My thumb skimmed up her ribs, daring to brush the underside of her breast. “Where?”
I tracked the barest contraction of a swallow in her throat. “There,” she whispered.
I was obscenely hard between her thighs. It should have been embarrassing how obviously I wanted her, but I couldn’t find it in me to care. When we kissed again, I tasted the pond: silt, sunscreen, andher. My hand slipped higher, my thumb drawing a line up her sternum as I hesitantly cupped her breast in my hand.
The pitiful sound Eva made resonated in every crook of my body.
“Yeah?”
She felt so good, and I was high on the rush of her reactions.
Eva nodded, her nails digging into my skin. “Let’s go to the bank.”
I kicked to the dock and used the edge to haul us in until the water grew shallow, a slurry of mud squishing between our toes. We fell into a patch of grass, dripping and naked. A flood of green moss withered under my palm, but I didn’t care. I only saw her.
“What now?” Eva said with a laugh.
My heart pounded. “What do you want now?”
A pretty blush stained Eva’s cheeks as she bit her lip. “I don’t know. I’ve never…”
“Me neither.”
I drank in the sight of her sprawled beneath me, sun-rosed, freckled, and full of trust.
The grass had no idea what to do. At my touch, the plants withered and died, but Eva renewed them without a thought. The way the world transformed for her was art. She was art. My eyes followed the sparkling trail of a water droplet down her chest. She was a fucking masterpiece.
“Maybe we could… keep going where we left off?” Eva tentatively asked, drawing my hand back to her breast.
I squeezed on reflex. Nodded hard. “All right.”
Sometimes I had a difficult time seeing myself as a good person. Good people, after all, didn’t have death swirling inside them. But when my touch drew a gasp out of Eva, I didn’t feel wicked. I felt alive. My death-touch ripped the life from the microgreens Eva’s gift had coaxed to the surface, and for once I couldn’t bring myself to care.
For once, I loved it.
The sun had touched her everywhere, constellating her skin inhoney-colored freckles. I wanted to map her stars with my mouth the way a cartographer charts the heavens.
Eva’s head fell back into the grass as she let out a sigh.
It was a breathless game, discovering what she liked. “Show me where else you want to be kissed, bee girl.”
After a moment’s pause, Eva’s eyes fluttered shut, and she drew a little circle in the hollow of her throat.
I was a good student. Brushing a lock of hair off her neck, I lowered my weight onto her and gently kissed the spot. Eva’s chest erupted in goose bumps. When she drew a line down the valley between her breasts, I followed, planting little kisses like seeds in soil. Maybe a garden would bloom from her skin, an Eden I couldn’t destroy.
When I ran my tongue over her nipple, Eva let out a shocked, breathy laugh.
Pride swelled in my chest.I’d done that.
I crawled down her body, eager to touch and taste more of her. I kissed the soft, pale flesh of her stomach. Kissed the little mole beside her belly button. But when I found her hips, Eva stiffened. “Wait.”
I pulled back immediately. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.” Eva’s eyes were glazed, her pupils wide and dark as she wove her fingers into my hair, keeping me still. Keeping me there.
“We can stop, Ev.”
“No.” Her voice cracked a little. “I don’t want to stop.”
