She moves on top of me, my hands reaching urgently for her in the moment we lose contact. When she sinks down on me, I know I can’t draw this out as long as I want. This view overwhelms me.
She sucks in a breath, and once more I’m locked in our perfect synchrony, reading her every intention, matching her every move. I press deeper. She reaches her hand to my chest, bending to capture my mouth. I’ve surrendered myself to Katrina countless times. Each page I give her, submitting my words to her red ink. Every discussion of our career. She’s directed the course of my life, and I’m better for it. Right now, pinned beneath her, I feel it with complete certainty. I would put myself in Katrina’s hands forever.
When she shudders, the motion rips through her. I watch, holding her in every way I can. I’m desperate to remain right here, like this, until finally I’m overcome. I lose myself in her.
What comes next I could only call perfect contentment. The sun streams in the windows, my sheets strewn everywhere. I collapse gently into Katrina. Remembering we’re here, in Florida, right now, is head-spinning in its wonder. This is real. This is us. This happened. I hug her to me, her head resting near my heart.
She holds me, our chests heaving together. I know with complete certainty this has only stoked the fire between us. The flames lick ever higher. When I glance at her, Katrina catches me looking.
She smiles, and my heart ignites.
54
Katrina
I’m in no hurry to leave Nathan’s bed. So I don’t, even though it’s the middle of the day. Even though we have work to do.
“Any notes?” Nathan asks next to me.
It takes me a moment to process his question. Like when you’re a kid and you see your teacher on what’s obviously a date at the table next to yours, the contexts misaligned so dramatically that your mind is wiped blank. “Notes?” I repeat.
He rolls onto his side, his eyes lit with humor. “On my performance.”
“Seriously?”
“Katrina, you know how much I love feedback. Yours in particular.”
I laugh. His grin is boyish in a way I’ve never seen before. Nothing like the intentional charm of his author photo. His dimple frames the corner of his lips, and there’s an eager openness in his expression that I can only interpret as genuine happiness. I know he expects me to play this game with him a little longer, stretch out our wordplay the way we both love. I can’t, though. Not while his smile is making me embarrassingly soft. “No notes. You were . . . It was perfect.”
He catches my hand, kissing my knuckles. “It was,” he says.
There’s no way I’m leaving this bed, I decide. I’ll work from here. Possibly forever. I pull on my underwear, wondering if he’s watching—he definitely is—then throw my shirt on over my head. Settling into the pillows, I curl up, grabbing the pages I need to edit from the nightstand. Nathan follows my lead, spreading out across the foot of the bed, shirtless and barelegged except for his briefs. The sun warms the room.
I feel good. It’s so simple, yet so profound I don’t focus on it for fear it will flee under scrutiny.
An hour passes, two, while I work on the pages, sneaking glances at Nathan typing on his computer. I let my cheeks heat remembering his hands everywhere, feeling every inch of me. His mouth kissing my breasts, gentleness and care fighting with hunger in his every movement. I felt good with him, too. Myself. Swept up in the best possible way.
“Getting lots of work done?” Nathan asks, not looking up from his computer. His lips curl conceitedly.
I drop my gaze, smiling despite myself. Busted. It’s impossible for me to focus right now. What’s more, I’m stuck. The change this scene needs won’t reveal itself, my mind too jumpy and too wrapped up in itself for me to find the fix. I set down the pages, not really frustrated the scene has stumped me.
“I have writer’s block,” I say. “I need a shower.” I spring out of bed and head for Nathan’s bathroom. I’m expecting him to repeat his usual refrain—writer’s block doesn’t exist.
Instead, he doesn’t speak until I’ve reached the doorway. “In my bathroom?”
I round on him, smirking. “You mind?” I don’t wait for his reply. Walking into the bathroom, I leave the door open.
I turn on the shower and step in. Under the hiss of the hot water, I let my muscles unwind, hoping my mind does the same. The shower is my favorite place for inspiration. The invigorating warmth combined with the rhythm of water on tile, the repetitive rinsing and lathering, the quiet meditativeness tricks the mind into creativity. Suddenly, the scene you’re not even thinking about unfolds in some corner of your consciousness.
Facing the nozzle, I close my eyes, enjoying the spray running down me. When I hear the door softly close, I smile. Moments later, I feel Nathan behind me. I spin to face him, raising one eyebrow.
“What? I have writer’s block, too,” he says.
I laugh. “Sure you do.” Nathan rolls his eyes, but his hands run down my back. I sink into the feeling, letting my own hands run up his chest. Though I’m still fearful of dwelling on my own thoughts, of one I’m certain—I’ve never felt this way before. “Tell me something,” I say softly.
“Hmm?” he hums close to my ear.
“What was it like to write on your own again?”
He pulls back to look into my eyes. It’s several seconds before he speaks. “It felt . . . incomplete. I don’t know how many times I had to fight the instinct to send you a chapter, how often I thought, Katrina will do this scene better—I’ll leave it to her. Only to remember.” His eyes dim.
His words wind into me so deeply, I nearly forget his hands cradling me under the rivulets of water. “You don’t need me, though,” I point out. “You wrote something wonderful on your own.”
The light returns to his eyes, electric. “Oh, I need you.” He steps closer, pressing himself up to me, showing me exactly how much. I can’t help being impressed. Pleased, too, knowing what it promises. “What about you?” His question is soft. “Did you really write nothing these last years?”
I settle into his embrace, resting my head on the plane of his chest. I couldn’t compel myself to put ideas on paper, where they could be read, where they would’ve started to want things from me like completion or recognition. “I wrote,” I say, “just only in my head.”
His fingers find my temple, brushing gently. “To be in there,” he murmurs.
“You already are,” I say in a heartbeat. “Not a day went by that I didn’t think about you. Nathan, I—”