“Hey,” I said, so quietly that I almost couldn’t hear the sound of my own voice.
“You know what I noticed?” he asked. His eyes looked me over, ravenous. “You didn’t drink tonight.”
I gulped. “I know.”
He raised one hand to my cheek, gently tracing his pointer finger down my jawline to my chin. His fingertips reached up and lightly landed on my bottom lip. I closed my eyes intuitively, letting the sensation emanate from my pursed mouth down my neck, through my arms and into my hands.
Matt’s finger traced back to the side of my neck, and I opened my eyes and reached out, greedily pulling him in by a fistful of his T-shirt. Matt contemplated me with the yearning of a man who had it all, lost it, and newly found it again.
“Is this…” he began. His inflection let me know it was a question. He was starving for me, but still stopped to ask permission before going any further.
“Mm,” I replied.
Matt pressed his mouth to mine. His long fingers wove through my hair, clutching me by the nape of my neck with the exact right amount of pressure to make me swoon. Between gasps of ragged breath, his tongue slid into my mouth, playing against the involuntary movement of my hips into his groin. We magnetically drew closer, twirling in an unconscious nirvana, devoid of gravity. He pressed himself against me, exhaling desire as my fingernails scratched against the bare skinbeneath his shirt. I pulled it off over his head with an unfamiliar urgency. The Matt of my past was ever-present; I could take my time and explore his body conscientiously. ButthisMatt was as foreign as he was familiar. “I need you,” he whispered, verbalizing my own emotions with the feral truth of an all-consuming second chance.
My breath caught in my throat. Matt lifted me up off the ground, and I wrapped my legs around his waist as he carried me into his unmade bed. He moved as if I was weightless, already a part of him. I stripped off my shirt and then my shorts, lying beneath him with nothing but cotton and a thin band of lace standing between our repossession of each other. Matt pulled off his remaining clothing; then he traced my clavicle with his tongue and placed his hands firmly on my hips. He thumbed at the sides of my underwear, retreating his face from my neck only to seek consent once more. I wriggled my body like a snake, nodding my head, willing him to take me.
Matt replaced the minimal scraps of remaining fabric with his calloused touch. His hands ran across my breasts, activating the nerve sensations in my chest. He adorned my skin with kisses, licking my nipples to tease me as his hand drifted between my thighs. I was aching as he throbbed against my leg. My hands were greedy for him, too, and they kneaded at his muscular torso from his back down to his firm ass cheeks. Finally, my fingers wrapped around him, and he groaned as I stroked. Just as Matt had memorized my body years ago, so had I. Our fingers, tongues, and hips were simply conjuring up an old friend.
He kissed my stomach, my hip bones, and massaged me with his tongue until I raised my hips to press myself into his mouth. Not wanting to stop and not wanting to finish without him, I breathlessly pulled at his mop of silky brown hair, lifting his face off of me. “Get a condom,” I begged. “I need you inside me.”
Matt obliged, grappling at his nightstand drawer and pausing to pinch, then roll the Trojan over himself. I guided him to my entrance and held my breath as the pressure inside me mounted. “You okay?” he asked.
I nodded, grabbing him by his backside and pulling him as far into me as I could handle. I controlled the movements that way. Matt rolled me over so I was on top, freeing his hand to slide between us. Both of us wanted it to last longer than it did, but it was impossible to hold back. Having Matt touch me like that flooded me with memories, and when he came first, I quickly followed. We held each other through the swells, eventually collapsing into a long, breathless embrace in a sea of tangled sheets.
Catching my breath, I laid my head on his bare chest. I ran my finger across the words inked on his ribcage. I couldn’t quite make them out; they were not in English.
“What’s this say?” I whispered.
“What?” he breathed.
“The tattoo here,” I explained.
“Oh. It says, ‘Quod nos non occidit nos fortiores facit.’”
“Translation?”
“That which does not kill me makes me stronger. It’s Latin.”
I took that in, understanding its implications. I imagined him lying in the tattoo chair, brokenhearted but resolute that he would move on from me. I hated knowing I’d hurt him like that.
I rolled on top of him, my naked body pressed against his, my face inches from his. His eyes were closed, resting.
“Can I tell you something?” I asked. He opened one eye and let out a half-yawn, spent.
“Sure.”
I threaded my fingers through Matt’s hair slowly, from his forehead along his scalp to the back of his head. “I was wrong.”
“About what?”
“Everything. I did it all wrong. I should never have left.”
“What do you mean?” He propped himself up, more awake now.
“Back then. When my dad—”
“Shh,” he quieted me. “It’s all in the past.”
