She'd ignored him for months, so what exactly was she expecting when she knocked on his apartment door at three in the morning.
He looked at her with the remnants of slumber clogging his brain.
"Neela, What are you doing here?" He was confused, and then something else stirred in him. "Are you okay?" a slight note of alarm entering his voice. She was knocking on his door at three A.M after months of ignoring him, something had to be wrong.
"Can I come in?" she asked cautiously, she had been awful to him since she moved out. She half expected the door to be slammed in her face any moment now.
"Sure, sorry" He moved aside awkwardly, letting her past and closing the door after her. He stood a moment watching her pace apprehensively; she looked at the couch as if contemplating sitting then changed her mind, choosing instead to continue pacing.
She suddenly lost her nerve being back here felt too strange. Nothing like the refuge it had once been. She had to remind herself that she didn't live here anymore and that to sit down without being asked was just rude, although she was pretty sure Ray wouldn't notice. Americans weren't so formal with etiquette.
"Neela, what do you want?" it came out harsher than he had meant it to, but he found some part of himself still incensed with her for all the misery he had been feeling since she had dropped out of his life.
He watched her try and hide the sudden stab of pain his careless words had brought her but He knew her too well. He wasn't fooled.
This was stupid said the voice in her head. "This is stupid" she said the thought out loud. "I should go," she added hoping to reach the door without adding to the growing humiliation she was now feeling. God why had she come here, this was a bad idea.
"Neela, please…don't go" He said the words he had been too scared to say eight months ago when she had moved out, leaving him standing on the sidewalk staring at her riding out of his life. Something in him told him if he didn't say the words now he would never get the chance again and he wasn't prepared to let her walk out of his life. He moved in between her and the door.
He stood in front of her blocking her escape route but she didn't want to leave anymore. She looked up to meet his eyes. She could see the uncertainty there, so she made it easier for him stepping forward to capture his lips in a gentle and reassuring kiss. She had thought about this so many times, she was sure if it ever happened it would be a disappointment, but nothing had ever felt so right. She moved into him pressing as much of herself against him as physically possible.
He felt her move into the kiss and quickly responded, He pulled her tightly to himself, and she felt so good against him. Everything he had wanted for so long was finally in his arms and it felt so right.
" I love you," He said, the words slipping from him almost unintentionally. He had said the words before when he was younger, sure that the easy phrase would help get him what he wanted but he knew that he wasn't lying to Neela. Being without her had almost been too much to bear.
She suddenly drew back from him her shock evident as she stared into his confused face.
"Don't" She sighed her heart breaking as she saw his suddenly uncertainty. "You don't have to say that, I still want this" She had known he had felt something for her and as she stared deep into his expressive eyes she was sure he thought he meant it, but it would make her choices so much harder to hear it. All she wanted right now was one perfect memory of Ray.
She didn't believe him, and she didn't reciprocate his words. It hurt.
He knew he loved her, He'd had plenty of girls but no one had ever made him feel the way Neela did. He wanted to argue his case but as if sensing his imminent response Neela silenced him with another tender kiss. He lost all thought of stating his case as she deepened the kiss, her need for something more obvious as her hands slipped under his shirt eager to remove all the boundaries between them.
She had wanted him for so long, she had tried to deny it but it overwhelmed her. She hadn't wanted to love him, to make herself venerable to heartbreak but it was beyond her control. She impatiently pulled his shirt over his head desperate to fulfil the secret fantasies that had been playing out in her head for such a long time.
The shirt gone her attention soon shifted to his jeans.
Her fingers moved quickly to his belt, he found himself mildly shocked by her eagerness to get him out of his clothes, Neela was a thinker she was slow and methodical.
"I've wanted this for so long" He admitted his eyes searching deep into hers hoping for a response to his words. He laughed nervously. 'How in hell did she do this too him, he hadn't been nervous about being with a woman since his teens'
She smiled back sweetly but there was a brief flash of something he couldn't place in her eyes.
"Me too"
He laid a tender kiss on her forehead his anxiousness quelled by her confession. He drew her back into his body, kissing her with passion that had been pent up inside of him since the moment he had realised he was in love with her. He removed her shirt slowly, enjoying the shiver she tried to suppress as his fingers brushed her warm flesh when he eased the fabric off her shoulders.
Her skin felt like it was on fire where his fingers had brushed only seconds before, whatever she had imagined paled in comparison to the way his touch made her feel. She ran her own hands across the bare skin of his back delighting in the feel of muscles and sinews rippling under her ministrations.
He guided her towards where she knew the couch would be, never once breaking the contact between their lips. She undid the button of his pants with surprising ease, but found herself unable to suppress a small giggle as he struggled to step out of them without falling over.
He grinned goofily. "So much for doing this right," He sighed sending her into another fit of uncontrollable giggles.
He looked down at her in mock disapproval "Neela" He sighed, but found himself laughing too.
"I'm sorry Ray" She smiled biting her lip, she wasn't sorry and grin he gave her told her he knew that.
He looked so good stood in front of her grinning in nothing but his boxers. She leaned forward kissing him fervently.
"I'm sorry I waited so long," She added and she was, she had waited way too long for this, her fear robbing her of so much time. Time she would never regain.
Everything about this blew his mind, to the point that he questioned if he was really still asleep, yet another dream of her taunting him with empty promises of love and passion. He pulled gently on her bottom lip captured between his teeth, earning a lustful moan from her. It was all he needed as confirmation of her presence, the urgency in his kisses increasing with the startling revelation that she was here and his, after months of painful longing.
He helped her shed her pants and felt a sudden primal urge take hold of him as he looked down at her dressed in only her black lace underwear. He couldn't help the small involuntary shiver that ran through him. She looked far better than the images he'd had of her in his fantasies and there had been so many of those.
At first she had felt slightly self-conscious at his intense gaze on her near naked form, but the brief shiver of excitement she saw drift over him gave her new confidence. Her eyes burned into his as she deftly removed her bra enjoying the darkening in his eyes as his gaze raked her before gathering her up in his arms again.
His lips crushing against hers insistently, his skin hot against her own as his hands coaxed electricity along her sides, slipping over her hips and down the back of her thighs.
She gasped with passion as he lifted her off her feet, her legs automatically finding their way around his waist. She writhed wantonly against him.
"Oh god Neela" he said but she felt it as a low rumble coming from deep in his chest.
She was grinding against him, making his senses cry out for more. He couldn't stop now if he wanted to, the sweet smell of her shampoo mixing with something that was uniquely Neela driving him insane. He moved towards his room, her legs still wrapped tightly around him.
She shifted against him teasingly making his breath catch in his throat, in all the times he'd pictured this she had always been sweet and innocent. All gentle longing, never the dangerously hot minx that used her body like an expert to urge him to the point of insanity.
He pinned her against the hall wall pushing his hips roughly against her savouring the illicit moan that escaped her passion stung lips.
"Ray I need you now" She arched against him need fully, moaning his name desperately as his lips moved over the swell of her breast.
"Not here" He groaned it took all of his effect to resume his path to his bedroom.