Relative Design

Adam made her sweat it out for nearly a month. There were consequences, of course, the worst of it his own irritation with everything, but hell if he’d let her play it off as just sex again until she’d scratched an itch.

They went to dinners, drinks, and even breakfast once, but never anything more.

Anabel couldn’t figure out what was going on no matter how hard she tried. They still had great conversation, but the sex seemed to be off the table, as far as he was concerned. As far as she remembered, the sex had been as good as the conversation, so why was it only one or the other with them?

He’d taken her to a club tonight as a change pace, which she appreciated. She’d been worried he’d take her to eat and there’d be nothing to distract her from her worry that under all the chivalry, Adam maybe didn’t want her anymore. At least, not the way he had before. But then they’d gone dancing and her mind had stayed entirely on him, on every spot his body pressed against hers and every single place his hands touched her.

“Is Eliza expecting you?” he asked, knowing she often spent weekends there, though not as often since their spat nearly a month ago. He kept his hand on her lower back as he guided her towards the car.

Every muscle in her body clenched. “No, she isn’t.”

“Do you want to go for coffee somewhere? Maybe dessert?”

She waited until he was in the driver’s seat before she turned to him, reaching out to brush her fingers along his forearm. “What did you have in mind?”

His gaze dropped to his arm and he watched her fingers move up then down. When he looked back at her, she was smiling faintly, her eyes lowered. “Oh, hell,” he muttered, gripping the back of her neck and pulling her to him.

Her hand tightened on his arm even as she reached for him with her other hand. “You’re not far from here, right?” she asked between kisses. “Drive.”

He had to let go of her for that, he knew, and he wasn’t sure he could manage that right now. But neither could he take her here in his car, in a parking lot. He let go of her, shifted gears, and tried to ignore the way she stroked his hair, his arm, his thigh.

She laughed at his reckless turn, putting her hand on his knee. “Let’s get there alive, okay?”

He grunted, picked up speed, and made it in what had to be record time. When he found parking right out front, he thanked every god he knew of, squeezed his treasured car in the tiny spot, and turned the engine off before pulling her across the armrest, his hand fisted in her hair.

“Adam,” she gasped. “Apartment.”

“Fine,” he growled, ignoring her grin as they simultaneously climbed out of the car. He said hello to the doorman and left it at that, not willing to engage in the usual small talk.

Anabel smiled at him, greeted him, and followed Adam to the elevators.

Upstairs, the second the door shut behind them, she pounced, her legs around his waist and her hands at his shoulders, curling around his shirt. He held her up, somehow, though her assault on him had his senses shutting down.

“Anabel, wait, hold on.”

“No, no waiting. Now.” She bit down on his earlobe, used her tongue when he groaned.

“Jesus, Anabel.”

“Now,” she urged again, moving down to his neck as he started the trek to his room. Once there, he laid her on the bed, carefully, and caught her wrists, held them so she wasn’t touching him and maybe, just maybe, he could think for a second.

The weight of him pressed her into the mattress as he moved her wrists up until her back arched. “Not yet,” he whispered and, eyes on hers, leaned down to touch his lips to hers, lightly this time.

She quivered beneath him, melted, and he felt her give against him, relished it, savored her.

Releasing her hands, he framed her face, changed the angle of the kiss, then trailed his hands down her neck, her shoulders, her sides. He stopped at her waist, pulled away.

Her eyes blinked open and she found him looking down at her. When her eyes adjusted to the dark and met his, he dipped his head to kiss the column of her neck while his fingers danced down the length of her thigh, then back up, beneath her dress this time.

Her body went as taunt as his, her back arched and she moaned.

Not yet, he thought frantically when her hands tangled in his hair. Not yet.

Somehow, despite the desperate haze, she noticed the change of pace and where she once would have rushed, she slowed, stroked. They’d always worked quickly, but now her fingers lingered as they followed the trail of buttons down his shirt. Slowly, so slowly, the buttons were undone and her fingers were dancing along the bare skin of his chest, his stomach, then back up where they paused for a moment, rested on his shoulders before pushing his shirt away from skin. He complied, moved until she was able to toss his shirt somewhere, and continued his own exploration.

Her body was still as he remembered it, long, lean, limber. Her skin was hot, seemed to get hotter still as his hands roamed, touched, aroused. Freeing her lips, he trailed kisses along her jaw, her neck, lower. He stopped to nip at her collarbone before continuing his journey. When her hands clenched around fistfuls of his hair, he took it as incentive to linger. When she moaned, gasped, and cried out at the use of his fingers, he kissed his way back up her body to swallow her cry.

He pulled away, watched her parted lips as she struggled for breath, waited until she opened her eyes, met his gaze. “Now.”

*

“You redecorated.”

He turned to her, amused at her post-coital topic of discussion. “You had time to notice?”

She flushed, much to his delight. “There was, like, the second before you closed the door. And how long does it take to notice furniture, anyway? As far as I remember, you didn’t have much the last time I’d been here.”

