“No, what you are is…is…devastating, but in a good way. In a deep way, to my soul. Healing, moving, like music. But not the commercial shit they play on the radio.” He steps in so close I feel the humid heat pumping off him, smell his sweat. “You’re one of those songs you can’t help but listen to over and over. Those songs aren’t fuckin’ pretty.Hell, no.” More thunder and the wild hiss and chirp of insects ramps up, their song a frantic counterpoint to the rushing in my heart. “They’re the ones that make you feeleverything. They tear you open at the belly, rip out your guts and rearrange them before sending you on your way, a changed man.”
His hand comes up and skims the side of my face, from my forehead to my chin. I don’t move. I can’t. The caress is so tender, it nails me in place.
“You’re like that.” His voice is low, pained. “I knew the first time I saw you, you were the most…Pretty?” He scoffs. “Dammit, Twyla, you’re not some little storm, you’re ahurricane. You’re a goddamn earthquake, rearranging the face of the planet.”
I open my mouth, but he moves in tight, our body heat sizzling. “You don’t sail a thousand ships, youpulverizethem.” Every word puffs hot against my lips. “Cast them against the goddamn cliffs ’til there’s nothing left but dust.” He pulls away, just an inch or two, his stare takes in my face like a rock skipping on water—light touches to my nose, my eyes, down to my mouth. “You’ve destroyed me, Twyla. Rearranged me, wrecked me. I’m ruined.Pulverized.”
Throughout this speech something inside me has broken off or opened up. It’s almost painful how deep he’s hit with his words, but like the pain he’s described, it feels right.
The best things in life aren’t skin deep, after all. They inhabit every cell, every atom of our being. That’s what Zion’s just done with his words. He’s taken me over, moved straight in—to my heart, my bones, my soul.
“Zion,” I sigh, not knowing what to say and then, for some reason I can’t fathom, I apologize. For hurting him? For making him want me this way? For seeing the real man behind the many masks and tearing them off one by one?
“I’m sorry,” I manage to whisper again, though it’s hard when our mouths are almost touching and the wind’s whipping up. I want to kiss him, but I won’t break his golden rule again.Hehas to do it. It’s his choice. I’m hobbled by our closeness. If I move, we’ll touch.
“You should be sorry.” His hand slides forward, digs into my hair, holds my head perfectly still. Clouds skitter above us, blocking out the moon, closing us in.
I don’t fight it. I don’t move at all. I breathe out of sheer necessity.
“You should be sorry, doin’ this to me.” I feel more than see his mouth flatten, curving down at the edges into a bitter smile. “Making me feel all this…” In the next flash from above, I see his expression edging toward disbelief. “All thisshit.” Those lips turn up, adding a little sweet to the bitterness. “Eloquent, right?” He sighs, leans in, rubs the tip of his nose to mine. His breathing’s shaky, cutting in and out the way mine does when I’m nervous, when something matters. Like right this second. “I want to kiss you again. Again.”
I stare at his big, dark silhouette. “I’m not stopping you.”
His nod’s just a nudging of noses. He huffs out a pained, silent laugh. “I’m terrified, Twyla.”
“I won’t hurt you,” I whisper, with a smile he can’t see. “Want me to…”
“I’ve never done this before. I mean, earlier didn’t count, right? Just a brush. Just learning. I’ve never done the real deal.”
“Remember the red carpet?” Thunder shakes everything and in the ensuing burst of light, my eyes seek his. It’s odd, this close up. Like seeing a different person, or a younger, innocent version of him. “That was a kiss.”
“That was for show. Plastic. I’ve never…”
“Never what?” My breath’s caught tight in my lungs. I swear the night noises stop. Not a cricket stirs around us. Even the sky takes a breath.
“Never cared.” He inhales, smelling me, I think, taking more of me in. His hands tighten in my hair, making my roots sting, sending my already frantic pulse into overdrive. “God, Twyla, you’re so fuckin’…”
Thunder shakes the entire world as he dives that final inch and puts his lips to mine. It’s another perfect first—stiff and awkward and so thrilling I might faint. The cool, dry friction of skin, just a hint of movement, just a brief exploration. I shut my eyes, working hard to memorize this, to bottle it up inside me, enclose it in my heart.
He moans and the sound’s like nothing I’ve ever heard—heartfelt and deep and wounded andmine. Mine in a way nothing’s ever been.
My hands, which somehow found their way to his shoulders, wrap around him, pulling him closer, my nails digging deep, marking his flesh.
Another sweep of our mouths, another, another, so tender, so focused, holding back, making it last. Where’d all these nerve endings come from? Each touch is tearing at my insides, twisting my heart, and it hurts, ithurts.
“I need you,” he mutters against me, his mouth opening the slightest bit, our kiss getting wetter, warmer, deeper, digging roots inside my heart. He pulls away, I chase him a bit, then he tilts his head and consumes me like a man starved.
The sky bursts open. A prayer answered.
We’re soaked in seconds, the rain cool and enveloping and barely noticeable when his tongue slides against my lips.
“Oh, fuck,” he says, with another slow slide, then another, more urgent. “Let me in, baby. Let me taste you.”
With a heart-wrenching sob, I open up, just enough for his tongue to ease in and explore and, this, oh, this isn’t a mere kiss, it’s a plundering, an invasion, a transfer of fucking ownership. I’m his now. All his.
And he’smine.
My tongue sweeps out to meet his, to tangle and tease, tasting the essence of Zion, smelling the mineral perfume of rain sizzling on dry earth, the thrilling burst of ozone from a strike that’s much too close for comfort. As if we cared about something as inconsequential as weather. How can we, when we’re a part of it?
