Turns out I’m not that hungry anymore. I wrap up what’s left of my sandwich in its foil and set it aside, shoving some of my sheet music out of the way to make room. I wish we were on a bed right now. For Romance Reasons, but also because I feel like I haven’t actuallylaid downin days, even though I got at least three or four hours of sleep last night. Time passes differently here. When you’re practicing nonstop, it’s hard to tell one day from the next.
But Marigold has been in all of them. So who cares?
“I’d let you study my brain,” she says. “If you wanted.”
“I definitely want.”
“You can study a lot more than that, if you’re very,verynice to me.” She has this crooked little grin on her face, and damn it, but she knows exactly what she’s doing to me.
“I can be nice.”
Marigold abandons her doner kebab to the trash bin. “Prove it.”
I shift over just enough to slide my hand around the nape of her neck and draw her in close. She goes easily, laughing, and her mouth is still smiling against mine when I kiss her.
“Is this nice?” I murmur as I smooth my hands down the long length of her spine, to the thin sliver of bare skin exposed between her shirt and her jeans. I slip my fingertips up beneath the fabric to splay against her warm back. She feels so solid to my touch, soreal.
Her teeth catch my lower lip. “Mmm. Could be nicer.”
I tilt forward and push her back, both of us sinking down onto the floor with my weight resting atop her body, moving our hips together as I slide my tongue into her mouth. “How about now?”
She sighs, and the sound comes out ragged—good. On the right track, then.
She pulls my shirt off over my head and rises up to trace kisses along my collarbones, down toward my sternum. I shudder and catch her lower lip with my teeth.
“C’mere,” I mumble against her mouth, and pull her up to standing with me. I undo the first several buttons of her shirt and press my lips to the pale skin above her heart, imagining I can feel its beat quickening against me.
Her body shudders at my touch, and I revel in it. It’s still—always—a heady realization that I’m capable of doing that to her, that her body would react to my body, that she would want me at all.
“Keep going.” Her voice is low and husky; my pulse stumbles along as I obey. Each button, loosened, exposes a new swath of Marigold’s pale-gold skin, her chest—her breasts—rising and falling shallowly with the quickness of her breath. It’s only after I’ve slid the fabric from her shoulders, Marigold’s silk shirt slithering down to puddle on the floor, that Marigold moves forward again and crushes her mouth against mine again with sudden and surprising force.
She wrestles my jeans down below my hips a little more roughly than is probably warranted. But it’s been so long, too long, even if I know it’s only been a matter of days. I feel touch-starved and desperate, my hands greedy for her body as I pull her in toward myself, hungrily exploring the soft skin of her back, the divot of her spine.
“Keep going,” she murmurs again, and catches my wrist to guide my hand down between our bodies, pressing my palm to the placket of her jeans.
The back of her bra is one of those stupid types that always gives me trouble, doesn’t have the usual little metal hooks. Marigold lets me try fruitlessly for just a few seconds before huffing out a heavy breath and batting my hands away to do it herself.
“C’mon,” I mumble, kissing the curve of her neck, lips skimming down toward her bared breasts. “Get on the bed.”
I nudge her back one step, another. I’m so distracted—I trip over a doner kebab bag and curse under my breath. “Clean that up later,” Marigold mumbles against my skin as her mouth explores my chest, my stomach—as she twists us around and shoves me down onto the wide hotel bed.
I had put so much attention into learning every contour of her, back in New York. But now, everything feels brand-new again. I refuse to take her for granted this time. I want to etch every freckle, every scar, into memory. If we’re doing this again, I don’t want us making the same mistake twice. Love might not be all about sex, but if I can somehow use sex to prove to her—to both of us—how fucking perfect we are, then I will.
Love.Funny word to pop up in my head right now.
A good word.
Marigold’s body is soft and pliant beneath my hands as I roll us over, bracing one forearm against the mattress to hover over her as my mouth explores territory that still feels new, even after the past few weeks. There’s the constellation of tiny blanched scars from her appendectomy ten years ago. The peach fuzz beneath her navel. The precise shape of her hipbones swelling up beneath skin as I slide my hands down toward her thighs.
Marigold pushes up on her elbows and kisses me on the sternum, right there above the furious pound of my heart. I wonder if my body is as feverish as I feel. I’m burning up—I can’t tell if it’s more arousal or anxiety over the competition. I decide I don’t really care.
Her hands find my shoulders, drag down my ribs to settle on my waist—a waist I’ve always thought was slightly too slim in proportion to my broad shoulders, although Marigold’s hands fit thereperfectly. She pushes down my underwear—I kick them off the side of the bed—and insinuates that hand between us to curl her fingers around my cock.
“Fuck,” I gasp, and Marigold laughs against my collarbone.
“Watch your tongue, James. What would your mother say?”
I love the way my name sounds on her voice. I love the raw, achingly tight edge to it. She sounds how I feel—shuddering on the edge, wanting so badly it devours. She draws a long, slow stroke up my length and I moan, earning a sharp bite from Marigold’s teeth.