He shrugged. It was true enough—before he decided to switch careers, he only had as much as he needed and not much else. “The term you’re thinking of is sparse.”

“Perhaps. I like it, what you’ve done.”

“Thanks.” He contemplated reaching over to turn on the bedside lamp, then decided he still needed a moment before he could go back to the mundane. “I was wondering.”

“Yes?”

“You ever do gymnastics?”

She laughed as he grinned, tracing a hand along the curve of her waist. “When I was younger.”

“I think it might’ve stuck.”

She hummed, shifted onto her side so she could face him. “I think it might be the yoga.”

“You do yoga?”

“I prefer it to the gym, though that’s necessary too.”

He rolled his eyes up to heaven. “Good god.”

When she laughed again, the hand that was stroking her side moved up. “Now that isn’t fair.”

“Maybe, but you tell a guy you do yoga regularly, he’s going to get curious.”

“Oh, is that so?”

“Absolutely.” He lightly bit her shoulder. “It’s all for the sake of curiosity.”

“Well, then.” She shoved and rolled until she straddled his waist, his hands on her thighs. “Let’s work on taking care of that.”

*

“Yoga,” he declared over the cold pizza he’d dug up from his fridge, “is the best thing to happen to mankind.”

Her knee bumped his under the covers as she took another bite. “I think you’re biased.”

“I’m thinking that’s okay, considering.”

At his wicked grin, she rolled her eyes. “Such a guy.”

“Yeah, yeah. You sure you’re okay with the pizza cold?”

“It’s warm,” she said, shrugging. “That’s perfect.”

“I could heat it again.”

“I prefer it like this. Besides, I’m too hungry.”

“Okay. Do you want anything else? I’ve got ice cream if you want dessert.”

She shook her head, pointed to the water on the bedside table. “Gimme.”

“Eloquent.”

“Shut up.” She glanced over the bed, at the shirt on the floor there. “Can I wear that?”

“What?”

“Your shirt.”

“Oh, yeah, sure. Cold?”

“A bit.” He went to stand, but she took his hand, stopping him. “Don’t worry about it. I’m fine.”

“You sure? I could turn the temperature up.”

“I’m good.”

He shrugged, glancing down as she buttoned up the shirt. “Guess I can’t really complain. You look good in my clothes.” At her slanted look, he quickly added, “Not to say you don’t look good in your own clothes—”

“Please stop trying,” she managed between bouts of laughter.

He silently took the empty plate from in front of her, set it along with his on the table before taking her around the waist, mercilessly tickling her sides as he pulled her to him. “Found that funny, did you?”

“No, Adam, stop!”

“Absolutely not. Say uncle.”

“Uncle! Jesus, stop!”

He released her, sitting back smugly. “I thought so.”

She sniffed indignantly as she straightened her shirt. “Not cool.”

“I thought it was.”

“Well, you’re wrong.”

He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his side, kissing the top of her head. “Okay, if you say so. Are you going to make excuses for having to leave?”

She glared at him. “Are you ever going to stop with that?”

“Maybe.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Okay.”

He handed her the remote then, let her put on some movie neither of them really paid attention to.

It was only when she was drifting off to sleep that she realized they’d ended up spending the night the way a couple would.

*

In the morning, after she’d showered—though she wasn’t certain how clean she’d gotten since halfway through Adam had decided to join her—she stepped into the kitchen wearing another of Adam’s shirts.

“Morning,” he said simply, hair tousled and wet, shirtless, bare foot. His jeans hung low on his hips.

“Hey.” She stepped to the stove beside him. “What’re you making?”

“Scrambled eggs with toast. That okay?”

“Yes, thank you. Should I butter the toast or—”

“Please don’t,” he said with an easy grin, causing her to grimace.

“I suppose you’ve heard of my cooking abilities.”

“I have, though not in detail.”

She knew when someone was prying, often didn’t permit anyone to. Now, she only cocked her head and studied him. “When Beckett left and Eliza took me in, she was pretty frazzled. It’s a lot to take on.”

He focused on the eggs. “How old were you?”

“Twelve. Eliza was twenty.”

“How long had Beckett been gone?”

“That would—it would have been four years, I think.”

He nodded, put the bread in the toaster. “Okay.”

“Anyway, she was still in school and working—interning, and she’d just decided to take on her pre-teen, pain-in-the-ass sister. Added to that, she wasn’t handling Beckett’s absence well. It’d been four years, but it ate at her. Living with me again made things more difficult.”

“She loves you.”

The quiet simplicity brought her out of her thoughts and had her frowning at him. “She does, yes.”

“All the other stuff wouldn’t have mattered. You needed her, so she was there.”

She took the cup of coffee he passed her, sipped. “Yes.”

“A lot of people go their entire lives wanting for someone like that.”

“I was—am— lucky.”

