and I found I couldn’t, nor did I want to, feel embarrassment when his gaze was so possessive and predatory.

When I faced him, he stalked to me, walked me backward until my legs met the edge of the mattress, all the while staring at me like this was Christmas morning and I was everything he’d ever wanted and hoped for.

I lay down first, he stretched over me, his lithe form above. I reached for him. I touched him. We kissed.

We kissed for a long time and his hands never strayed to the hot zones; though I could feel his want for me, his desire with every shift of his hips. And each time things became a bit frenzied he would retreat, breathing heavily and reining himself by placing whisper-soft kisses over my face, jaw, and neck. Or he’d just hold himself still above me, slowing his heart.

And I cherished him. I poured my desperate longing and care for Martin into my touch. I stroked his back lovingly and held him in a way I hoped communicated the gravity of my affection. I returned his kisses and gave him several of my own. I managed to untuck his shirt and slide my hands along the sides of his torso, memorizing and remembering the feel of his skin.

Eventually the urgency tapered, something in my soul soothed, and he rested beside me. I was tucked tightly against him, my head on his shoulder, my body curved into his side, his hands in my hair, and his lips at my forehead. We both basked in each other’s presence along with a deep sense of decisive contentment.

And strangely, my mind was blank. I was truly in the now. Likely because the now was so very, very good.

But Martin had clearly been thinking, because he asked, “Why didn’t you tell me when I came to the coffee shop last week?”

I turned into his shoulder and hid my face. “If you must know,” came my muffled response, “I did decide to tell you. I was going to call you and schedule a time to meet. Then you came by my work and asked for girl advice. And tonight, we arrived at the restaurant and I assumed you were taking me there on a reconnaissance mission for your date.”

“My date?”

“The girl? The one you like? The one you wanted advice about last week when I narrowly managed to refrain from stabbing you with my butter knife.”

He groaned, shaking his head. I lifted my chin so I could see his face. When his eyes opened they were equal parts amused and frustrated.

“Kaitlyn, you’re the girl. I never gave up, I just figured I needed to take a different approach. I kept fucking things up when you were in New York, even though I was trying to be so careful. I needed your advice because everything I did seemed to push you further away.”

I smiled against his starched shirt. He smelled like Martin: expensive sandalwood-scented soap, and even more expensive aftershave.

I knew my smile and voice were dreamy as I said, “When I first saw you, after the show in New York early in December, I didn’t know what to think. I hadn’t expected to ever see you again. Eventually I thought you were trying to give me closure. But then, when you came to me a few weeks ago and wanted to discuss the terms of our friendship, I figured you wanting friendship meant you were indifferent to me, that you didn’t want me anymore.”

“No.” He communicated so much with the single word, and it was a violent rejection of my assumptions. As well it imparted the depth of his frustration. “How could you possibly think I was indifferent to you?”

“Well, you said—our last night on the island—that you could never be friends with me because you’d never be indifferent enough. Drawing the logical conclusion, I assumed you were now indifferent enough to want friendship.”

He heaved an exaggerated sigh. “I told you the truth on the island. Like I said in the closet, I never wanted to be just a friend. But, since you offered me nothing else, I was willing to settle for it—for a time—if it ultimately got me what I wanted.”

This made me grin.

I felt his answering smile as he continued, “I thought you’d read the interviews. When I first saw you in New York after your show I was waiting for you to either tell me you’d moved on or tell me you felt the same. But then you were quiet. Evasive. So I thought, if I could just…” He shifted on the bed, holding me tighter. “When I found out you hadn’t read anything, that you’d actually been avoiding all mentions of me, I realized how badly I’d fucked up. So when you came to New York for the week before Christmas I tried to give you your space.”

“So you stayed away that week because you didn’t want to push me?”

“Yes. I wanted you to see that I’d changed, that I wasn’t…demanding.”

“But you are demanding.”

“Well, not as demanding.”

I slipped my hand under his shirt, wanting to touch him. “So what happened? Why didn’t you say something on Christmas?”

“I’d planned to. I thought, you would see the piano Christmas morning and then I’d gently explain about the foundation. You would forgive me, see I was right, and then we’d get back together.”