The Apartment: The Complete Affair (11 page)

“Why are you so moody?” George finally asked her when they were sitting at the table. She had slammed the shaker down in front of him after he asked her to pass the pepper.

“I’m not moody!” Lily snapped. She took a deep breath and counted to five, reminding herself that it wasn’t fair to take out her frustrations on him. She seemed to be doing that a lot lately. “Sorry. I’ve just got a bad headache.”

He shrugged and kept eating, ending the longest bout of concern he had shown for her in months. It wasn’t that George was indifferent to Lily—she just so rarely complained about anything that he had stopped feeling the need to ask.

* * *

Monday morning wasn’t much better.

Half an hour into Lily’s shift, people were going out of their way to steer clear of her. Kim stopped calling back new patient charts after she snapped at her and then hung up on her, and even Becky was tiptoeing around her. When Lily got pissy with Dr. Wilde when she asked her to run some extra tests on the mayor’s sister, Becky had seen enough.

“Lily, what the hell is wrong with you today?” she whispered harshly, pulling her aside in the hallway.

“That nasty bitch is here all the time to treat one STD or another. It’s like she never learns!”

“Yeah, we all know that. It’s like she’s never heard of condoms. But it’s Natalie’s job to treat her, and it’s your job to help her do that. You’ve been biting everybody’s head off all morning. What the hell is up your ass today?”

“It’s nothing. I just…I guess I don’t feel very good today,” she hedged.

“Well, that’s obvious,” Becky replied with a laugh. “Lily, is everything okay? I’ve never seen you quite this grouchy before, and I remember when you tried to come to work with the flu.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It was just sort of a bad weekend.” It had been bad simply because she hadn’t seen her beautiful stranger. She sighed deeply before adding, “I don’t really want to be here right now.”

“Well, you only have an hour left. It should go fast.”

“An hour? What? What are you talking about?”

“Jeez, Lily, you really are out of it today. Don’t you remember? Natalie is going to some medical lecture in Moline this afternoon. She canceled afternoon clinic.”

“Oh my God!” Lily reached out and hugged Becky. “That is excellent!”

For the rest of her shift, Lily had a much sunnier disposition.

After speeding off to the gym and rushing through her locker room routine, Lily quickly stashed her gym bag and ran up the back stairway to the apartment. She could hear the loud music blaring as she climbed the steps. It was another heavy rock song. Hearing the confirmation of his presence sent a wave of heat through her body.

That time, she didn’t even knock.

She went straight for her key, sliding it into the lock as if she lived there. When she felt the tumblers click open her heart skipped a beat. Opening the door slowly, Lily froze.

She thought she was prepared to see him again. She was wrong.

She was not prepared to find her beautiful stranger just as she’d imagined him: shirtless, jeans hanging low on his hips, his well-toned body splattered with various colors of paint. Since his back was to her and the music was so loud, he hadn’t heard the door.

Lily stood mesmerized as he moved his arm back and forth across the canvas in long, rapid strokes. The large brush he wielded was covered in a deep blood-red mixture, and his frantic movements left what almost appeared to be bloody streaks and splatters on the painting. As he shifted to his side, she could see other shapes and figures, one of which looked like an abstract, dangling arm holding a small vial. Although it was still a work in progress, the overall effect was rather violent… and unbelievably powerful.

He
looked powerful. And just as she’d suspected, he also looked sexy as hell.

Moving slowly so that she didn’t disturb him, Lily made her way to the iPod dock on the shelf. Reaching into her jacket pocket, she pulled out her own older, less expensive model and turned it on, queuing up a specific song. When his current selection began to wind down, she quickly hit the stop button and pulled his iPod out, replacing it with her own.

Startled by the shuffling noises behind him, Ethan turned around so abruptly that he dropped his brush on the floor, leaving a crimson stain on the wood. He was so surprised by her silent entrance that he was struck immobile for a moment, simply staring at her heatedly with that jade smolder that had been haunting Lily for days.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Lily said timidly from across the room, “but I made my own little playlist.” Clicking the iPod into place and hitting the play button, she immediately felt bolder when the grinding beats began filling the room. “Not that I didn’t love your list of
Fuck Songs
, but I thought it was time I contributed a little bit.”

