Love Locked (11 page)

Never going to make it
sounds pretty good right now.

Except.

Except this is the re–start button. This is doing it right. They should go out for dinner. If nothing else, at least the food will give her the energy she needs for the rest of the night.

It takes wrenching effort, but she steps forward, away from him, turns to face him. “OK. Let’s go. Right now. Before I change my mind.”

***

“No.” She shakes her head when he leads her to
the
pub,
that
pub, the pub of wonder, the pub of frustration.

The pub where Ade works.

“Why not?”

“I …” She hesitates.

“You slept with the waiter.”

She lets her flushing cheeks answer the question.

“I can’t believe you slept with the waiter!”

“Yes, you can. You’re the one who guessed it.” She gives him a sideways glance. “So, what was it like not sleeping with Charlotte after you met me?”

He hooks his arm around her neck, pulls her in for a kiss. “It’s sexy how smart you are.”

She sighs. “You know what? OK. Let’s eat here.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Start as we mean to go on. Out in the open.” She bites her lip. “I hope.”

He nods. Takes her hand. “Yes.”

“Good.”

They sit down and it’s awkward. At least it is for her. She does, and doesn’t, want to be sitting here, ordering a pint of beer and a grilled chicken salad. Does, and doesn’t, want to be asking him, “So, what’s new at work?” Does, and doesn’t, want to be keeping her toes — kicked out of their sandals — from wandering to his bare legs; want to be keeping her eyes steadily on his, instead of wandering to the scar on his chin, the muscles in his forearms, the sinewy strength of his hands.

Does, because this is good. Does, because this means they’re a normal couple. They’re more than just sex. They don’t just lust after each other; they also
like
each other.

Doesn’t, because all this is keeping her from stripping him naked, from stripping naked next to him. From having him as deep in her as he can possibly thrust.

She shudders.

“Are you OK?” he asks.

“I, uh, yeah. No.” She smiles a lopsided grin. “Sort of.”

“What’s wrong?”

She leans forward, whispers, “I’m on fire.”

“What?”

“I want you.”

“Oh, God, Jocelyn.” The waiter — not Ade, thank God — sets down their pints. Lucas grabs his, glugs half of it down and, with a shaking hand, lowers it back to the table. “I’m sorry,” he says to the waiter. “Can you please cancel our food order and bring us the bill? Something’s just come up.” He winks at Jocelyn and she claps her hand over her mouth.

“Drink up,” he tells her.

She lifts her glass, lets the cool, slightly bitter beer slide down her throat — as much as she can swallow — while Lucas fishes bills out of his wallet, tucks them under his pint glass. “Let’s go!” He holds his hand out, and she takes it and lets him drag her outside with the booze and the lust swamping her brain.

On the sidewalk Lucas circles his arms right around her and hauls her tight against him. “Come on. I’m taking you home.”

“Yes, please,” she says.

“Yes, please,” when he opens the cab door and she stumbles in.

“Yes, please,” when, sitting next to her in the back seat of the taxi, he slips his hand between her thighs.

And, “Yes please” when they stumble up his front steps in the lowering dusk, and he pins her against his front door, and kisses her harder than she’s ever been kissed before.

She fishes in his pocket and finds his keys, pressing them against his skin. “Open,” she gasps. “In!”

They’re stumbling in, and the only light washes down the hall from the digital display on the stove announcing that it’s 19:19 — is that all? They work their way down the hall with her pressing him to the wall, then him flipping her and pushing her against it. They come to an open doorway and she nearly falls. He grabs at her shirt and the seam tears at the shoulder — the stitches ripping louder than her pounding heartbeat.

“Oh … God … sorry …” He pants the words out between heavy breaths.

“No, it’s
hot
.” She reaches for the neck of his shirt, and yanks, and a button pops off.

“You …” He pulls on her shirt again, and more of the seam parts so it hangs in flaps, exposing her shoulder, falling away from her bra. “Mmmm …” He presses his face to the bare skin.

She tugs at his belt. “Get. This. Off.”

“Go ahead.” His voice is muffled as he uses his teeth to peel her bra cup back from her breast.

