Long, magic, elastic stretches of time, holding each other, kissing. He gave her a little of his tongue and her throat let loose a tiny sigh. Then her tongue against his, their kisses blooming like flowers. He took it all in, how she opened her mouth for him, her arms twining up around his neck, her body pressing against his, fitting into his hands.
I want to be inside you, he thought, following the aching, physical concept into another dimension of need. His soul cried out for her. He wanted to be conjoined. His atoms and cells combined with hers. Their perceptions melded so he could see the world through her eyes. How different this was from being fifteen and consumed with desperate, hormonal curiosity. Willing to take it from anyone, just for the sake of getting it. His brain swirled in a mature and masculine revelation as his mouth found her neck, sweet with her sugar-soap scent. He tilted her head back, set his tongue in the hollow of her throat and tasted what was there. Carefully. Selectively. He didn’t want just any experience. He wanted hers.
“Kiss me,” she whispered. The bite of her fingernails was in his skin as he worked his mouth up her neck, over her chin, and then onto and into her mouth again. Finally their eyes closed and they fell into each other, kissing deep, kissing like lovers, sighing, clinging, drowning in each other.
“I want you so much,” he said against her mouth.
“You know I’ve never—”
“I know,” he said. “You said you were waiting for the one.”
“I think I was waiting for you.”
He slid all ten fingers into the hair at the nape of her neck. “What is happening,” he whispered. “I only met you a week ago.”
“Do you feel it’s going too fast?”
“I’m feeling a lot of things. But doubt isn’t one of them.”
“I’m feeling so much. I don’t even have names for what I feel.”
“I know.” He wrapped his arms around her slender body. She fit him. Fit him perfectly.
“I’ve never wanted something so bad, Erik.”
“I’ll wait. Whenever you’re ready, I’ll wait, I don’t care how long.”
She put her hands on his face, her eyes wide and shining, a cluster of Christmas tree twinkles pooled in each iris. “I’m so happy,” she whispered.
He stared down at her, transfixed and transformed. “I love seeing you happy.”
She was all up in him again, her mouth wonderful. She kissed like a dream, kissed him like she was born to. Born to, he mused, lost in her. I would move in her like I was born to.
He pulled her tight against him. Let her feel him hard for her. Let her feel his want while his hands stayed soft and patient on the bare skin of her back. Let her know he couldn’t wait. And yet he would gladly wait. It was all there for the taking. Time was plentiful, a spilling basket of golden minutes and hours. Time was a gift from this girl who had waited for him to find her.
Your Clothes Against My Skin
“Do you have good memories of your father?” Daisy asked. She was lying on Erik’s chest, playing with the little gold fish on his necklace. His hand moved slowly up and down her back underneath her shirt. His, rather: she had taken to buttoning herself into his clothes at night, wearing one of his flannel shirts and her underwear and nothing else.
It was a sweet look.
“All my memories of him are good,” he said. “That’s what made it so bad when he left.”
“What did he do, what was his job?”
“He owned a construction company, did some carpentry on the side. He built my and Pete’s bedroom. It’s a good memory.”
“Tell me.”
“He knocked down the wall between our rooms, made one big space for us. Then he built these beds—mine was a loft, and he cut tree shapes out of plywood, screwed them onto the front, so it looked like a forest. I had a swing, an actual rope swing hanging down from the bed. Pete was young so his bed was down low, but it had the trees all around it, and a little hammock for him.”
“Sounds like something you’d see in a magazine,” she said. She was making the boat charm sail in and out of the hollow of his throat.
“He built it all one summer. I remember watching for hours. Watching him work.”
“So he was a set designer.”
“Huh.” Erik smiled. “Didn’t occur to me. You’re right.”