She watched as his features shifted, becoming aggressive… predatory. Lily could sympathize; she felt the exact same way. Two days away from this man had been too long. She was over being shy and reserved. Now she only wanted to wrestle him to the ground and devour him.

She never once took her eyes from his as she slid her jacket off her shoulders and let it drop to the floor. Walking slowly toward him, she could see his nostrils flaring and his chest rising rapidly. In the back of her mind, Lily couldn’t help hoping that his chest wasn’t the only thing rising rapidly.

For a moment, Ethan thought he had finally lost his mind and his fantasies were manifesting in front of him. His brunette goddess had been living in his thoughts on a constant loop over the entire weekend, so when she suddenly appeared before him it took him a moment to realize that she was actually there. The instant he locked eyes with her, only one word made any sense to him anymore:
mine
.

The notion confused him because he had never been possessive. Rachel had flirted blatantly with nearly every man she met just to get a rise out of him, but it never made one bit of difference. However, something about this woman made him want to club her over the head and drag her back to his cave and make her his own personal plaything for as long as he wanted. He quickly reminded himself to get a grip. It was just a fuck. She meant nothing to him and he meant nothing to her. She didn’t have a name. It wasn’t anything more than pleasure.

He watched her saunter toward him, the look in her eye just as heated as his erection. When she was standing directly in front of him she dipped her head a bit, so that she was looking up at him through her lashes. Her slick pink tongue darted out from between her lips, moistening them before she whispered, “Miss me?” A smile tugged at the corners of her perfect mouth.

“
No
,” he snapped, suddenly angry that she was right. He couldn’t stop staring at her glistening lips, nearly growling when he remembered his fantasy of having them wrapped around him.

“Not even a little bit?” She pouted playfully, reaching out with her fingertips and dragging them up and down his abdomen, feeling along the ridges of his muscles. She circled his navel and made her way back up until she was scratching through the light dusting of hair on his chest. The sensation of her hot fingers on his skin was making him lightheaded.

“No.” His tone was lighter now; the swirling patterns she was making on his pecs were rather distracting. He could feel the familiar itch in his own fingers telling him to reach out and grab what was his.

“Well, I missed you,” she practically hummed, leaning forward and kissing each of his nipples slowly, gently. The chasteness of the kisses somehow made the action even more erotic, causing Ethan to grit his teeth against the moan that wanted to escape. “In fact, let me show you how much.”

Lily gripped his hips and dropped to her knees, unable to miss the rather prominent bulge in the front of his jeans. “Mm… seems like someone around here missed me.” Bringing her hands up, she cupped him lightly before gripping him more firmly, causing him to hiss through his teeth. Leaning forward, she placed her mouth over the tip of the bulge, kissing it quickly and flicking at the denim with the tip of her tongue.

If Ethan had thought her kissing his nipples was erotic, watching her do that was bound to drive him insane. It also didn’t help that he hadn’t bothered to put his boxers on that day and he could feel everything much more intensely.

“You’re a dirty fucking tease, do you know that?” he growled at her, unable to tear his eyes away from the sight of her small fingers working at the buttons on his fly.

“And why is that, exactly?” She smiled up at him, tugging him closer by his waistband so she could get a better grip on the bottom button. He was tempted to tell her that opening a button fly was much faster if you just pulled it apart quickly—all the buttons would pop open in a row—but he was having too much fun letting her take her time.

“You sneak in here when I’m gone and get me all excited, and then don’t even have the decency to come back and finish what you started.”

“Aw, poor baby,” she cooed, happy that he had missed their time together just as much as she had. She pulled on his jeans until they were sliding down around his hips, unable to bite back a moan when his erection sprang free in front of her.

She had yet to appreciate it so closely. Lily had always been able to tell that it was nice, but up close it was truly a thing of beauty. Long and thick, covered with the smooth ridges of multiple veins, it curved upwards toward his stomach proudly and was crowned with the most gorgeous swollen tip that was turning darker under her scrutiny.