“Are you still not speaking to her?”

“I wasn’t up until five minutes ago.”

He smiled distractedly at her, and she reached out to brush his hair away from his forehead. Then she blinked and dropped her hand to her side.

“Anyway, the point of this… uhm, so she was a little stressed out, even I could tell as much, so I thought I’d make her breakfast one Saturday. The eggs were rubbery, I’m sure there were some shells in there, the croissants were a bit burned, and I put too much pepper and cheese.”

He simply stared at her, their two plates in his hands. Her wet hair hung down her back, her legs were bare, his shirt draped around her loosely and stopped mid-thigh. She watched him through wide, vulnerable eyes, her fingers fidgeting with the hem of the shirt she wore.

He’d never found her more alluring than he did at that second.

“Did she eat it? The breakfast?”

“She didn’t even hesitate.”

He put the plates down on the table before taking her face in his hands and pressing his lips against hers. Slowly, slowly, he liquefied her muscles in her body using only his mouth before letting her go.

It took her a second to recuperate. “What was that for?”

How was he supposed to answer that? Because she’d shared something about herself, because she’d—finally—opened herself to him? Because the entire story touched him in a way nothing else had and he didn’t know what the hell to do about it?

He settled for answering with, “Just because. How’s the coffee?”

“Uhm, good, thanks.”

He wanted to ask her why she ended up living with Eliza, but he didn’t want to push too far either. So he let her be, let her enjoy her breakfast, laughed and talked with her, and watched her slowly relax again, inch by inch. After breakfast, they did the dishes together, and it was after that, when they were cleaning up the counters from the mess they’d made that Anabel decided to mention it.

“So, that was pretty clever of you last night.”

His movements remained steady even as his stomach clenched. Uh-oh. “What do you mean?”

“The date was fine, of course. So was the car ride here and… after. The movie and dinner in bed, that was awfully clever of you.”

“I still don’t know what you mean, Anabel.”

She touched his arm, waited until her looked at her. “Really?”

He sighed as he threw away the wet napkin, washed his hands. Then he leaned against the counter and faced her dead on. “What do you want me to say?”

“So you did plan it that way.”

“I didn’t plan anything. It just worked out in my favor; I’m not denying that. I wanted you in bed, I got you there. I wanted to keep you there, and I managed that as well. I didn’t plan anything. I never do with you.”

“Why?”

“Why, what? Why don’t I plan things? Because it never works out the way you plan it anyway, so why bother?”

“No.” She shook her head. “Why do you want me to stay?”

“Because I’ll be damned if you brush me or what we have off again like you did before.”

She would have understood his temper, but the simple way he said it made her feel small, low. She could have hated him for it.

“I knew that was going to come up.”

“Of course it was, Anabel. You walked like it was nothing. That’s partially my fault for not making it clearer that it wasn’t a casual things for me, but—”

“It was casual,” she interrupted, crossing her arms across her chest. “We weren’t dating—”

“Weren’t we? What were we doing, Anabel?”

“We were—” Dating, she realized with a start, an image of the country club flashing in her head.

“Yeah?”

She took a deep breath, changed tactics. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Maybe it was different for you, maybe it really was just casual, but this time I’m letting you know where we stand from my end right off the bat.”

“It wasn’t either of those. I was going to London at the end of that week,” she admitted quietly, sighing. “I hadn’t even told Beckett or Eric when I told you. I don’t—I felt badly about it, but… I don’t know.”

“What’s over is over. I’m not going to sit here and drudge up the past to make you feel bad. I’m just going to do things differently this time.”

“You ought to know. You ought to know I wasn’t trying to hurt you. I just… I was going to school there and I wasn’t going to do long distance or whatever, not to say I thought it would get to that—I really did think it was casual. Or maybe I just wanted it to be, I don’t know.”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter, Anabel. Not to me. I wanted to know why, and now I do. You were leaving, for school. I’m not going to make you feel badly about that.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“So…” She took a deep, steadying breath. “We aren’t casual now, right?”

“We could be, if it’s what you want.” He used what little energy he had left to seem nonchalant.

She thought about it for a moment, if only because she felt she owed him that much. “It’s not.”

“Then there’s your answer.”

“Okay. Okay,” she said again with a deep breath. “This should be interesting.”

He cocked his head, studied her with narrowed eyes. “You’re worried.”

“I’m not worried,” she snapped automatically, glaring at him.

“Yes, you are. It’s cute.”

“Go away.”

“I scare you.” The revelation tasted almost sweet. “I don’t worry you, I scare you.”

“Yeah, you wish.” But she still backed up when he stepped toward her, struggled not to squirm when he cornered her.

“You’re right, Anabel. This really will be interesting.”

The corner of the counter bit into her back, but she just as quickly forgot about it when he leaned in. “Maybe,” she whispered, eyes on his as she stubbornly raised her chin, “but I scare you just as much.”

Because it was true, he closed the distance between them.