Cross My Heart

Ryan, on the other hand, had to be out the door at five in the morning, though she didn’t feel guilty about him staying up with her. You could hang him on a hook behind the bathroom door and he’d be out cold. He took the bus so he could grab a few more winks on the commute and had mastered the power-nap on breaks.

She didn’t budge on his return. She stayed bundled up as he set the dish of egg rolls on the nightstand alongside two glasses of juice, and she breathed in the distinctive greasy smell that could only be found deep-fried into Chinese food, as he dug into his nightstand until he produced a barbecue lighter.

‘As I was saying, maybe we should give it a rest,’ he said as he gave the lighter three unsuccessful clicks.

Evie closed her eyes and buried deeper. ‘And I said no.’

‘Just a week to shake off some of the frustration.’

He finally got the thing to work and lit the candle on the nightstand. Almost immediately the smell of cinnamon and cloves mingled with the food aroma.

‘Is it just me, or do they all come in two varieties?’ he grumbled as he crawled into bed with her. ‘Dumb as shit, or creepy and middle-aged.’

‘That’s pretty much my experience with online dating, period,’ she joked, then put up a fight for the blankets, giggling until he won his section of the duvet. With his knees wobbling against her ass, Ryan succeeded in making the bed as uncomfortable as possible for her. She sat up and gave him a smack on his bare chest. ‘Fuck off! I’ll eat!’

Grinning in the flicker of the television and candlelight, he made her a seat out of her pillows and one for himself.

‘So?’ he asked, tucking his hands behind his head. ‘Just a little break.’

‘That will last for, what, two days before you start pacing the floor. Then you’ll be right back in front of your computer.’

His smile widened. ‘You think you know me so well.’

‘I do know you so well. You’ve been doing the same thing since we started this search.’ She scuttled closer into his warmth, then reached for the food. ‘You have no patience. You can barely stand the wait when you bid on eBay. Just…settle down.’

She took a bite and offered him one, but he refused, instead pushing her hair from her shoulder and nuzzling in.

‘We could hire someone,’ she said quietly. He made a small disapproving sound as his mouth continued its trek. She tried to shrug him off to no avail, and so she tried not to smile as she took another mouthful. ‘I was on this website today before I went to work.’

‘I don’t want an escort,’ he said, and when she shrugged him off again he backed off and shook his head. ‘I know the site you’re talking about. It was still in my browser history when I got home. You know what I saw when I looked at that site? Guys who would put their dick in anything for a buck, on camera and off.’

‘They’re not all like that, and you have to admit there were some pretty hot guys on that site.’

‘For ninety dollars an hour. You have that kind of money?’

‘We only have to pay for it once, and it means we’d be in charge.’

Ryan shook his head, and in the television light she saw annoyance set briefly on the straight line of his mouth. ‘I don’t want to pay for it, just like I don’t want to go out to a club and just pick someone up. We’ve been through this.’

‘Then you’re just going to have to be patient.’ She finished off her eggroll and set the plate back on the nightstand. ‘It’s kind of cute how worked up you are.’

Groaning, he reached past her for the second eggroll. ‘I don’t want to be cute. You can be the cute one.’

‘Fine, you can be the neurotic one.’

Evie watched him eat, his eyes on the television. He wasn’t ignoring her. He was deep in thought again, asking himself whether they were making a mistake.

She wondered if he really was so transparent. Had she always been able to read him so well? She couldn’t remember. It seemed unreal that there had been a time when they had been mere strangers. The first day she met Ryan, nearly mowing him over as she rolled a dolly carrying a bookcase into her apartment, she’d felt a click that knocked her back. She remembered thinking, there you are, as though they had merely been separated rather than seeing one another for the first time.

In hindsight she could have sworn she’d seen the same on his face, but she couldn’t be sure. Since they had become lovers, she didn’t trust her view of the past. It was all tinted by the now. When she thought of sharing the elevator with Ryan in the weeks after she moved into the building, she only saw the soft eyes looking at her like she was the only person in the world who mattered.

Watching him now, Evie wanted to pull him down and wipe the worried pucker at the corner of his mouth with a kiss. He was too serious too often, and if he didn’t feel as though he was accomplishing anything he’d wind tighter and tighter.

‘Let me do it for a little while,’ she suggested, even though she knew the answer. ‘I can make my own profile and we can compare notes.’

‘No, that would get even more freaks and their dick-pics. Hand me my drink, would you?’ When she obliged, he wrapped his free arm around her and pulled her close. ‘Maybe it’s just a stupid fantasy and it’ll never happen.’

