Page 69 of Gold Horizons
This kiss says, “I’m in this with you just as much as you are with me.”
And this kiss says, “While I could stand here all night in the rain with you, I’d rather you take me home.”
24
CORA
He said my name.
To me.
It’s the first time I’ve heard it pass from his lips while he was looking at me, and my entire body shuddered with a visceral reaction, so much so that either I lost all common sense when I stood and followed him, or I finally found it.
Either way, I can’t believe I walked out of one of my parents’ parties. A party that they had yet to come over and say hello to me. I did see my mother once as she stood in the library doorway watching me perform, but when I made eye contact with her, she flipped hers in the direction of Emma and Briggs and frowned. That’s all she needed to do to let me know I had disappointed her by bringing them.
Briggs was right. I mean, Avery and Emma have been right all along, but I am an adult, and this treatment is ridiculous. My friends and I should be welcomed in the home that I grew up in. That’s how it is with other people’s families, and if this is what I have to continue to do for them to show me any semblance of love, then I think it’s best if I don’t. I showed up for them tonight, and all three of them, Winston and both my parents, treated me badly.
The truth is, and I’ve tried not to admit it over the years, they’ve always treated me badly. I can’t make the excuses for them anymore that it’s because they’re wealthy or don’t understand me. They don’t want to understand me, and I’ll never change their minds. They’ve written me off indefinitely as someone not really worth their time or love, and I’m only called upon when it benefits them or makes them look good.
I’m almost thirty. It’s time I decide who I allow to be in my life and who I don’t. Avery, Emma, and Juliet are my family, and it’s taken a lot of years for me to realize that family isn’t always what you’re born into. It’s who you choose, and because of this, I feel free. I feel lighter than I have in years. The burden of always trying to impress them and wondering if today is the day I’m either going to make them happy or disappoint them has vanished.
And as for Briggs, I don’t know yet, but I’m starting to think I would like him to be part of my family too.
“Are you cold?” he asks, startling me from my thoughts.
“No, I’m okay,” I tell him, and I am.
At some point, after we walked out of the building, Clay and Emma left, and while our car service wasn’t there to pick us up, the doorman flagged down a taxi cab. Briggs wrapped me in his coat to help keep me warm, but the smell was the most comforting. The smell is home, something the city no longer is for me.
Pulling my hand, he flattens it on his thigh, his very hard and muscular thigh, while his hand envelops mine and his thumb swipes back and forth. He won’t look at me, but he doesn’t need to for me to know he is fuming—like steam coming out of his ears fuming—but all I really seem to be able to focus on is that he said my name, how he kissed me in the rain, how he’s touching me, and that he looks so good tonight I want to climb him like a tree.
The scent of his skin and his cologne is a heady combination. He didn’t realize I wasn’t shivering from the rain; I shivered with this uncontrollable desire to be wrapped up in his arms and to be with him.
It doesn’t take long for us to pull up to my condo building. He helps me out of the car as I hold up the bottom of my wet skirt from getting tangled around my legs, then he places his hand on my lower back and guides us inside.
“Good night, Ms. Rhodes,” the doorman says, acknowledging the two of us. Briggs nods at him in recognition, but he still doesn’t say anything.
In the elevator, I expect him to move to one side while I move to the other, but instead, he keeps his hand firmly on my lower back, and my side is pressed into his. In the reflection of the doors in front of us, I watch as his chest rises and falls with each breath he takes.
“Are you hungry?” I ask, but I watch as his lips press into a flat line, and I feel his fingers drag across my skin as his hand gathers the fabric of his coat as he squeezes it.
Does he want my clothes off me as much as I want his off him?
“Tired?” I ask, just trying to keep the tension somewhat manageable. Right now, it could be cut with a knife.
He turns his head so his eyes find mine. They are so dark and heated, and then they narrow. Slowly, so slowly, they rake down the length of me and land on my feet. My toes curl, and every muscle between my hips tightens as there’s no mistaking his thoughts.
The ding to the elevator startles me, and I suck in a breath.
His hand gently nudges me to move, and I lead him to my door. Briggs stands behind me as I dig through my clutch for my keys. One of his warm hands slips under the bottom edge of his jacket and surrounds my waist, while the other reaches up to brush my hair off my neck. I pause my search as my head falls back against his shoulder. His size overwhelms me, and even in these heels, he looms.
“Goldie,” he mumbles underneath my ear, his hot breath eliciting goose bumps to race over me, and that alone has my back arching as I press into him, and I feel how hard he is. His hand slides up my stomach where he palms my breast, kneading possessively through the fabric, and his lips suck hard into my skin.
A moan escapes me.
Outside of the apocalypse occurring, nothing will keep me from being with this man tonight. I would walk across hot sand and crawl over glass just to get to him.
Pulling the keys from my hand, he unlocks the door and ushers us inside. Once the door shuts, he backs me into it, caging me in with one forearm pressed over my head and the other, his hand flattened against the wall next to my head.