“Are you in bed?” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“Do you wish I was there?”
“Yes.”
I exhaled, inching the fabric a little lower. My hips were rising, and I was staring at the ceiling, letting the echo of his answer hover in the air. Letting it linger there, letting it cling to my damp and stirring skin. I raked my fingers through the dew. “What would you do to me? If I was?”
Quiet for a moment.
“Tyler?”
Another pause.
“I’d slide your dress up your hips with my nose. I’d kiss whatever I found along the way. I’d take my time.”
“Yeah?” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’d keep my mouth on you. My hands and my mouth. My tongue. My teeth. I’d be gentle, but I would not let you go. I want you to know that, Katie. That I would not let you go. That I would touch you and kiss you and lick you and bite you, and I would hold you down and I would make you scream, but I would be gentle, and I would not let you go.”
I forgot to respond. I was too busy closing my eyes, lifting my dress, licking my fingertips, dragging the moisture down my breasts.Every word he’d said, low and warm and liquid inside of me. I dropped my hand back beneath the lace and stifled my own gasp.
“Are you touching yourself, Katie?”
“Yes,” I said.
A pause.
“Do you wish it was me?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I could do that for you, you know. You don’t have to pretend. I’m right here.”
I breathed. I breathed, and I drew damp, lazy circles onto myself, and I turned his words over, and I imagined him taking over for me. I imagined him peeling back my sheets and spreading my legs and making slick, easy work of me, and I tried to breathe.
“I could come upstairs right now,” he said. “I could do everything I said. I could get on my knees.”
“I know. And I want you to. I want that so bad. But I want all of you. How are you going to give me all of you?”
He was quiet for a minute.
“I think I just need a little time. I’m sorry. I want to keep talking to you like this. I really do. I’m so fucking tired of holding myself back—of not giving you everything you need. I want to show you what you do to me. How badly I want you. All the things I’m dying to do to you. You’re all I think about, all the time. I think about crawling into your bed. I think about pinning you down and learning your body and kissing you hard and fucking you slow. I think about looking in your eyes and watching it happen, about finally hearing you say my name. How you’ll feel and taste and sound. I just...”
“I’ll wait for you,” I said.
More quiet.
“Really? Are you sure?”
“Tyler,” I said, tugging down my dress, slipping out of bed, and walking toward my window. He was already standing behind his own window, hand pressed against the glass, looking up at me from the cottage. He tilted his head. I pushed my palm against my pane and did the same. “I’ve always been waiting for you.”
Broken in Some Way
Henry and Willa were finally together. But that second first kiss—it didn’t heal their broken hearts. It didn’t change their fractured pasts. It may have salved their wounds, but any signs of repair were purely superficial. There were no shortcuts. The only way out was through.
50