She drops to her knees, to focus on his belt — on his crotch — and that’s when she realizes there’s a bed in the room; it’s looming right beside her. With his belt worked free, she eases his zipper down, and looks up at him. She can just make out his silhouette above her. “Is that your bed?”

“Yes.”

“Fuck me on it.”

He steps behind her, grabs her around the waist and, in one quick move, lifts her to the mattress where she bounces, and giggles, and scrambles to wriggle out of her skirt. But it’s too late because he already has his head under it, his face between her thighs, and he’s pulling her panties to the side, and his tongue … oh, it’s finding every spot she wants it to. Exploring her lips and then circling her clit. She arches her back and thumps the sheets with her fists. “I want you in me.”

“Mmmm …” The vibrations resonate through her.

“Lucas!” She threads her fingers through his hair. “In me. With your cock.”

“I like this,” he mumbles.

“Me too, but I’ve been waiting so long …”

He pulls his head out from her skirt. Her eyes have adjusted to the dark just enough to make out the messy outline of his mussed hair. “How long?” he asks.

“Since I met you.”

He arches his back and his cock is so full and hard that it stands out in the shadowy room. “Really?”

“Since I
saw
you,” she amends. “I was scared you’d be mad at me and I was wet because I wanted you.”

“How wet?” He lowers a hand to either side of her face, just above her shoulders. His cock hovers over her rucked–up skirt.

“As wet as I am right now.”

“How wet is that …?” His mouth is so close to her ear that his breath shivers her skin.

She arches, lifts her hips to him, reaches her hands for his ass cheeks. “Find out.”

The tip of his cock probes her lips, parting them —
oh … amazing
— then he pulls back, shifts to press the length of it against her — so hot — but she’s frustrated. She digs her fingernails into his skin. “In me! I’m wet, I’m empty, I’m … ooooh …”

He sinks into her in one long, smooth slide.
Ooooh
.

And then does nothing. Just leaves himself deep in her, and fixes his eyes on hers, and says, “You were right. This is much more than just sex.”

It’s never happened to her before, but it does now. No fingers on her clit, no rubbing or thrusting. Nothing but his body locked with hers, and those words in her brain; her pussy clenches — everything inside her clenches — then a wave of sensation ripples through her and she moans.

“What?” he asks.

“I’m coming …” she whispers, and she does; hips thrust tight against him, legs wrapping around his, eyes wide, breath shallow, and pleasure surging through her.

When the flood subsides a bit — when she can speak again — she giggles. “Sorry. I’ve never done that before.”

He nibbles her ear. “We’re going to do lots of things together that we’ve never done before.”

“Promise?” she asks.

He circles his hips, stirs his cock in her. “Absolutely. Is this OK?”

“Perfect. Don’t stop.”

Chapter Fourteen

(1:11)

I
T’S COLDER
. So, no more wrap skirts and bare legs. No more crawling out the window of the tiny upstairs bedroom onto Lucas’s sun–warmed garage roof and making love while they roll over and over so nobody’s bum gets burned. No more stopping halfway through a hike for a cooling skinny dip.

But they light a fire in Lucas’s fireplace and it turns out the floor in front of it is a good place to have sex. Jocelyn loves how good Lucas looks in his fall wardrobe — jeans, and woolly socks, and sweaters — and she also loves taking them off him. Lucas finds out that nothing warms Jocelyn up like a hot bath, and also, that she likes sharing.

They’re happy. It
is
more than sex. Although there’s still lots of sex.

“We’re well–suited,” Jocelyn overheard Lucas telling Jed at the end–of–summer barbecue he and Beth threw. Jocelyn’s heart swelled because she couldn’t have said it better herself. They both love sex. And running. And sex. And cycling. And sex. And eating. And each other. They’re well–suited and she loves him. There’s no doubt in her mind.

Love
. This is it. She’s in it.

She loves his house, too. In the morning, after that first night, she got up and wandered through the rooms. “I love these floors,” she said in every room, and, “I love this tub,” she said in the old main–floor bathroom, and “I love this view,” she said, peering out the kitchen window into the mass of greenery at the back of the house.

They haven’t talked about it, but her stuff has migrated to his house.

