He takes his time. Mouth follows fingers. Lighting fires, then dousing them in kerosene. Branding himself all over me. I’m so dizzy with it, I have to grip his shoulders to stay upright. He takes the hint and picks me up before he lays me on the bed and continues what he’s doing without missing a beat. He kisses across my chest, then down my stomach as his hands keep my breasts warm.
Hot breath sparks across everything it touches, and he moves lower. Pushes at my knees. Opens me up to him and moans as he puts his mouth on me. Muffled whispers tell me how much he’s been fantasizing about this. I arch into him as he shows me what he’s been dreaming about. All the ways he knows he can speak to my body.
Before long, I’m panting, trying to keep myself together even as he’s determined to make me fall apart. I squeeze my eyes shut and gasp. I’ve been dreaming about this, too, but the reality is so much more powerful. I grip his hair. Clench and release. Faster and harder, in time with his rhythm.
This is different than how we usually are. I want to keep my eyes closed and pretend nothing has to change, but he doesn’t let me. I’m arching so hard I’m nearly levitating, when he stops.
I try to grab him. To make him finish.
The bed dips as he stands.
I open my eyes as panic tightens my chest.
But he’s just removing his shoes. He drops them heavily before tugging off his socks.
He clears his throat. I think it’s nerves, but no. He wants my attention on his face, not on his feet. When I’m looking at him, he undresses slowly, first by pulling off his shirt. When it hits the floor, he pauses. Now he’s nervous. He’s never done this before. Become voluntarily bare.
I watch in awe.
He keeps looking at me, as if he’s trying to prove himself.
He unbuttons his jeans and pushes them down, then shakes his head like he can’t believe he’s stripping for me. He’s down to just his boxer-briefs. They hug every long inch.
I realize just how little I’ve looked at him during our sexual encounters. Watching him like this seems almost wrong. Like I shouldn’t because he’s not mine. Every feature is so familiar, but it’s like a work of art I’ve admired from afar, knowing it will never hang on my wall.
And yet, this little display is telling me he wants me to own him.
He pushes down his underwear, and then, it’s just him. Gloriously naked him. He’s self-conscious, but he lets me stare. Does he see the way all my arteries dilate, sending crawling heat all over my body?
How totally ill-equipped I am to deal with how much I want him?
Every part of him.
The silence stretches around us. He’s standing there naked, silently asking permission to be more, and I don’t have the courage to answer him.
My heart rate escalates, and I lie back on the bed. Within seconds, he’s there, warm and comforting. He kisses my face. Pulls my hand away from my eyes.
“It’s late,” he says. “You’re tired. Tell me if you want me to go.”
I don’t want him to go.
“It’s not that late,” I say.
“Is it too late?”
I open my eyes. He’s looking down at me, vulnerable and intense, and he’s not asking about numbers on a clock.
My mind races as I try to figure out what to say.
I don’t want to be this confused, but our relationship is like a Chinese rope puzzle, and every strand that pulls us closer together also pulls us apart. Will there ever be a time when we have the forward without the back?
He kisses me, and only his sharp inhale tells me he’s anything but completely calm.
“Tell me it’s not too late,” he whispers into my lips, as if he can will me to say the words. “I need it to not be too late for us.”
He kisses my neck, and I close my eyes as I try to think.
This is the moment. The one where I get to choose. From here, my future branches into two distinct timelines. In one, I pull him on top of me and let him show me the difference between fucking and making love. In the other, I push him away and resign myself to forever wondering, “what if?”
I’m not the gambling type. I’ve never understood how some people can get addicted to games in which the probability of losing is so high. They’re not stupid people. They know the odds aren’t in their favor, yet they risk more than they can possibly afford to lose.
Right now, I think I finally get it.
Losing isn’t what drives them. It’s the glimmer of that one spectacular win. The jackpot that’s painted with bright lights and a giant check from The Bank of Happily Ever After. That’s the rush that keeps them putting their hands in their pockets. The thrilling, heart-pounding moment the second before the ball drops, or the card turns, or the tumbler falls into place.
“Cassie?”
A thousand to one. Two thousand. Seventy thousand.
The first number is almost irrelevant. It’s the one that makes people take the risk. That elusive, magical one.
“Please, look at me.”
I do. I look and I see. The well-meaning heart of him. The damaged and skittish ego.
I kiss him, hard. He grunts in surprise before kissing me back.
I kiss and tug at him. Pull him on top of me. Try to step back over the “just fucking” line and see if I feel safer there. I grab at his hips and attempt to pull him to where I want him. He tries to resist, but I’m insistent, and I lift my hips and slide against him until he’s breathing so hard, he sounds stricken.