“Fern, I’ll give you the guided tour later, okay?” he says, voice strained.
“I don’t think so.” I bend, bringing my mouth to the lemon. “You had your turn, and now I want mine.” I move my hand inside his underwear, wrapping it around him. “I want the world’s greatest tour of Will Baxter.”
Will tilts his head back, and I move my tongue along the ridge of his pelvis. He sucks in a sharp breath and clasps my wrist. “Bedroom.”
I disagree. I have my own ideas that involve Will coming apart in my palm right now, so I keep going. Will puts his hands on his head, and just as his stomach muscles tighten in a way that tells me I’m about to get what I want, he hoists me right off the ground, and I have no choice but to hold on to his neck.
“But you were so close,” I say in protest, and he sucks on the skin below my ear and says, “You have no idea how much self-control I can exert when it comes to you.”
I bite his shoulder as he walks us into the room. “I’m very dedicated to getting what I want.”
We tumble onto the bed on our sides, and I reach for the waistband of Will’s underwear, but before I’ve lowered it an inch, he puts his hand on my cheek and says my name. My eyes find his. “Slow down, okay? I’ve waited a long time for this.”
I nod, but his words and his gaze—the way he’s looking at me, open and steady—stir up something I didn’t feel moments ago. I’m lying on a bed, naked, with Will Baxter. I don’t know where to put my hands. I don’t know where to look.
Will lifts my chin so I’m staring at him. “Are you okay?”
I tell him the truth. “I think I’m nervous.”
He smiles. “Me too. Do you want to stop?”
I shake my head. “Definitely not.”
Will moves my hair aside, then kisses my neck. We make out for a long time, and Will keeps his touch to my shoulders and waist and hips, until I’m not nervous. I’m impatient. I move myself against him, taking his hand to my breast. I push his underwear down over his hips, and he doesn’t stop me.
“I want you inside me,” I tell him.
He begins to pull away, and I wrap my leg over his to hold him close. “Now.”
“Condom,” he says, and I blink. Right. He brings a strip back from the bathroom, and I watch him roll one on, then I pull him onto the bed.
“It’s best for me like this,” I say, turning so that he’s spooning me. He reaches his arm around me, and I press back against him, but he doesn’t take it for the invitation that it is. He pinches my nipple and kisses my shoulder, and then says, “I’ll do whatever you want”—and then he shifts so that he’s on top of me—“but I’d really like to look at you the first time. Okay?”
I swallow, my throat tight, then whisper, “Yes.”
Will holds my gaze as he pushes inside me, taking his time, until we fit together fully. We stare at each other, unblinking. My heart feels like it’s going to burst with an emotion I can’t quite name. I don’t realize there’s a tear running from the corner of my eye until Will kisses it away.
I apologize. “That’s never happened to me before. I’ll be fine.”
“You’re sure?”
I nod. “I’m okay.”
Will presses his lips to mine, sweetly, and then begins to move in a slow rhythm. “We can do better than okay.”
* * *
—
The sun hasn’t yet risen when I’m woken by a loon’s mournful tremolo. There’s only the soft predawn light and the bird’s strange, beautiful song. It takes a few seconds for my eyes to adjust enough to see where I am, to remember that I’m not at the house. Last night comes back in a flash of sweat-slicked skin and tattoos. My face pressed against a pillow, Will curved over me, whispering in my ear. That was the second time.
I remember gathering the courage to ask him to hold me as we fell asleep, wanting the comfort of his body pressed to mine. It’s not something I usually request of my bedmates, to fit themselves around me, and I wasn’t sure I could ask it of Will. In the end, I didn’t need to. He tucked himself around my back, holding me to him. I drifted off with his lips pressed to my shoulder.
Rolling over, I find Will stretched out on his back, sheets bunched around his waist, his hair a black bramble.
I decide to take the opportunity to look at his tattoos more closely before I slip out. I don’t want a guest witnessing me sneaking back to the house in my pajamas. More than that, I don’t know how to be with Will in the light of day.
“I guess we didn’t get around to the tour last night,” Will rasps, startling my study of the name Sofia on top of his ribs.
“I decided to take a self-guided one.”
He tucks a hand behind his head and pulls me up so I’m resting in the crook between his chest and arm. It catches me off guard, and I stiffen. Casual sex and morning-after cuddling don’t usually go together, and this was the dictionary definition of a late-night hookup.
Will squeezes me. “Hey, where did you go?”
“Sorry. I was thinking.”
“What are you thinking about so hard?” His fingers twist around a strand of my hair.
“I think,” I say, running my hand over his stomach, “you have a lot of tattoos.”
He tousles my hair, and everything inside me unwinds a little. “Are you always this observant in the morning?”
“I don’t really boot up properly until I’ve had coffee.” I clear my throat. “I should probably get back to the house before I have to walk-of-shame it in front of guests. I don’t think that’s the kind of wildlife they’re hoping to see here.”
He moves his hand down my bare back, cupping the arch of my hip. “But I had big plans this morning.” I suck in a breath as his fingers skim lower.
“Tempting, but—”
“Fern,” he says softly. “Don’t leave yet. I’ll go over to the house later and get you a change of clothes, okay?”
“Okay.” I turn my head and bury my smile in his chest. I know this isn’t going anywhere. Will has a life in Toronto, and I . . . well, I think I’m going to have one here. For now, though, I can stay a little longer.
“So why all the tattoos?” I run my finger down the fir tree on his arm.
“Women love them.”
“Women like Sofia?”
He chuckles and runs his hand through my hair. “Oh yeah, Sofia definitely loves them.” I twist my neck to find him smiling down at me. “Sofia’s my niece.” Will must see the relief as plainly as I feel it, because his smile deepens.
“Oh,” I say. “I don’t think you told me her name before.” He tucks me back in the crook and snakes his fingers through my hair again.
“No? That wasn’t intentional, but now I’m glad I didn’t. You’re cute when you’re jealous.”
I make a pfff sound. “You’re impossible.” I run my hand over the name. “Do you miss her?”
Will lets out a breath with a whoosh. “It’s the longest I’ve been away,” he says slowly, like he’s choosing his words from a forty-page menu. “But my sister was adamant it would be a good break for all of us.”
“And has it been? A good break, I mean?”
He tilts his head down so he can see my face. “Are you kidding?”
I shake my head.
“I’ve been working, yeah, but it’s felt like a complete vacation. I haven’t had this much alone time in ages. It’s been amazing. A total break from reality.”
A break from reality. The words bash around in my skull.
I point at the four-panel comic on his stomach; the first shows a scruffy guy surrounded by moving boxes. “Is this your comic?”
“The first strip of Roommates, yeah.”
“Do you ever think about starting it up again?”
“The comic, no.”
“But what about drawing? Even if it’s just for fun?”
He’s quiet for a long beat. “I’ve been sketching a little since I’ve been here.”
I think of the cartoon in the card he gave me and the pencils I saw scattered about the living room last night. “You’ve had more time to yourself.”
“Yeah, it’s that. But it’s also . . . I don’t know. I guess I’ve been reminded about that side of myself.”
I look up at him and am startled by the weight in his expression.
“I’m glad,” I murmur, then brush my hand over the tattoo below his collarbone. Two tiny words. Only thoughts.