I notice her scar immediately. I’ve seen it so many times since the transplant. It sprouts from her belly button and grows around her back like a vine. I sit up and trace it with reverent fingers, awed that this smooth strip of raised skin is the reminder of how I could lose her. Evidence of how she was saved.
There was a time when she would have shied away from my touch, from my eyes, but we’re well past that. True intimacy, laced with trust, curls around us like tendrils of smoke.
I pull her to the bed and press her naked shoulders into the down of our comforter, permitting my fingers to trace her lips, the delicate construction of her face. I lavish kisses behind her ears, opening my mouth over her throat, worshiping her breasts, drawing her nipples between my lips, first one and then the other. My name tumbles from her lips, carried on heaving breaths and ragged sighs. She grips behind my neck to keep me against her, her hands and hold imperative. My appetite for her is a barely checked thing on a straining leash.
I want to make slow love to her, sweet and stretched out like taffy. A dish peppered with we’ve-got-all-night kisses. But we can’t convince our hands, our lips, or tongues, that there is time. The urgency of banked passion blows across the flame, and we are clothed in fire. Naked skin hot to the touch. Our hearts are talking drums through our chests, saying all the words when desperation steals our voices.
I bracket my knees on either side of her thighs, and she is naked beneath me. I push one knee up and then the other until her legs are open and she is wet and exposed. Breasts, thighs, pussy—she is a table set for me, and I dip my head to lick her from top to bottom. She jerks, her breath catching and her hands gripping the sheets. I spread her lips and suck on her clit like a cherry, delving my tongue inside until her desire flows and I’m drowning in her essence.
“I’m coming,” she says, her back bowing, her knees collapsing, pressing into my head. Her hands claw my hair, urging me deeper into the cleft of her body.
It is all I’ve wanted, but been afraid to have in case I couldn’t control it. There’s still a part of me that wants her to set the pace—control it until we are sure of her body’s limits.
I lie down, positioning her on top of me, her knees spread over mine.
“I know why you’re doing this.” She grins, her eyes dilated and her lips kiss-puffy. “And I’ll let you get away with it this first time, but next time no holding back.”
“I promise you’ll have no complaints.”
“Hard as I just came, I already have nothing to complain about.” She takes me in her hand, the firm grip riding up and down my stiffened cock. Seeing the most vulnerable part of me in her small hand affects me deeply.
Only that’s not right. The most vulnerable part of me is my heart, and it is in her hands as surely as my cock is. She holds it just as tightly, her eyes caressing my face as surely as her hands run over my body. The long seconds of our eyes locked, seeing each other, conjures an inescapable intimacy. A spell we can’t break that lures her body to mine. She takes me inside, the hot, tight oneness suspending my heartbeats.
She starts to move. At first, it’s a tight undulation of her hips, rolling over me in measured motion. It’s unbearably erotic, the way I feel her all around me like a vise. I thrust up, needing to take some control, and I plunge so deep she goes still, contracting her muscles around me, dragging me past pleasure to delirium. She plants her palm on my chest for leverage, raises her body and lets it fall, lets it rock, each time tightening the rope that binds me to her. Her breasts bounce and her eyes glaze over as she tips her head back, baring her throat and torso to me.
This is everything I’ve missed, and my body laps at it like a starved stray, taking not one drop for granted. I slip my thumb between her legs, stroking the nub of nerves every time she rocks and rolls, takes me deeper into her body.
We pound out a rhythm ofyou are mineandI am yours.
And mine and mine and mine and mine.
And yours and yours and yours and yours.
Our bodies don’t let go, wet and wondrous and welded by sweat and lust and desperation.
“Oh, God,” she cries out, linking her hands behind her neck and riding me harder, her face twisting in ecstasy. I’m not far behind, spilling into her, my voice broken, harsh, hoarse, nothing but strips of sound. I come so hard it’s bright behind my eyes, and we are incandescent. The dying rays of sunlight—the last breath of day.
Golden.
Magic.
Light.
I sit up while she’s still astride, while I’m still inside, and press my palms to her back. Through the smooth skin and through the lattice-work of her bones, her heart bellows. Somehow this union, more than the transplant, more than the last two months of healing, confirms that she is alive—that she is safe—and it moves me. I’m not sure if I’ve held it back on purpose, or if this reuniting of soul and flesh razes my defenses, but I taste tears. Mine, hers, relief, joy, mingling on our cheeks.
“I love you,” she sobs, clenching her knees at my waist, folding her elbows around my neck, holding me so tightly I can’t breathe and I don’t care.
“And I…” My voice fails. The moment palpitates with the unevenness of my breaths and I give up on controlling anything. This is a free fall and I surrender. “I love you back.”
We stay that way, her head tucked into the curve of my neck. For a few moments, the scent and feel of her comprise my entire universe. When she finally rolls off and falls to her side on the bed, her fingers find mine immediately. I lie down, too, drawing her into me, kissing the top of her head. I pull back a little so I can study her face, commit every curve and line to memory. I wish I had my camera to capture not just her beautiful body, which still bears the scars of her fight, but to capture my life molded into flesh and bone—formed into a person. To capture the picture of my contentment, mixed into her molecules and layered in her skin and bones.
And then I remember that wehavecaptured it.
“Hey,” I tell her, cupping her cheek. “I want to show you something.”
SIXTY-NINE
Neevah
