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Fifteen minutes later, Clara came out to the living room, her thick blond hair pulled into a twist behind her head, and her face shining. Her feet were in slippers, and something about the way she looked in that moment pulled the same strings that had been getting tugged all night. I wanted to see her this way more. Relaxed. Comfortable. At home.
“Hey,” I said, standing and handing her a glass of champagne. Her eyes widened, and then moved past me to land on the enormous bouquet of lilies. “I hope you like lilies.”
“Sly,” she said, her voice full of wonder. “Where did this all come from?”
I lifted a shoulder. “Delivery. You deserve to celebrate. Congratulations on the promotion, Clara. I’m proud of you.”
Her eyes met mine and held for a long moment, and my heart caught in my throat. The deep blue eyes I’d begun to see in my dreams were shining and disbelieving.
We touched our glasses together and drank, and then she put hers on the table, laughing. “This is...a lot,” she said. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“If I drink this, I won’t be much help to you with your project.”
“Can’t make it worse.” Part of me wanted to forget the stupid project and see where a glass of champagne might lead us, but I knew it was important. And that was why we were here in the first place.
“Let’s take a look.” Clara gestured to the table.
I opened my laptop and spread the data and my analysis on the table, and we sat down to work. She spent some time reviewing and reading while I drank champagne, and then faced me. “I think I see the issue. It’s not a big deal at all, but I also see why your teammates might have missed it in a quick review. It looks right. It’s just this one little thing here.”
Just as she had in high school, Clara explained the complexities of the work in a way I understood easily. She used examples and also made a point to praise what I’d done. I was transported back to being seventeen again, and I sat in quiet awe of the woman across from me.
After a few minutes, she stopped speaking, and I realized I hadn’t heard much of the last few words because my mind had gone other places.
“Sly?”
“Yeah?”
“I asked you a question. About this?” She pointed to the graph that lay between us.
“Yes.”
“That’s not the right answer.” Her eyes had snagged on mine again, and while a little smile flickered across her face, I was certain I saw something else in her expression. Something I was pretty sure was matched in my own.
I leaned in a tiny bit. “Tell me if this is the right answer.” I moved even closer, and she didn’t move away, didn’t drop my gaze. She sucked in a sharp breath as my lips met hers, and I slid my hand along the side of her face, cupping her jaw.
It was everything I’d imagined from the brief kiss on the ice, but now, in the quiet of her living room, there was little chance of a Zamboni-fueled interruption.
I deepened the kiss, pulling her to me, my other hand finding her hip. Clara didn’t hesitate, rising and then stepping closer without breaking contact. A second later, she was wrapping herself around me as I sat, one of her legs falling to either side of my hips, as I fought to control myself. It would do no good to throw her on the table and take her like a cave man. This kiss already far exceeded my high school dreams, and was more leisurely and savoring than our kiss on the ice, and I wasn’t going to rush anything.
I pulled her close to me, giddy at the way her arms wrapped around my neck as her center pressed into me, adding pressure to the suddenly iron-hard length of my erection. Her tongue darted out, teasing me, and I groaned, slanting my lips to increase the contact.
Time stopped.
The room spun around us.
Tongues and breath mingled as Clara rubbed herself against me, hard, forcing my breath to come faster as I fought for control.
Kissing Clara Connor was everything I’d ever imagined and so much more. I didn’t know if it was that Clara was an adult woman and not an inexperienced teenager, or if kissing her would have been every bit as fantastic years ago when I’d first had the idea. All I knew was that this single kiss far surpassed every kiss I’d had previously, maybe because I’d never really cared about anyone I’d dated in the past.
Without a spoken word, I stood, pulling Clara with me. We were communicating, but it wasn’t in syllables. It was in desperate pulls on each other’s clothing, with pained groans, and hammering hearts. I walked Clara backwards to the couch, where I laid her down and then carefully aligned myself with her body, desperate to be close but also not eager to crush her.
Her arms wrapped me, her hands tracking up and down my back, squeezing my ass, pulling me closer and closer to her until thrusting was the only thing I could do to relieve some of the building tension. My mouth and hips fell into a kind of rhythm, and the breathy moans Clara was releasing spurred me on.
This was like a championship dry hump, and I had a fleeting thought that my high-school self would have been pretty excited about the whole thing.
But my adult self was desperate to get Clara’s clothes off, to sink myself into her and finally, finally attempt to sate my desire for this incredible woman.
