“Don’t make me repeat myself.”
His stare is making me fall apart. What is happening? Unable to return it, I eye the patch of skin on his throat, which is directly in front of me. “I can’t.”
He goes still at my threadbare voice but then his Adam’s apple bobs, hitches, like his throat is inundated with swollen emotions. “You wrote it for me.”
His thick whisper compels me to lift my gaze. My first reaction is to deny it, but I reject the idea as soon as it comes. Some weird intuition tells me he needs it, like he needed my orgasm, my desperation at the bar.
Hypnotized, I nod. “I did.”
“Then do it,” he bites out.
My eyes go back and forth between his face and his throat, watching the odd intensity of his expression and the savage pounding of his pulse. It’s difficult for him, this display, but I’m guessing his emotions are too big to contain. He can’t stop them from bleeding out, and I can’t stop myself from absorbing it in my pores.
My hands tremble as I open my notebook and flip to the page I wrote the poem on. I could recite it without looking, but I need this barrier because God, this is crazy. It’s fucking crazy and it’s turning me on.
Words blur as a full-body tremble clutches me in its grip. I grab the knob behind my back with one hand and tighten the hold on my notebook with the other. Somehow I focus and get the words to stop swimming.
“It-It burns when you look at m-me,” I whisper, my tongue feeling heavy.
“Flames dance in your eyes, in them the fire resides.
Turning me into ashes. Black and p-powdery.
It…It’s a slow process. My disintegration.”
I stop to take a breath. My breasts are heavy and so are my thighs, heavy and needy. I rub my ass against the smooth door, which does nothing to abate the thick lust in me.
“Keep going.”
“It-It begins with a spark of heat, a sizzle so tiny.” I jump when I feel something brush against my throat.
I almost drop the notebook when I see his finger grazing the top button of my coat. Every time, I’m hit by the fact that his fingers are so long and thick. Tiny curls of hair sprout from his knuckles, making them look masculine. They feel right, which means it’s probably wrong.
“What are you doing?”
Thomas is focused on the task. “Unbuttoning your coat.”
“Wh-Why?”
“Because I want to.” He shrugs. His reply is both arrogant and boyish.
The top button opens, revealing a sliver of my skin. “Thomas. Don’t…please.”
“Keep reading.” He unbuttons the second one and then the third, followed by the fourth. Out of habit, I expect cold to rush in any minute, but I know it won’t. Thomas is close; the sun follows him wherever he goes.
I let go of the knob and curl my hand over his, stopping him from going further. “Please. Stop.”
His eyes lift and I can’t draw in a breath. If I thought he needed me to read the poem for some bizarre reason only he’s privy to, then I was wrong. That wasn’t need. That wasn’t…anything. This is need. This. The flush of his cheeks. The clench of his jaw. The flare of his nostrils dragging in a bucketful of air as though his lungs are starved. He is starved for me.
I’ve never been looked at this way before, never been someone’s blazing focus of attention. My body, my very soul pressures me to move my hand from on top of his.
Oh God, I’m going to let him do this, aren’t I? I’m going to let him unbutton my coat.
My hand falls away and he continues his task. The silence is too much, and the only way to fill it is by reading the poem, so I do it.
“A warmth…” My coat is completely unbuttoned now. My chunky green sweater shows through the gap. Guess what, it has buttons too. He parts my coat, careful to not touch my skin, and pushes it over my shoulders. I roll them and it hangs lifelessly, awkwardly from my body.
Thomas runs his finger along the V of my sweater, feeling the soft but fuzzy cloth before stopping at the top pearl white button.
A drop of sweat skates down my spine and I arch my back—only a fraction, but he notices. The vein on the side of his neck pounds in answer.
“A warmth invisible. It leaps and grows,
Turns my skin red and roars.
Then I burn. Slow and steady.
It hurts when you look at me.”
Thomas has reached the middle of my sweater and there is no way I can focus on reading. I let the notebook fall, along with my coat and grab the knob with my other hand. I’m sliding down. My thighs are slippery, my hands sweaty. There’s an inferno in my stomach courtesy of the fire-breather.
“Finish the poem, Layla,” he says, his fingers about to reach the last button.
I attempt to shake my head but in reality, it lolls from side to side against the door. “I-I can’t. I can’t do it. It’s too much.”
I look to the ceiling and scrunch my eyes closed when I feel him pop the last button. Tamping down a needy moan, I clamp my quivering thighs together.
“Next time.” I hear the smile in his voice and latch on to his words.
There’s going to be a next time? I snap my attention back to his slightly bent head. He is clutching the edges of my green sweater in a tight fist. The color on his knuckles is leached out, leaving them white and almost trembling with need. I can see he is as desperate to unveil my skin as I am to expose it to him.
His gaze sweeps up to my rather exposed chest. The swell of my breasts is showing over the boat-necked black shirt I’m wearing, which also has buttons. The longer he stares at them, the heavier my tits become, much heavier than their usual B-sized weight.
Thomas shoots me an irritated look through his lashes. “Another?”
At first I’m confused as to what he means, but then I realize he’s talking about my shirt. “Layers. Sorry.”
He doesn’t smile but his irritation is gone, replaced by amusement and a tinge of warmth. His fists loosen and he begins again. One by one he pops the buttons of my shirt. I gasp when his knuckles skim over my breasts. They swell and tingle on the side, as if expanding, and my nipples itch, growing hard. A strange soreness grips them.
Just touch me already.
He reaches my stomach and it hollows out as I lose my breath. Then finally, finally it’s done. My shirt hangs open, exposing my white bra and the wide expanse of my stomach. He takes me in with greedy eyes and at the sound of his harsh breath, I whisper, “What? What is it?”
He is focused on my belly button ring and then it happens. He touches me, but only with his pinkie. It hooks through the ring and pulls. “Fuck,” he mutters.
“Do you…not like it?”
“No. I fucking love it.”
At his unguarded and guttural words, I give in to the pull of his finger and bow my back off the door. Our hips crash and I feel his cock against my belly.
“Oh God, it’s so big,” I moan, unable to stop myself. As soon as I say it, I’m ashamed, probably blushing; my skin feels hot.
Thomas tenses. “I never knew. I wondered, though.”
“What?”