It’s not that she keeps a second toothbrush there — it’s that she’s brought her own toothbrush, so there isn’t one at her apartment anymore. And her pillow — the only one that props her head and neck just so; it’s on Lucas’s bed. And last night, as they sat on the sofa, with their feet propped on the low table and stared at the flames dancing in the fireplace, Jocelyn raised her wine glass and tilted it toward the bare wall above the mantle. “You know what would look nice there?”

“What?” Lucas asked.

“That painting I have. You know the one my cousin did — of the trees turning colours? I’ve never had a good place to put it at my place …” She peters out. It suddenly feels like a huge thing — suggesting that she hang one of her most prized possessions over his mantle. A rare moment of self–consciousness takes over. She hasn’t felt uncertain for a long time, but she feels it now.

He nudges her neck with his nose. “Hmmm … you’re right. That could look nice there. I also think you look very nice here. Although, you’d look better without this cardigan on …”

His teeth, and lips, and tongue, and hands, take her mind off her potential faux–pas, but as they lie in bed — right before they fall asleep — and when she wakes up in the morning, it’s there; in the back of her brain, niggling, never letting her be completely content.

I’m an idiot
, she thinks as they leave for work and he locks the door behind them.

I’m so stupid
, she repeats to herself as she walks to the corner store to buy milk for the office kitchen.

Why did I have to say that?
she wonders as she takes a break from typing to roll her shoulders back and crack her neck.

And then her phone buzzes.
Don’t take your lunch without me. I’m coming to meet you.

***

“Where are we going?”

Lucas just shakes his head and keeps a firm grip on her hand.

“What are we doing?”

“Jocelyn! You said you’d come with me. You said you trusted me. You said you wouldn’t ask questions.”

“No,
you
said ‘Don’t ask questions’ and I didn’t answer.”

“You came with me — that’s implied consent.”

She’s opened her mouth to keep arguing with him, when he veers to the left, pulls her onto a pedestrian bridge. The wood feels inviting under her feet after the dense asphalt. The view from the bridge is beautiful. In one direction the canal, sparkling in the midday sun, decorated with two kayakers and somebody canoeing. Adorned with cyclists and runners on the paths along its banks — the path they’ve just left.

The other direction showcases the downtown they’ve just walked from. Historic stone buildings next to soaring glass ones. Stunning it its own way.

“Look,” he says.

“I am looking. It’s beautiful.”

“No. Look closer.” He steps to the cable railing. Wraps his long fingers around the tightly twisted wire. On either side of his hand dangle locks. Conventional brass and chrome next to candy–coated fuchsia and turquoise. Some with hearts scratched into them, some with names engraved on them, some actually heart–shaped. All locked around the cable. None with keys in them.

“Love locks,” she says.

“Yeah.” With the hand not holding the cable, he fishes in his pocket. Her breath catches. He pulls out a lock, key in the end.

It’s a simple lock. Plain, gold–coloured. The shackle’s shiny silver. Nothing fancy. Nothing fussy. Except… He holds his palm out, the lock nestled in it, and she sees words engraved on it.
Locked together
.

Oh.
Oh, oh, oh
. Her hand flies to her breastbone. She looks at him and can’t stop the tears brimming to her eyes. “I …”

“Is it OK?”

She nods. “Yes.”

“Do you want to put it on?”

“Yes.”

He turns the key and the shackle pops up. He twists it sideways — open — and hands it to her. She hesitates, looks around, then heads right to where he first gripped the cable. “Here?”

“Why not?”

“OK.” She hooks the lock over the wire, making sure
Locked together
. shows, then she hesitates. Checks her watch. 1:10. She sucks in her breath and the numbers click to 1:11.
Perfect
.

She snaps it shut. Locked. Lucas steps forward and slides the key out, and their lock is there, on the bridge.

He lifts his hand, holding the key, and she puts her hand on his arm to stop him. “Wait!”

“Why?”

“Don’t throw it in there. It’s probably bad for the water. Here!” She holds out her hand and he drops the key into it. She grins and holds his gaze while she loosens her jacket, pulls the neck of her shirt down, and drops the key down the front of her bra. “We’ll throw it out when we get home — the catch is, you’ll have to get it first.”

He laughs. “Sounds good to me.” Then his brows furrow. “Speaking of which, I wanted to talk to you about ‘home.’”