“Okay. So what’s the problem?”
He’s silent for a beat and my uneasiness grows.
“Well, what is it? What’s wrong? What’s going on?” I ask in a squeaky voice.
“You might not like it,” he says, finally.
I grow rigid, my heart slamming in my chest. “W-Why?”
Abel can sense my anxiety and he sighs, losing his hard expression. “I’m being an ass, aren’t I?”
“Yes.” I sniff.
“Fuck, c’mere.” He wraps his warm around me, hugging me tightly. “It’s just a lot of hours. A lot of work. So, I might be gone a little too much.”
I grab hold of his cross, still not completely convinced. “Are you sure that’s it? That’s what’s wrong?”
He kisses my forehead. “Yeah. I don’t want anything to come between us, Pixie. Least of all my job. After being apart from you for so long, I don’t want to spend another minute away from you, if I don’t have to.”
I cup his cheek. “Nothing can come between us, Abel. Nothing at all. Besides, we have to work, don’t we? And I got a job of my own.”
“You did?” He frowns down at me and I know an argument is coming. I can feel it but I’m not in the mood to fight.
“Uh-huh. It’s just a waitressing thing a few blocks over. Totally safe. So no need to freak out. I figured that I’d work during the day, make some money, help you out so we can find a new place sooner, and write during the night. So, see? Things are working out, already.”
He smiles. “They are.”
I go on my tip-toes and kiss his rapidly beating pulse. “We’re going to be so happy.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes. Because we deserve it. And because our love’s greater than anything else in the world.”
His arms go around my waist and he hauls me up. I bury my hands in his hair, laughing.
“Is it?” he asks with twinkling eyes.
I nod and place a tiny kiss on his nose. “Our love is the stuff of legend.”
His face turns somber again, but this time it’s saturated with intensity. So much intensity and passion and ownership. My core flutters.
“Now stop being an idiot and love me,” I order.
Abel splays a big palm on the back of my head and plants a hard kiss on my mouth. “I’m going to make you happy, Pixie. So fucking happy you’ll forget how to be sad anymore. You’ll forget everything else but me and my love. I’ll make it my goddamn mission.”
It looks like he wants to say something more, but he settles for kissing me, hard and fast and deep, and carrying me to our room. He lays me down on the mattress, gets the wash cloth from the hallway where he dropped it before, and comes back. He kneels before me and cleans my pussy, gently, reverently. The warm, coarse cloth is such a soothing balm. I squirm and moan under his careful ministrations.
Once I’m all clean, he takes off my dress and bends down and showers my face, and my shoulders with kisses. Small, tiny, fluttering kisses like butterflies.
“I’m sorry, Pixie. I’m so sorry. So fucking sorry, baby. Don’t hate me,” he murmurs.
“I don’t...” I moan.
With every kiss he tells me that he loves me, making me melt under him. With every kiss he tells me that he’s an asshole for being so brutal with my pussy before.
“Gonna be nice now,” he says and travels down.
Then he eats me out, every lick of his hot tongue an apology. Every gentle tug of his lips says I’m his everything. Before long, I orgasm and as he wraps me in his strong arms, I press a fist on his chest, where his heart lies. It’s slamming, beating like a train-wreck.
Even though, I’m lax, I can’t help but feel like his heart is trying to tell me something. Something that his lips can’t say.
“Abel?”
“What?”
“A-Are you sure that’s it? Are you sure there’s nothing else?”
He tenses for a beat before relaxing. “I can never lie to you, Pixie.”
I swallow; my throat is parched. “I trust you.”
Something flashes on his face for a microsecond before it’s gone and he kisses me like only he can.
Rough and painful and loving.
Over the next few days, Abel shows me all of New York City. Anything and everything you can think of, you can find it here. The tall, spiking buildings that touch the clouds; chaotic Times Square with enough lights to brighten up the whole world; shiny, expensive Fifth Avenue; funky, eclectic Union Square that’s made of dreamers.
New York is so big and yet so small. You stand on one end of the street and you can see the string of yellow cabs and traffic lights, all the way down to the other end. The weight of the people has cracked the sidewalks and sagged the dirty leaf-ridden streets in places. And there are so many people.