She smiled as she clutched her hands behind her back. “Want to take some more?” I nodded, gasped for air as she tipped her head looking every inch the mischievous woman I knew I loved more than life itself. “I know how much you like taking photos of me.” She shimmied a shoulder out of her jacket, looking at me with innocent eyes as she displayed more of her body.
“How about this?” she said watching my reaction. “Is this good?”
“Skye–”
“Are you warning me?”
“No.” I swallowed hard as she looked at me over that shoulder swept in glitter. A shimmer to her skin. Jesus fuck.
“Remember when you took photos of me the night we fucked?”
“Vaguely.” My voice was hooked on my tonsils. I wanted to be calm and cool, but the word made my throat dry and I squeaked my response. She knew, she bloody knew. The naughty look on her face told me everything.
“You vaguely remember telling me to drop my shoulder?” She put her fingers under the strap and pulled it down slowly, painfully slowly to finally reveal her breast.
“Baby, are you trying to kill me?” Her eyes widened on the baby word, but her breast was still taunting me, the peak stiff and ready. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you want me to devour you in a back room of the cinema with porn stars not more than a few feet away.” She laughed, wrinkling her nose and pressing her hand to her mouth. I couldn’t help but take her in, my eyes searching every inch of her, the skin on show, the parts still hidden that I really wished were not. I wanted her to know how much I idolised her, how vital she was to my life. I opened my mouth to speak, but she pulled the other sequinned cup down and I became suddenly incoherent.
“You’re beautiful. I said, picking up my camera, capturing her.
Click.
She closed her eyes and her mouth lifted like what I’d said was exactly what she’d been longing to hear. “Perfection,” I added, pulling the camera away and capturing her eyes. “Made for me.”
“Put the camera down,” she said softly. “Drop it. Launch it. Throw it across the room for all I care.”
“Steady, I’ve just started a new job.”
“I know,” she replied. “Your boss sounds amazing.”
I took two steps forward, and her state of undress didn’t override my need just to hold her face in my hands and look at her, really look. I needed to know that I remembered her correctly, that the scar under her eyebrow was really there. Her pink diamond in her dimple wasn’t just a figment of my imagination. I rubbed my finger across the freckles on her cheeks. “They’re still here,” I said on every stroke.
“Yes, ballsack,” she whispered. “I can’t make freckles disappear.”
Snark. I’d missed it.
I kissed her nose. “Still here.”
An eye roll.
I traced her lips with my fingers. “Still here.”
“Bloody hell fire,” she said smiling.
“Look at me.” A sigh rolled from her lips and her shoulders dropped like her body had been turned inside out. “Do you want me to do this?” I slid my fingers against her nipple.
“Oh God, yes.” She gripped my shirt and I almost lost it.
“Is that good? What you need? What you missed?”
“I missed it all,” she gasped.
“I thought you wanted to talk?”
She lay back on a discarded desk and the look of bliss on her face travelled directly to my cock. I felt for my camera.
Click.
Yes. I want her like this.
‘We can talk if you want to,” she said, her fingers tracing where I wanted my mouth to be. “What do you want to talk about?”
Click.
“Shut up and let me kiss you,” I replied.
“Put the camera down and let me fuck you.”
I groaned as her hand found my erection. She held the tip through my jeans. “You fucking amazing woman.”
“I’ve missed this. I can’t even tell you how much,” she said.
“You think you need to tell me?”
She shook her head against mine and brought my face to hers. I noticed the tears in her eyes immediately and swept her up in my arms, loving her, giving her what I could.
Me.
“I’m sorry,” she said through her tears. “For leaving you.”
“I understand.”
“You made me feel so special, but I needed to give that feeling to myself, too,” she continued.
“I know,” I replied, kissing her mouth.
She closed her eyes and sighed. “Thank you for being patient.”
“Skye, I feel like I’ve been waiting my whole life for you, a few months more wasn’t going to make a difference. I want you well. I want you happy. I want you mine.”
“I’m well,” she replied. “I’m happy.” She smiled. “You were right. I needed help. Thank you for helping me see that. I’ve come to terms with who I am and for the first time in forever…I like myself.”
My heart quivered into this weird little pattern that felt fucking good because I knew that before Skye could love me, she needed to love herself first.
“I love you,” I whispered, watching her eyes close before she returned to me.
“I love you, too.”
I sat us down on the giant pair of red lips and Skye rolled her eyes as she looked around at the scene before us – porn paraphernalia and giant lips as we expressed our undying love to each other.
But somehow, it felt right.
“What can I say?” She smiled as I squeezed her against me, cupping her body and vowing never to let this rainbow syrup, bubblegum-haired woman out of my life again. “I fall in love easily.”
“Are you kidding me?” She laughed as I shook my head before finally allowing me to kiss her in the way I’d wanted to from the minute she left for Amsterdam. “I’m going to miss our weird conversations about all-consuming self-doubt. Those were my favourite nights.” She pushed me away by my chest then pulled me back again by my shirt. “You often pole vaulted over normal night-out shenanigans to needing a shoulder to cry on, and I was always happy to be that shoulder.”
“You know how to handle me,” she replied.
“Christ, do I.” I kissed the mound of her breast. “And it’s been too fucking long.”
Epilogue
Three Years Later
Will
“I really think we should have had more communication about this,” I said as I watched Skye rifling through cupboards and drawers looking for ‘props’ she’d misplaced.
“Will, stop pretending that you’re the one in charge here when we all know that the trouser wearing in this house is down to me.” Fuck, she wore them well. Trousers, skirts, dresses, my boxers and right at this moment one of my old gaming T-shirts.
Sitting on the edge of the bed gave me a fantastic view of the New Laines. It was a busy summer night with late night cafés and bars still open. People were crowding in the streets laughing, playing music, and generally living their best lives.
Like me.