“Than ballet?” she asks, in disbelief. “No. My mom was a ballerina. I think there are pictures of my ballerinanursery.” I can relate to that. Feeling like your fate is pre-decided. “Sometimes I think it’s the only thing that ties us together.”
“You resent it?” I ask. She bites the inside of her cheek as she contemplates her thoughts, and I let her, the quiet chirp of crickets floating through the air.
“No—out of everything my mother’s done, pushing me to be a ballerina was the best of it. I love dancing. If I had to do my life over again, I’d still choose this. It’s like…in my DNA, or something. I can’t explain it. It just feels right.”
“I got that, watching you,” I tell her, catching the disbelieving wrinkle in her brow. “It was—” I start, struggling to find the words. “You know when you see the sky and you’re like shit—that exists, was always going to exist, just like that, so perfectly? And there’s no way to explain it because it’sjust a natural wonder. And you’re kind of breathless, could cry if you don’t look away because it’s that beautiful. Felt like that,” I explain, the memory of her so weightlessly poised in the air rekindling the yearning I felt that afternoon, my throat bobbing as I glance away in hopes of hiding the flare of embarrassment on my face.
She catches her lip between her teeth, pulls it through as she looks up at me with her brows raised, her blush barely perceptible under the cover of night.
“I guess you need to see more ballet then. Beauty is kind of its thing,” she responds, cheekily. She walks past me, brushing against my arm as she reverses course, expecting me to follow.
Of course, I do.
“I’ve been to the ballet before.”
“Oh. Have you?” She pauses before a tree, spinning around with the grace I’ve become so familiar with.
“Mm, I have,” I regard her, nodding as I watch the soft flutter of her lashes, the slight parting of her lips. “Kind of think it’s you.”
Time seems to slow, her chest rising and falling, her eyes serious as they rake over my face, deciding something, and then?—
She tilts her head in invitation and we collide, like the past twenty-four hours have compounded every ounce of anticipation.
I can’t help but sink my hand into her hair, the other one wrapping around her waist, bringing her into me as she lets her head fall back on a sigh. My lips brush against her neck, feel the beat of her pulse against me, before bringing her lips back to mine. I run my tongue along the seam and she opens for me, meeting me stroke for stroke, digging her fingers into my scalp like she can’t be close enough.Ican’tbe close enough, and I finally let myself feel her, cupping the swell of her breast over her dress, stroking and teasing and pinching, her gasp echoing in the woods.
Flustered and hot beneath my touch, she looks up at me as I pull back, needing to slow myself. The distance between this and burying myself deep inside her is dissipating the longer I touch her.
“What?” she asks between small, breath pants, her gaze flitting between my eyes and my lips. “Why did you stop?” I feel the delicate strength of her arms pull me back toward her, and I trail my nose up the delicate column of her neck, breathing her in, kissing the sensitive skin beneath her ear.
“I’m trying to control myself,” I whisper against her ear, turning her head and kissing her softly.
“I didn’t ask you to,” she says, grinning against me.
“Gen.” I pause, needing to know if everything she said last night is still true, if it was another heat of the moment reaction or if she really wants this. Wants me. “What about our deal?”
I wait with bated breath, wanting her to want me. Wanting her to tell me this deal was just a part of our story and not the entirety of it.
I watch as her eyes soften, preparing to wreck me or give herself over. Which, I’m not sure.
“I think we should call it off.” She swallows thickly. “Don’t you?”
She looks at me through her lashes, and time feels agonizingly slow, the hot tension between us pulled like taffy on a hook begging to be brought back together. She gets close, barely any space between us, our lips just a hair's breadth away, waiting.
“I’ve been waiting to hear you say that,” I tell her, and the relief has us diving back into each other.
The moment our lips touch—every time they touch—I can’t imagine not feeling her like this for the rest of my life. It’s every best feeling I’ve ever had, wrapped in the tantalizing and inexplicable sensation of her. Fitted to mine as we move together, I know her lips were made for mine.
I walk her back until she’s pressed against the tree and I slip my hand beneath her hem, the dress riding up to reveal more and more, and I shiver at the feel of her. She trails her hand down my chest until it meets the hard ridge I’ve been doing my best not to mindlessly press into her, the awareness that this could be new to her in every touch I give her. She grips me over my jeans, her delicate hand stroking me in time with her breathy moans, and I feel the strain against my zipper.
“You’re gonna have to stop that,” I murmur against her neck.
“Can’t control yourself?” she teases.
“You have no idea how much I’ve been controlling myself around you,” I confess, lightly running my fingers across the already stiff peak of her breast, and I feel her laughter rumble beneath me. Her hand doesn’t fall away but, instead, distractingly feels it’s way back up, her fingers drifting across my chest in a way that has me wishing they were brushing against my bare skin.
“Better?” she asks, grinning, before capturing my mouth in another blistering kiss.
There’s nothing timid or restrained or icy about the way Gen kisses me; it’s hot, languid strokes and careless, breathy moans and soft, gripping hands and wanting to be as close as she could possibly be to me. Like if every inch of our bodies were in contact it wouldn’t be enough but she’s trying anyway.