Lily reached out and ran her hands up the front of his legs, spreading out her fingers as they moved higher, until her thumbs were brushing against the dark brown hair at his groin.

“You like what you see?” he grunted.

“Like is an understatement.” She finally touched him then, wrapping her fingers around the base of his shaft. Leaning closer, she flicked her tongue out, licking at the glistening tip. He was already leaking for her, and she lapped up the drops of moisture that she found there. It tasted both sweet and salty, and was now her new favorite flavor—after the taste of his lips, of course.

Just the sight of his dick that close to her lips was enough to do him in. By the time she licked up his pre-cum, Ethan’s thoughts had turned into one long litany of curse words.
Oh fuck… oh fuck… don’t fucking come yet… she hasn’t even put it in her mouth yet… Jesus Christ, don’t fucking come!

“Oh, I nearly forgot,” Lily said, pulling away from him far enough that he actually whimpered. “Did you get my present?”

The image of lacy blue panties flashed in his mind, causing him to growl again. “Yes,” he gritted through his teeth.

“And did you like them?”

“
Like
them? I fucked them!”

A wicked smile crept across her lips until she was absolutely beaming. “Good.” And with that, she grabbed him more firmly around his shaft and sucked him deep inside her mouth.

“Fuck!” Ethan threw his head back and groaned loudly, swaying on his feet. Just as he’d suspected, her mouth was pure bliss.

Unable to keep his hands to himself any longer, he plunged them into her dark hair, enjoying the feeling of her head moving up and down underneath his touch. He let his thumbs sweep out across her blushing cheeks, over her silken skin, until they were tracing her luscious pink lips as they slid along his length.

Lily looked back up at him through her lashes again, loving the look of intense pleasure on his face. That was one of her favorite things about doing this—being able to make a man weak in the knees. She had almost forgotten how much it could turn her on when the recipient really got into it.

She pulled all the way back, barely letting him slip out. Holding him steady at the base, she puckered her lips tightly and slowly pushed her mouth over his broad tip. As he penetrated her deeper, she sucked in her cheeks around him, trying to simulate what actual sex might feel like. On the upstroke, she wrapped her tongue around him for added texture, swirling it around the tip before plunging back downwards. The loud moan he let out told her that he seemed to enjoy it.

Trying to ignore how badly she was beginning to throb between her legs, she slid her hands around his firm ass and cupped it tightly, pulling him toward her so that he slid deeper into her mouth. She repeated this action a few more times, hoping that her beautiful stranger would take the hint.

And take it he did.

Ethan grabbed her more firmly by the back of the head for leverage and started slowly thrusting, pulling her face toward him as he shifted his hips into her. He watched as he fucked her mouth, watched as the veins on his cock slid back and forth through her lips, and when she moaned around him his eyes nearly crossed at how good it felt.

When she began pulling him into her mouth even more eagerly, he started to thrust faster. He looked into her heavy-lidded eyes to confirm that it was what she really wanted. She moaned and nodded, the sensation making him cry out. He kept thrusting faster and faster, knowing that he was going to lose it at any moment. It was just too fucking intense. He honestly didn’t know how he’d made it that long.

When he noticed her starting to squirm and moan even louder, he quickly realized that something was different. One of her hands was no longer gripping his ass. Glancing down, he saw that she had slid her hand inside the front of her workout pants and was furiously rubbing herself.

That was all he needed to set him off.

“Are you fucking touching yourself?” he panted as he felt himself starting to lose control. She simply nodded again and moaned some more. “Oh God… that’s not fucking fair! I want to watch that.”

Suddenly all he could think about was her tight, wet pussy and how it felt, how it tasted. “Fuck, I can’t take it anymore! Give me your hand!” He reached down and pulled at her arm until she finally took it out of her pants, whimpering at the loss of friction. “Don’t worry, I’m gonna take care of you, but I have to fucking taste you when I come. I’m so goddamn close right now!”

He fully expected her to shy away, but instead she groaned loudly and started sucking on him harder than he thought physically possible. “Holy shit!” he cried out, nearly falling down, his legs were shaking so badly. “That’s it… yes… just like that.”