He started to pull back, but I stopped him by grabbing his face, crushing his mouth to mine.
The need came sudden and dark. I had to have him. Had to. On me, in me.
I craved that most intimate connection, him in the deepest part of me, with ravenous simplicity.
When he pulled back again I let him, my breath coming short. "Now." It was a plea, an order, a curse—all in one.
"Well, if you insist," he muttered. He was such a fake. He'd lost his senses several thumping heartbeats earlier and we both knew it.
He descended on me again, mouth on my jaw, kissing down to my neck, over my collarbone, moving down.
He peeled off my oversized cat T-shirt, lips coming back to my bare skin.
When he sucked my nipples, my back arched off the bed, my toes curling in delight. I was so primed that I thought he might bring me over with that contact alone, but he didn't linger there long, moving inexorably lower, and lower, nuzzling between my legs, eating me out like I was a feast and he was starved.
That made two of us.
When he'd—put a fork in me, done—finished me, he laid his cheek against my inner thigh, his drowning blue eyes aimed up the line of my body at mine, and managed to look winsome.
I shut my eyes and stroked his hair. I was having a battle with myself, feeling too emotional, wanting to tamp it down, to reprimand the part of me that lived for this, that thought my entire reason for existing was wrapped up in it.
In the end, emotion won, aided by sensation. He was licking his way up my stomach, nuzzling, kissing, touching everything with his fingertips like he would memorize me, though I knew he'd burned every detail of me into his brain a very long time ago.
This was just a refresher course.
By the time his mouth made its way to mine I was near incoherent with need again.
He raised his upper body over me, bracing with his arms, his lower body pressed against me, staring down at me.
The look on his face then was hard to describe.
His blue eyes were filled with a dark light. There was desire, yes, hunger, of a certainty, but also there was disbelief, reverence, hope. Fear. So much fear.
But above all, there was need. It was like the sun, so brilliant it was blinding.
I wondered what he saw in my eyes at that moment, if my desperation was as transparent as his. God, I hoped not. It was too much just having to witness his. Overkill.
He took me with ferocious delight, reveling in me, our hands clutching, every finger entwined.
He drove in and out of me with fast, solid strokes, kissing me, then pulling back, his eyes delving into my soul as his body plundered mine, then kissing me. Again and again.
In spite of my better judgment, if I had such a thing, I didn't hold back any more than he did, taking fervent joy in every touch, every contact.
Every possession—physical, spiritual.
When I came, it was with our eyes locked and his name on my lips like an invocation.
My name on his lips was more like a prayer.
I thought I was finished, vanquished, filled up, satiated, but he was far from done with me.
He was indefatigable. Insatiable. A tireless machine.
This had been the nature of our separation. It was always a flood or a drought for us. I wondered if we'd ever get past that.
Certainly not today.
*****
We had ourselves a lazy morning. I was off until the next evening, and Dante's schedule seemed to be completely aimless.
Eventually we had to eat. He was the first one to scrounge up the energy to rise from the bed.
My smitten eyes were all over him. He was naked, prowling the room on his way to the closet.
I just lay there, enjoying the view. The symmetry and grace of his body would never get old for me.
It took a bit of effort on his part, but he did talk me out of bed.
It was a strange turn. Usually he only ever talked me into it.
We had croissants and coffee outside in the sun. The house had a heavy amount of decking, all of it private.
We ate silently for a time, and I studied him to my heart's content.
It wasn't always noticeable, the strange mixture of color in his eyes. But as the late morning sun hit them, the blue came alive like a flame, and another color, a rogue little circle of gold around his iris, was revealed. There were three colors if you looked closely. That strange gold around the middle, an almost pale aquamarine that bled into a darker blue at the outer edges. They reminded me of where sea met sand, but they were deep. Drowning deep ocean blue.
God, I was a sucker for his eyes.
I realized right then just how much I'd missed such a simple thing as looking at him without restraint. Without artifice. Without hiding what I was feeling as much as I possibly could.
"What are you staring at?" he asked, clearly amused.
"Your eyes. Your beautiful eyes." Tears were running down my face. God, he turned me into a sap. I hated it as much as I loved it.