Page 46 of Sweet Girl
Tiny freckles dotted her skin there. I counted each and memorized the pattern, pushing her hair back off her neck, my thumb running across her jaw to her bottom lip. She stirred, nuzzling into the pillow slightly and tucking her hands beneath the pillow. Her eyes fluttered open, her lip lifting at the corner, and my own smile rose to meet hers.
“Hey, sexy,” she muttered as I brushed her cheek. “Why are you still awake?” she asked in a throaty tone.
“I have to leave soon,” I whispered.
“Mmm…” She shuffled closer until she was lying wholly in my arms, and she laid her head on my shoulder to look up at me. “Kiss me until the last second,” she said. “Until all I will feel at sunrise is the last of your touch on my skin.”
My heart somersaulted with every word. Gods, she was gorgeous. Her bright eyes, the way she stared at me right then, the snow coming down out the window behind her. I took a mental picture of it, knowing I would never see anything as magnetic and wonderful as her lying in my arms again.
“Did you get that from a romance novel?” I asked, and that fucking smile spread wider on her lips.
“You would be surprised how beautiful minotaur erotica can be,” she said.
I chuckled softly, pushing her hair behind her ear. “You are so fucking beautiful,” I whispered.
Her lips pressed together in a soft smile, another glance of sheepishness like when I’d called her that earlier. But she cleared her throat and laid her head on the pillow, her eyes sparkling at me. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
I returned her smile before leaning in to kiss her. Tenderly. Savoring her taste and touch for one last time. And when we parted, I wrapped her up, my lips pressing to her nose and her forehead, her cheek and her jaw, her neck and then back to her cheek, making her laughter sing into the still night as she relaxed in my arms once again.
She fit against my chest, my body forming against hers as though it remembered her from a distant memory, a past life. I wasn’t sure what it meant, but I didn’t spend time thinking about it then, not with the few moments I had left with her.
My eyes began to droop, the comforting way we molded together sending my soul into rest. I fought that sleep, desperate to hang on to whatever time we had left.
I didn’t know how to let her go, and I never wanted to.