He stopped to take a drink, then rested his head upon hers.

Distracted or not, she liked moments like these when there was nothing but his silence and warmth. She closed her eyes and turned her nose into his shoulder to breathe in the mixture of damp skin and his deodorant.

‘We could make a new profile,’ he said after a moment. ‘Both of us, and make it very clear what it is we want and what we don’t want.’

‘You’re already doing that.’

‘And half the messages I get are from guys who just want to fuck me and haven’t even bothered to look at my profile or noticed that we’re a couple.’

He squeezed her as he set his drink next to her plate, then patted the bedding down, looking for the remote. He killed the television and scooted down, pulling her so close they shared the same pillow.

She pushed aside a fair streak of hair from where it fell over his forehead. ‘What makes you think it would be any different if we were both in the profile?’

‘Most people click based on a picture. I do. Right now all they see is my bare chest, so anyone looking for a couple might scroll right on by if they just see a man. We’re putting it right out there what they’re getting. If anything, it will cut down on the amount of time I waste talking to guys who just want to get on my dick for an hour.’ Evie said nothing, and Ryan pressed his forehead to hers. ‘What?’

This wasn’t the first time she’d entertained this thought, and she liked it about as much now that it was on the tip of her tongue as when it was buried like an arrowhead in her gut.

‘It might be easier that way. I mean, if you meet with him alone the first time. Just a one-on-one session.’

‘That’s not going to happen,’ he said quickly and sharply, then took a deep breath. ‘You’ve got to be there. I won’t do this without you. It’s for both of us.’

Beneath the covers, Ryan pushed his thigh between hers and cupped her ass. ‘You know this is as much about you as it is me. If I just wanted a fuck, I could get one in about five minutes. I want something more. I want you.’

There, another spark of words on the tip of her tongue. She wanted to say those three words so badly she felt them swelling in her chest until she burned.

Yet she didn’t. She wouldn’t say it unless she was sure he’d say it back. The thought of letting those words free to wreak havoc without knowing for sure that Ryan would be there to rescue her was terrifying. Instead she put the force of those words into a kiss, twining her leg around him and struggling to rise up over him.

‘I want you, too,’ she whispered, and paused to be sure that she’d said those words and not the other words. He pushed his fingers into her hair, the sting as possessive as the hard mouth against hers.

His grip remained unrelenting after she’d mounted him, and it spurred her to ride him as hard as he had ridden her. His eyes shone fierce in the candlelight, and she tried to imagine that gaze flicking over her shoulder to the man whose fingers linked with Ryan’s in the tangle of her hair.

Chapter Two (#u71371f5a-3dad-573d-95ad-c07e56f00e3d)

Ryan always was a morning person. He loved the hush that could only be found as the daylight began to stain the night sky and before the crows began their noisy morning conversation. He loved taking his coffee on to the fire escape and just decompressing with a book or morning radio before the day intruded.

And lately he loved coming back to Evie in his bed. Between his coffee and his shower, he closed his eyes and synced his breathing to hers. She stirred as he made his reluctant retreat but didn’t wake, and the small happy sound she made almost called him back. He didn’t stay, but those five minutes when he snuggled up next to her and wrapped his arms around her stayed with him longer than the coffee. He’d conjure it midway through his shift, when he knew he still had four hours to go before he could head home and do nothing but wait for her workday to end. He’d linger at the bedside a moment longer and smile as she wiggled to the centre until she was just a small bump in the bed, and with a low groan he’d go to his shower.

That morning he managed to keep his frustration at bay through his shower and dressing, but once he was at the bus stop with his earphones on it crept over him.

The nerves had returned. Back when he and Evie had first started up and he was flirting with the idea of telling her his secret, his guts had twisted constantly. Sitting on the sofa with her in the crook of his arm, staring at the television but not really seeing it, nor really feeling the hard pebble of her nipple as he toyed with it beneath her sweater, he’d gone breathless with fear. By that point they’d started to divulge their tastes to each other. She trusted him enough to tell him about her penchant for being pushed down and treated like a plaything. She’d confessed that she’d never tried anal but had always wanted to, and had trusted him completely as he worked her up from a small vibrator to his cock. She’d bought the restraints that were now tucked away in the bottom drawer of her dresser. Her eyes went wide and she tried to keep her smile from getting too big every time she made a confession, and he could have burst with wanting to make her fantasies come true.