Third Life - Noelle Adams Page 0,61

when there’s a knock on my apartment door.

Since the exterior door to the building stays locked, no one can wander the halls and knock on my door. So I have no idea who to expect when I go and peek out the peephole.

It’s Richard.

Standing in my hall.

I swing the door open with a squeak of surprised pleasure. “What are you doing here?”

He narrows his eyes. “Not exactly the greeting I was hoping—”

I throw myself into his arms.

He laughs and swings me back into the apartment as he hugs me, closing the door with his foot once we’ve gotten in.

Once we’ve hugged and kissed, I pull away from him just enough to ask, “Seriously, what are you doing here, Richard? We’d decided this weekend wouldn’t work.”

“It didn’t work. Not really. I kept telling myself I’m forty-six years old and perfectly capable of going two weeks without seeing my girlfriend. But then I just gave up and came to see you anyway.”

I’m giggling like a fool. “What about your flight to London? You still have to go, don’t you?”

“Yes. I changed it to leave from Boston tomorrow morning.”

“So you came all this way to spend one night with me?”

His eyes are soft and warm and nakedly affectionate. He’s holding my face with both hands near my neck. “More than enough to make it worth it.”

I’m smiling as he kisses me again, and the kiss ends up with us stumbling toward my bedroom and then falling into my bed. We make love with an almost clumsy ardor. It doesn’t last very long, but it doesn’t have to. It’s exactly the way I want to feel Richard. Know him. Be with him. Love him.

We’re lying tangled together afterward, my cheek against his chest, listening to his heartbeat, when he says, “I never knew it could be like this.”

I adjust my head so I can see his face. “Like what?”

“Like this.” He nods to indicate our naked, entwined bodies. “Sex. I honestly never knew it could be like this.”

My heart throbs with something like joy. “Me either. Well, I guess I dreamed it could be like this, but I never experienced it before.” I kiss him just above his right nipple. “I never experienced a lot before I met you.”

“Me either,” he murmurs hoarsely. “Gillian, me either.”

Ashley wasn’t wrong about some things. I do need to know more about the parts of Richard’s life he’s afraid to share with me. But I wasn’t wrong either.

He cares about me. Deeply. Ashley said he adores me, and I can see it now too. In his blue eyes as they stare up at me from the pillow. Almost awe. Like he can’t believe that someone like me is in his life, wants him for real.

For so long, I honestly wondered if anyone would ever feel that way about me.

Things between us aren’t perfect—they can never be—but I’m not wrong to invest in this. Believe in it.

Believe in him.

THE FOLLOWING WEEKEND, I’m completely naked and clinging to the headboard while Richard is doing some sort of magical routine with his fingers and mouth between my legs.

I flew out to London yesterday since Richard is going to be working there for a couple of weeks. I was tired after the flight and my body’s clock was out of sync with the time zone, so I napped while Richard finished working. Then we wandered a few nearby streets and had a quiet dinner before bed. Since I’ve been to London a few times before, we didn’t have any normal sightseeing I really wanted to do today, but we did some exploring (and I spent too much at shops) before we returned to the hotel to rest for the afternoon.

Resting turned into this. Richard getting very creative with his head between my thighs.

I’ve already come a couple of times, and my clit is literally throbbing in the aftermath. But Richard is giving it little flicks with his tongue that get me going yet again. I moan uninhibitedly and try to fight Richard’s hold on my hips so I can grind myself against him. He teases me some more before he lifts his head to smile down at me.

I whimper. “That’s just mean.”

He wipes the lower part of his face with the back of his hand. “Why is it mean? I thought you were enjoying it.”

“I was going to come again.”

“Yeah?”

“You know perfectly well that I was. You’re torturing me on purpose.”

“I think you like this particular brand of torture.” He lowers his