“I was twenty-three when you were fifteen. I can’t imagine that working out,” I remind her.
“Right… Well, I guess I’ll stick to the curly hair tip.” She picks up a new card. “Oh, this one’s interesting. If you had twenty-four hours left to live, what would you do?”
“I don’t think I’d change a thing. I’d stay right here and enjoy my last hours with you.”
“Alright, that’s it. Put a child in me, Alexander,” she demands, moving to straddle my lap. I chuckle and rest my hands on her hips, enjoying her slight weight on me. Then she grabs my face with tender determination to say, “I’d make it the best twenty-four hours of your life, baby.”
“I know you would. What wouldyoudo if you had a day left?”
“I’d spend the first sixteen hours with you, just you. Then I’d want to spend the other eight with you, my family, and Kate. We’d do my favorite things, eat my favorite foods, and have an amazing time together.”
“So I’d have to share you with others in your last hours?”
“I’m afraid you would, yes,” she confirms with an apologetic pout. “I love you more than anything, you know that, but I can’t not be with my parents if I know I’m dying.”
“It makes sense, yes. You make me envy having a loving family, parents you love and who love you back.”
“We’ll have that together. You’ll be the parent who is loved and who loves. I promise.”
Still propped on my lap, with her hands still holding my jaw, she bends forward and gives me a tender kiss. My grip tightens on her hips for an instant, and then she pulls away, allowing me to drown in her dark brown eyes.
“I motion we kiss every time we’re done answering a card,” she suggests.
“And I motion we make it retroactive.”
Giggling, she twists to take the pile of discarded cards from the coffee table while I keep her there, and then quickly counts them. “Thirteen. Do you want them all now, or do we spread them out?”
“Ravish me at once, freckles.”
A laugh bubbles in her chest, but she quenches it to press her lips on mine again. She counts between each kiss and concludes it with a grand finale. Her tongue brazenly passes my lips to meet mine for a lascivious graze. I should push her away before things get out of hand, but I enjoy having her on me like this, this moment that tastes like us, like what we used to be. Between us, I sense myself hardening, and I know she does too, because she adjusts herself to feel it better. With a groan, I drag my hands up her thighs, under her makeshift dress.
“Are you wearing nothing under there?” I grunt.
“I wanted something sexy, but all you packed for me is ugly cotton underwear. I thought this would be an acceptable alternative.”
“I find it utterly unacceptable.”
Her smirk comes in the way of our kiss, but she doesn’t let it discourage her. I squeeze her hips, terribly tempted to let this go further. As far as she wants it to go, really. When she starts grinding into me, though, I pull away. I look down, groaning when I notice that the tank top has risen, exposing the curls at the apex of her legs.
“Six weeks,” I grit, to myself more than her.
“Four. I promise I feel great. I love you,” she whispers between kisses. “I love you so fucking much.”
She doesn’t play fair. Never did, never will. She leans in to kiss me again, but I stop her, grabbing her jaw to keep her away. “Lex,” she whimpers. “I want you now. I want you to annihilate me.”
“I will… When I fuck you again, I will ravage you. Which is why we need an extra week. Please, my love, seven more days.”
“We’ll go slow now. And for the next seven days. And in a week, you can wreck me,” she tries, still grinding onto me.
“Andrea, I cansmellhow wet you are from here.”
“So fucking wet,” she breathes out.
I angle her head to the side and run the tip of my nose up the soft slope of her neck. “What would you do to have my cock in you right now?” I whisper in her ear before nipping its lobe and sucking on it.
“Anything … Please, baby …”
“Would you beg for it?”
