As the day wears on, a new, terrible, wild, crazy feeling starts gnawing at me.
What if Romeo is unhappy with her?
16
“That all the world will be in love with night”
Then
I could feel whereRomeo had been when I moved. When I sat down. When I laughed or clenched my ass. The tenderness was with me for the whole of the next day and most of the one after that too.
I loved it.
I fucking lived for it.
To me, it was evidence. Proof I’d been with Romeo. Proof he was my lover. Proof life was good and the future was yet to be written.
There was a strangeness between us. No, not a strangeness. An awareness. A newness.
I didn’t think Romeo was comfortable talking about what had happened between us, and truthfully, neither was I. It was so far out of the bounds of friendship and the realm of anything that had happened between us before that it was hard to find words to make sense of it. But it was there, winding its way around us and through us. There was a tension, a decadent pull, that put pressure onevery part of my body. Every second was heightened. I was waiting. Anticipating. Expecting my turn. We both knew it would happen. We just didn’t know when.
By Saturday night, I couldn’t take it. I felt sure I’d go insane if I didn’t have him or if I somehow fucked it up and things went back to normal between us. It was the last night before my parents came home, which put a rush on things. I knew it. He knew it too. He could feel it the same way I did. I knew he could.
Fuck. I swear I thought he felt it too.
Eventually, I cracked. It was late, maybe ten or eleven. I was lying on my bed, still fully dressed, when I plucked up enough courage to send Romeo a message.
So, when's my turn?
He replied so fast I allowed myself to believe he’d been sitting in his room, phone in hand, waiting for me to ask.
Is your window open?
A rush of warmth, love, and lust bloomed in my chest as I read his words. I replied with the only word I ever used in reply to that question. One word. Six letters.
Always.
I pushed my window open completely. It was a balmy night. One of those nights that’s so warm and still that it’s hard to tell the difference in temperature between the air on your skin and the blood in your veins. A night that carried a promise, a possibility, of changing my life. I breathed it in, and when I stepped back, a slight breeze caused my curtains to billow around me.
I showered hurriedly in very hot water. I hardly felt it. I didn’t use cologne, and I dried my hair roughly with a towel, ensuring it was dry enough that Romeo wouldn’t think I’d made too much effort for him. I put on my favorite pair of jeans and left the top button open. My feet were bare, sinking into the carpet as I paced around my room. I straightened my bed, switched off the overhead light, and switched my table lamp on. That was too bright, so I turned the table lamp off too. Too dark.
I fumbled with the switch behind my nightstand and plugged in the Himalayan salt lamp Lexi had given me for Christmas the year before. A gentle pink-peach glow warmed the space. The mish-mash of posters above my bed glinted where the light hit them. I was pleased. It was moody but still light enough that I’d be able to see everything. Even in my addled state, I knew that was important. I knew it was a night I wanted to remember.
I sat on the edge of my bed with my hands balled into fists in my lap and listened keenly for anything other than the battering ram that was my heart. My soul almost left my body when I heard the hollowthunkof Romeo’s footsteps on the garage roof. It felt like I’d come full circle. Like I’d been waiting all my life for this moment. Romeo’s silhouette filled the window and his shadow spilled onto the floor. A sprinkling of stars lit the night sky behind him like a halo. He was the night. He was light and dark woven together. He was quiet moments coated in stardust. He was perfect. He was everything I’d ever wanted. Everything I would ever want. He climbed in through the window, crouching and stepping in with his usual feline ease, and pulled his shirt off over his head before he’d fully straightened.
That shocked me. I’d expected him to be awkward and both of us to be a bit spluttery and unsure. I thought we’d stand around trying to think of things to say to each other and that I’d need to jump through hoops in some way to convince him this was a good idea. It was nothing like that. It was more like two magnets that had been held apart for as long as they could be.
Romeo was devastating shirtless. Half of him bathed in the cool blue of the moon, the other half glowing from the lamp on my nightstand. His skin was smooth. Silkdraped over taut muscle. There were fine indents on his arms and shoulders and a suggestion of a line down his torso. His nipples were small and pink. Hard from the breeze outside. Or hard from me. I wasn’t sure which. He looked sheepish, mischievous, maybe. His mouth twisted in that little sideways quirk, but his eyes were shadowed darkly. There was something new and endless in them. Something I wanted. I got so lost in his eyes that I hardly noticed him undoing his pants and pushing them down.
I definitely noticed when they hit the ground. Believe me. I noticed that.
Romeo was in my bedroom. And he was stark naked.
I was dry-mouthed and paralyzed, and I wasn’t sure if I should attempt to get off the bed or wait for him to come to me. I had no idea what the social norm for things like that was. I started to panic, my face warming and making things worse. Fortunately, my legs decided for me, launching me up and propelling me toward Romeo, not stopping until we stood toe-to-toe. My hands floated up and found their way into his hair. It was thick and coarse between my fingers. Cool from the night air. He looked up at me and smiled as I leaned in to kiss him. It was one of those kisses that brought thunder on contact. The world darkened and a low rumble sounded in the distance.
Romeo parted his lips, yielding to me, and I licked into his mouth. Our tongues rubbed together. Slippery roughness against slippery roughness. My hands were everywhere. In his hair, on his face and neck, and all over his body, tearing at his flesh and then caressing it softly. He reached between us, shoving me back just enough to undo my zipper. It gave me a little shock. A little warning that this wasn’t my imagination at play. It was real. It took both of us to get my jeans off. I was tugging them down as he was unzipping. It was messy and much harder than it should have been. When it was done, when we were both naked, something changed.
I lowered my chin and widened my stance.
