“You want that?” he asked.
“So, so much,” I promised.
Carefully, not looking away, he dragged the palm of his hand down my navel and slipped his fingers past the elastic of my underwear.
I let out a high gasping sound, a sinking feeling stealing over me, a sort of darkening down of my thoughts. For a while he touched me like this, slow and indulgent, his mouth hovering over mine, breathing in my sounds.
“Please,” I implored him again, but he liked to make me wait, make me really want it. Hot and impatient, I ground myself against his hand, and just when the wait became too much, I felt his middle finger sink inside me, deep, wet from saltwater and me.
Shakily, I clutched his arm, hearing myself murmuring something. His name.
“Do you want me to slow down?” he asked, breathless, the vein in his forehead throbbing.
“No,” I whimpered, letting a hand between us so I could feel him too. Hard. Heavy. The taste of him, I thought of, and sensed my body clutch with need. “I want more.”
Eyes slightly rolling, he heaved, “I didn’t exactly plan for this, Anya.”
“So?”
“So, I don’t have any condoms.”
“That’s okay. I’m on the pill. It helps with my period pain.”
I squeezed him a little in my hand, and he caved into the slope of my shoulder, mumbling, “Oh.”
In his ear, very quietly, I asked, “Will you take me to bed now?”
Just as quietly, he rasped against my skin, “Is that what you want?”
“Yes, Kai. That’s what I want.”
In the bedroom, the light was soft and butter-yellow, and the sheets on the bed were very cold. Or perhaps I was the one who was too hot, too filled with want, already searching for his lips as he laid me down. And before I could ask, he kissed me again. Slow, deep kiss. Sensuous stroking of his tongue and a rough sound rising from his throat.
When I wrapped my arms around his neck to pull him closer, he seized me by the shoulders and held me still. “Patience,” he said with a small, knowing smile.
I could only nod, eager, throbbing beneath him while he played with the straps of my tank top, twirling them around his fingers and tugging them down my arms until the wet fabric barely covered the top of my breasts. Skin tingling, I felt him trace the neckline with the very tips of his fingers, teasing it down and down until the entire top was gathered around my hipbones. Then, with a trembling exhalation, he stopped everything he was doing, stood from the bed, and got out of his underwear.
And, oh, how I luxuriated in the sunlit beauty of his body. So perfect the moment was, I tried memorizing every little thing. The white room, the buttery light filtering through the lace of the curtains, the flowery shadows lapping over his naked form, the sculpted lines of his hipbones drawing downward. I wanted to remember everything.
Leisurely, he returned to me, kneeling upright on the mattress, his fingers moving over the bunched top and the sides of my underwear. I lifted my hips, helping him peel the garments off me, down my thighs and knees and calves. His hand closed around my ankle, firm, his thumb circling the prominent bone. Then he drew close again, looking the way he did, sleepy-eyed and languid, his hair still wet, peppering my skin with ice-cold droplets. Cold, and yet the tips of my ears were burning, the back of my neck prickling with heat.
I brought a hand over my eyes, laughing nervously.
“Don’t hide from me,” he whispered, catching my wrist and pressing it flat against the mattress. “I want to look at you.”
“I’m sorry,” I croaked, shaking a little. “I just feel a bit…”
Nodding, eyes glittering, he said, “I know. I feel like that too.”
Pure and unbelievable was the relief that reached me at these words. To know we felt the same. Same desperate need. Same terrible tenderness. Same painful vulnerability.
Moving over me, touching me with his whole body, he murmured, “You’re so beautiful.”
I wanted to tell him that I thought he was beautiful too, but then he kissed me again, and only a muted, helpless sound was able to escape me.
At once, that liquid, pulsing feeling in my stomach was revived, and as though he sensed me wanting, he asked, “May I touch you again?”
“Please,” I sighed, shifting restlessly beneath him.
