Page 35 of When We Had Forever
Now that I’ve met him, I can’t imagine settling for anything less.
Every stupid college boyfriend I ever had fades to insignificance. None of them, I realize, really meant that much. They were only practice.
I lift my glass. “Let’s toast.”
“To what?”
I peek at him through my lashes. “To today.”
He laughs. “Yes. Of course. What else?”
Our glasses clink. For the next half hour, we edge closer, titillating ourselves with fleeting touches and spirited conversation. When our food arrives, we pull apart, then devour the pasta, just to talk some more.
When it grows late, Michael turns off the lights, letting the dim orange glow from the harbor bathe the room. As he circles back toward the couch, I say, “Take off your shirt.”
The smolder from outside backlights him, but I can still make out his one-sided smile. “What? Why? You’re not trying to take advantage of me, are you?”
“No. Well, yes. Eventually. But for now, I just want to look at you.”
His smile grows. He pulls off his black V-neck and tosses it to the floor. God, he’s magnificent. I’m busy trying to get angry about it when he drops to the couch and prowls toward me on hands and knees.
I barely get my wineglass to the safety of the coffee table before he eases me back against the leather, nudging my knees apart with his hips.
My pulse skyrockets. He’s everywhere—a living artwork of muscle and skin, drenched in the storm-wild smell of woods. He comes so close that his hair brushes my forehead as he stares into my eyes.
“Hi,” he whispers.
“Hi,” I whisper back.
When he doesn’t move, I clear my throat. “Not to complain, but I can’t actually see your abs from this angle. Which was kind of the whole point.”
He chuckles, low and sultry. Orange light caresses his face and kindles twin embers in his pupils. “I’ll get up in three minutes.”
I snake my arms upward and knead at the musculature of his back. “Three? That’s oddly specific.”
He swipes his phone from the coffee table. “Well, it’s eleven ten right now. Which means your life is supposed to change in one minute. If you still want it to.”
My breath stalls. I think of the jet that would have carried me away, taxiing down the runway as we speak, engines roaring, cabin lights dimmed in preparation for its leap into the sky.
I’d rather be pinned to this couch.
“I do,” I manage. “I definitely do.”
His fingers trail up the side of my neck and stroke the shell of my ear. I pant. It seems impossible that such innocent touches could affect me so profoundly, but I turn liquid, aching with his nearness.
“I’ll do my best, then,” he says.
The time on his screen ticks to 11:11. Somewhere southeast of us, a plane launches into the stratosphere, taking my pulse along with it. Michael tosses his phone onto the floor. Neither of us check to see if it’s survived intact.
After the longest, hungriest moment of my life, he kisses me.
Except the wordkissdoesn’t do it justice. Energy snaps and sizzles, foreign in its intensity, and what Michael does to me, he does with his whole body.
He kisses me like he’s starving for it, devouring, exploring, claiming. I love it. I want to erect an altar to this feeling. I rise to meet the demands of his mouth, savoring lips that seem to remake me on some molecular level.
Michael pairs the greedy force of the kiss with the tenderest of touches. His fingers brush across places most men don’t bother with—the sensitive dip of my hip bone, the delicate valley of my elbow. He touches me in gentle worship, and all the while, the kiss remains savage, a fierce joining of questing lips.
He’s a man of contrasts, even in this, and the juxtaposition of hard and soft, ferocious and tender, does something indescribable to me.
