His eyes flare wide, holding me captive. He grates a word, low and guttural. “Please.”
“Mmm, we’ll see.” I bite his lower lip gently between my teeth and scrape my nails down his chest, ending the journey with a tight stroke. I moan into his ear and steal away his hard-fought control. Nicholas groans when I undulate against him. His murmurs, too quiet for me to understand, track down my throat and chest until he finds something he likes.
His body is shadow, stardust, and moonlight. He angles his head in a studious way, scientific fingers exploring crests and valleys, burning slow circles with his touch. I whimper a plea and he smiles but doesn’t oblige. He’s in no rush, which makes no sense to me whatsoever. I’m impatient and if it were up to me, we’d already be going for round two.
Rather than heed my begging, he lets his teeth graze across the soft expanse of my stomach. His hand moves down between my legs and applies pressure, relenting for one single stroke. His lips blaze a trail from my shoulder to my hip bone in an agonizingly slow, languid process, curls tickling skin.
Darkness closes over me and I let my other senses assume control, light-headed from the rush of his wanting, his delicious weight sinking me into the mattress. I sigh his name while he touches and tastes at his leisure, and he rises over me, breath flaring across my naked chest like the smoke of a fire.
Saying his name is what topples him over the edge. It’s the magic word.
He slams his wrists down on top of mine and is inside me before I can blink, swallowing my gasp down his throat. He feels incredible. He never stops kissing me as he moves in a measured, sensuous rhythm.
Nicholas smooths a hand around my waist, resting at the base of my spine so that he can hold me to him and do as he likes with perfect control. His face is tight in concentration, sweat gathering at his temples from the effort of holding back. He won’t let me hurry him. Every time I try I’m chastised with a nip of teeth, the brand of his hand. His punishments are a reward of their own.
I kiss the soft flesh of a fluttering pulse on his neck, below his ear, and a deep rumble shudders through him. I take his chin in my hand and force him to look at me through half-lidded eyes that wrestle for control, to prolong this and make us suffer. His eyes are black as the night forest.
He rushes forward but his kisses are surprisingly gentle, halting the movement of our bodies. I want to protest, but he pulls back and I can see that he’s thinking hard about something. Worry lines his forehead. He lifts my thigh and hooks it to his side, every muscle rigid as he starts moving again. I can trace the tendons in his neck and arms. “Nicholas?”
He gazes down on me. “Say you love me?” he whispers.
My heart bursts in my chest, white light popping behind my lids like fireworks. “I love you,” I say, and watch it blaze through him. “Of course I love you, Nicholas.” His thrusts meet every roll of my hips, and we both come apart.
My thoughts are impossible to sort through. My body feels amazing. Satisfied. It’s never been like this, or if it was, I’ve forgotten. When our breathing evens out, I trace the shape of a heart on his chest. His hair is a dark halo on the white pillow, and his eyes are still burning when they fall on my face.
I grin at him. “That might be the one to beat.”
“Even better than our first time?”
We both laugh, because our first time was a mess. He came to visit me on my lunch break at my old hardware store job and we ended up doing it in the storage closet. Standing up, he tried to position me against the wall and when we were done I came out to discover that hanging on the other side of that wall were tools, which now lay all over the floor. I’d forgotten to lock the front door, and the two customers browsing had likely gotten an earful.
“Remember that time in my car?” I snigger. “You got—”
“Hot coffee spilled all over us,” he replies along with me. Nicholas groans. “Nothing kills the mood like scalding liquid on your crotch.”
“And he was never the same,” I intone gravely. He smiles and elbows me.
“Felt terrible for ruining your sweater.”
“I forgot all about that sweater. Hm. Worth it, though.”
He twirls a lock of my hair around his finger. “Remember when we met?”
How we met is insignificant in light of how we met again. We met again while each trying our best to push the other one away. Whether we pushed each other too far remains to be seen. Can these past few weeks be real, and the past year a dream? Or is this the dream? We’ve been corrosive, and we can’t undo it, only recover from it if we try harder at this than we’ve ever tried at anything. He’s burrowed so deep beneath my surface, there’s no separating him from tendons and bones, no getting him out of my blood.
Of course I remember. It’s been sitting in the lost and found of happy memories, waiting for love to spin a revolution like the sun and light it up again.
“How could I forget?”
It’s nearly two years ago and I’m at a bowling alley in Eau Claire for my dad’s surprise party. Mom’s got one of the tables bedecked with CONGRATULATIONS and HAPPY RETIREMENT balloons and a cake with a picture of his face in the icing. Aaron and Kelly, my brother and sister, are both in hateful moods for having to make the trip up. Kelly had to break plans with friends that she’d made after forgetting she agreed to come to this, and Aaron won’t stop griping over the cost of gas. It’s why he didn’t bring a present. His presence is a present. Before he leaves, he’s going to shake down Dad for twenty bucks.
Dad hates surprise parties and he didn’t want to retire in the first place (his company forced him out, basically), so when he finally shows up he’s in an evil temper to match everyone else’s. Mom tries to be perky to save everything, but since she hates to bowl and spends the whole time talking on the phone to her sister, it just makes Dad grumpier and they all start fighting.
A man in the lane to our right is bowling alone. I know he can hear my family arguing, because even though I keep telling them to keep their voices down their hissing ends up being just as loud. Also, he’s glanced in our direction a few times.
“Can I pretend I’m here with you?” I ask him jokingly. I’m holding a glittering nine-pound ball I got from behind the counter. I use children’s bowling balls because my strengths lie in the mental arena rather than physical. I’m also not above requesting bumpers.
“Sure.” He smiles at me, and my stomach does a little flip. He’s got cute, wavy brown hair that curls slightly where it falls across his forehead, and an honest smile. Kind eyes.
“Thanks. My family never learned how to behave in public.”
He chuckles and shakes his head. “My family could give them a run for their money, believe me.”
Kelly’s in tears. I hear her call Aaron an asshole for stealing five dollars from her purse to get a bag of weed from someone he just met in the bathroom, and I agree with her. He calls her an asshole right back because she once reported him to the IRS for not disclosing $125.00 he made staining our uncle’s porch, so I agree with him too.
“Can’t believe that, sorry,” I deadpan, and we both laugh. I jerk my thumb at my siblings. “They probably haven’t been great for your concentration.”