“You smell like you, which happens to be my favorite fucking smell in the world —” I growl.
“And I look fucking awful —” he continues.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I reach up, brushing the stubble on his cheek. “You might not be as put together as usual, but fucking hell, Cole — you’re so goddamn gorgeous no matter what and I couldn’t take my eyes off you all day yesterday. It’s like — I dunno, your tortured artist look — and it’shotasfuck—”
“Okay,okay— jeez, don’t make me blush —” Cole takes off his glasses, then mine, and reaches over his head, depositing them on the end table behind him. “I also haven’t,um—” He mouths the wordscleaned out.
“Okay, well —” I’m still stroking his face, my other arm wrapped around his shoulders, and if my heart getsany more tender it’s probably going to explode. “Is this one of those ‘we absolutely should not risk it’ situations or one of those ‘it’s probably going to be okay’ situations?”
Cole considers this. “The second one.”
“Then maybe —” I lean down and kiss his forehead. “Babe, I know you like everything to be just right all the time, and I don’t want to do anything if you’re going to be too uncomfortable to enjoy it. But I dunno — maybe sex doesn’t have to be perfect every single time? I already know you’re a sex god, you don’t have to prove it to me. And I just love you so goddamn much — I really want to make love to you.”
He chews on his bottom lip as he stares up at me. Then, a slow grin spreads across his face. “I really don’t want our big makeup sex to be a quickie handjob.”
I kiss his lips. “Wait here.”
It takes me just a moment to run upstairs, to grab a towel and the lube I always keep stashed at the bottom of my teaching bag (I’ve historically been a bit of a slut, okay?). When I come back to the living room, Cole is sitting on the couch in his T-shirt and boxers, looking a little nervous.
I can’t help laughing. “You look like you’re waiting for a job interview —”
“Just shut the fuck up and get over here.”
It reminds me of our first time, the way we’re both giggling and blushing, so caught up in kissing that weforget what we’re doing, Cole’s knees hugging my waist, my jeans forgotten halfway down my thighs. I’m just so overwhelmed at the wonder of it, of having him in my arms after everything we’ve been through. It’s a new beginning, just the two of us in the quiet house, alone in the delicate morning light. I slip his T-shirt over his head, and I think I’m never going to get tired of this, the touch of his skin on mine, the dip of his waist under my palm. I’m shaking, and it’s everything I want, right here in front of me.
The couch is a dainty thing, too narrow for the two of us to lie on comfortably, and we end up on the floor — Cole on his back with a pillow under his hips, a towel spread across the oriental rug. And as I kneel before him, as I ease his thighs apart to slip inside him, I know that everything is going to be alright.
And okay, maybe we should have taken this upstairs. The carpet is thin and my knees are aching, and Cole winces a little when his head knocks against the floor. But as I sink into him, as I bring our bodies flush together, the look he gives me is impossibly soft. His hair is fanned around his face and his hands are on my shoulders, his cheeks flushed as he gazes up at me. And we’ve done this so many times, back then and in the past few months, but this time it feels different because we’refree.
Because there’s no curtain separating us, no reason to hide the way we feel. Because we have no one toanswer to but each other. Because we’re not hidden away, doing this in secret when we know we won’t be caught. Every corner of this room is a memory, a reminder of how far we’ve come. And as I watch the pleasure break across his face, as I hurtle over my own shuddering peak, as I press our foreheads together and whisper the words I’ve been dying to say, I’m so grateful that we have this, that wewillhave this forever.
When it’s all over, we’re lying on the floor, Cole underneath me, my face buried in his neck. He’s stroking my back, and my eyes are closed, listening to the rhythm of his heart, the rise and fall of his chest. Suddenly, he huffs a laugh, and I lift my head to look at him.
“I was just thinking about Bree,” he explains, as if we’re in the middle of a conversation that we’ve been having this whole time. “Be ready, because she’s going to lose her mind.”
“Mmm, I don’t blame her,” I reply, settling down once more. “Pretty sure I left mine on the beach this morning.”
“Is that so?” Cole chuckles.
“I think it was when you kissed me. Or maybe when you said I was fascinating. One of those.”
“How about when I said I loved you?”
“That too.” I’m starting to stir, mouthing kisses along the line of his shoulder. “Good thing too, considering I’m fucking crazy about you.”
He groans, reaching up one hand and twining his fingers into my curls, arching into my touch. “You know, Ezra, this floor is hard as fuck —”
“Mmhmm—”
His grip tightens in my hair as I suck a bruise into his skin. “And we both need a shower —”
I drag my lips down his chest. “Do we really?”
“And we have to go seeyour dad—”
“Fuck, I guess you’re right.” I sit back on my heels. “But when we get back here — I think we have to make up fora lotof lost time.”
Cole grins. “I like the sound of that.”
