I push it down and run my teeth over the tendon in her neck, softly. Andi’s breath catches and her head falls back against my shoulder as she relaxes into me. I slide my other hand down her side, hesitate a moment, then push it into the warmth between her body and my sweater and settle it on her hip.
The guilt tugging at me burrows in as I spread my fingers and sink them into her until I can feel the point of her hip bone, shifting as I suck at her skin, gently, then flick my tongue over the spot. The guilt lessens when she puts her hand over mine, thick wool between us, holding it there, so I gather my courage.
“You look good like this,” I say, my lips by her ear. My voice comes out half an octave lower and twice as rough as I meant it to, like it’s scraping its way out of a coal mine.
Andi swallows. Her hips shift again. “With hair I haven’t washed for a week?” she asks, and I can hear her smile.
I nip at her ear without thinking, soft and gentle but with teeth all the same. I’ve never heard a noise like the one she makes.
“In my sweater,” I say.
“You like it?”
“Obviously. Is that why you took it?”
“No, but that’s why I’m going to keep wearing it.”
A noise comes out of me as I put my mouth on her neck again, with teeth and tongue this time, and Andi laughs, all breathless and fluttery.
“What,” I say, letting my voice buzz against her skin.
“Did you just growl at me?”
Probably. “Of course not,” I say. “I don’t growl. I’m not an animal.”
Then her fingers are in my hair, sliding against my scalp, sending little bursts of pleasure down my spine.
“That’s too bad,” Andi says, and pulls my mouth to hers.
It’s a bad angle and she’s pulling my hair and my neck isn’t really supposed to bend like this, but I want to drown in it anyway. All day I’ve been carefully not thinking about this, forcing myself to contemplate birds and rocks and snow and sticks and Jesus Christ,anythingbut the heat of Andi’s mouth against mine, but now I can have it.
She slithers against me, mouth barely leaving mine, and then she’s facing me and the angle is right and our mouths slot together. It’s slow, torturous, like I’m bursting at the seams, the slide of her tongue against mine a promise and a reward all at once.
Somehow, she’s against the wood-paneled wall. Somehow, my hand slid up her torso and it’s on her side, ribcage rising and falling beneath my palm. There’s a thin layer of fabric between us, drenched in warmth, and I twist it in my fingers while I kiss her again. Her hands are in my hair, around the back of my neck, grabbing at my shoulders, her back against the wall. There’s a tug at my chest and I break the kiss, look down to realize she’s unzipping the fleece I’ve still got on.
“Is this,” she says, lips dark pink and cheeks light pink, strawberry blond sweat curls against her neck. There’s a red spot on her neck that looks like it might bruise, barely, and my train of thought crashes into it.
She stops unzipping.
“Yes,” I say, in a voice I barely recognize, and then I’m pulling it off and dropping it behind myself as Andi runs her hands down my arms, still covered by the thin blue base layer I wore today. Her blush deepens and her lips are parted and I’ll never wear anything else if this is how she’s going to look at me.
I get my mouth back on hers and my hands under the sweater, higher, dragging the thin fabric below with me. Our bodies are pressed together and there’s flashes of cold skin against my belly where she’s toying with the hem of my shirt, and my brain feels like it’s losing signal and becoming static.
In my pocket, my phone starts vibrating. I ignore it in favor of running one thumb along an elastic line on Andi’s ribcage—bra? she’s got a lot of layers on, I’ve lost track—and Andi makes a noise and tilts her hips and grabs my wrist and pushes my hand higher.
It’s—fabric, mostly, stretched tight against the swell underneath it, but the layer under my hand slides against the layer below and Andi gasps into my mouth so I do it again. My phone’s still buzzing. It can buzz for all fucking eternity if it wants, because this time I go slow enough to feel the slight peak of one nipple under the heavy fabric, so I scrape a thumbnail across it. The noise Andi makes is perfect.
My phone stops vibrating. Ten seconds later, it starts again.
“Someone’s calling you,” Andi says into my mouth. I make a noise in response and do nothing about my phone. After a bit, it stops ringing.
It starts again.
“Answer it,” Andi says, breathless.
“I’m busy,” I say, and mouth at her neck again, running my tongue over the red spot I left earlier.
“What if it’s important?” she asks. I lick the spot again.
