His hand moved, dragging her hand and arm with it, and he lifted her hand to his mouth. Warm breath touched the skin on the back of her hand, and then the softness of his lips.
After he kissed her hand, he rested their clasped hands on his chest and the warm, soft cotton of his tee shirt.
His heartbeat drummed the back of her hand slowly.
The blackness in the room was nearly absolute, but for the slight sprinkle of gray peeking through the curtains beyond the foot of the bed.
Dree sat up. She couldn’t see anything in front of her face as she moved toward Augustine, hesitating, bobbing her head in tiny increments as she tried to find his lips with hers in the dark without letting go of his hand that still held hers over his thudding heart.
A brush on her other arm, and his fingers trailed over her skin from her elbow to her shoulder.
Her lips found his skin, and she pressed her lips to his warmth. The faint scent of lemon and mint, the herbal aroma of the hotel’s shampoo, drifted to her. Silken curls brushed her cheek.
His fingers stroked up her neck, and he reached around to rest his fingertips on her spine.
She kissed downward, her lips finding the sandpaper of his growing beard and his hard cheekbone, and then the soft plush of his lips.
His touch traveled from the back of her neck and up into her short hair, tightening as he clenched his fist and held her mouth to his.
Dree had been planning to kisshim,to be the aggressor in the dark becauseheck-yeahand because old-Dree wouldn’t have done something like that, but she was keenly aware that Augustine was physically controlling her every movement. One of his hands pinned hers to his chest, and the other manipulated her head with his fist in her hair as he kissed her.
Augustine pulled back on her hair and her head, and her chin tilted up. His lips traveled down her throat to her collarbone. He growled against her skin, “Take the shirt off.”
He released her, and Dree wrestled the shirt off over her head and threw it to the dark floor somewhere beyond the edge of the bed. The shirt slithered on the sheets in the darkness as Dree reached out, but Augustine had stood up or something. She could hear him.
His voice was still hoarse and low as he said, “The panties, too.”
Dree took off her underwear, the lace rough on her thighs as she pulled them off and tossed them aside. She hoped they landed somewhere near the tee shirt so she could find them later.
A bit of light sneaked through the curtains over the window and drew gray curves in the blackness. The trickle made a cluster of semicircles that was the side of Augustine’s head, the heavy rounds of his shoulders and biceps, and the inward sweep of his waist to his hip. The line that was his arm moved, and the bed under her dipped as he crawled onto it.
Dree reached her hand toward the gray frost on the side of his shoulder and found his skin. When he settled, he plucked her hand from his arm and kissed the back of her hand, her palm, and the inside of her wrist.
She’d been so drunk last night and had just wanted a hard screw. The softness in his touch now felt so different. Awareness surfaced that her ex, Francis, had been her first and only “real” boyfriend, and this man was the second man she’d taken to bed. There was a difference in this. She’d thought that sleeping with Francis waspre-maritalsex, that he would be her one and only the rest of her life. Augustine was an acknowledgment that she wasn’t just jumping the gun.Thismeant that she believed she could have this intimacy with a man she might never see again after next Thursday.
And that it would be soft and caring like this, too.
She felt awful comparing the two of them, but she didn’t think Francis ever kissed her hand and wrist like Augustine did, like he adored even her arm.
Maybe it wasn’t true, but it felt like it.
Augustine must’ve been able to see her at least a little bit, too, because he trailed his fingers from her ear to her chin, and guided her mouth to his in the dark.
He caressed her lips with his mouth, and his fingertips followed the top of her shoulder, up her neck, and back into her hair again.
Dree spread her hands on Augustine’s massive chest. The black sheen of his chest hair, like a soft shadow last night, was like velvet under her palms.
When she stroked the inside curve of his pectoral muscle over his heart with her thumb, he made a sound low in his throat against her lips.
She wanted to touch him more. She hadn’t gotten a chance to explore his ripped body the night before because he’d tied her hands together.
And the drinking.
She wished she could do their first time over again, so they could take their time.
She traced the dips and swells of his musculature with her fingertips and fingernails, and his breath feathered over her lips and then her jawline as she touched him.
His other hand traveled up her arm to her shoulder, and then he trailed the back of his fingers down and around the swell of her breast. She’d always felt like her boobs were too big and floppy, but he’d sure seemed to like them last night. Even now, his hand encircled her generous flesh, and he palmed and held her breast before he rubbed his thumb across her nipple, sending a spark of desire through her.
