Page 75 of Love Scenes
“Many, many things.” He lifts his head to kiss me, teasing with a light peck. Desperate for more contact, I lean closer. After a lingering beat, he pulls back to gaze at me. “Do you remember the day we went to Haven’s apartment?”
It’s hard to stave off the rising pulse beneath my skin. He is a master of patience, but he will not be better at pacing than I am.
“Pretty sure I won’t be forgetting that for a very long time,” I tell him, thinking of how he watched me our entire ride back to the lot. The steady pressure of his stare, so unabashed. I can feel it even now, goose bumps emerging at the base of my neck.
“Tyler said something that day. About being able to sell it with a look. That’s how I feel about you. Like all I have to do is look.”
His words shoot right into the space between my ribs. “What do you want to see?” I ask, careful not to get swept up yet.
“Anything you want to show me.”
The cause is lost.
I lift my dress up over my head, ravenous, helped by his eager hands. My chest is bare. I’m completely naked except for my underwear. I could wait for us to appreciate each other like this, but it’s been too long.
My lips meet his. He wraps me up and flips us over in a graceful roll so he can give his all to the admiration. His mouth moves from my lips, to my neck, to the space between my breasts.
“Is this what you had in mind?” I tease.
“Precisely.”
He slides down and down until he’s at my underwear, all the while whispering something that sounds faintly like worship, praise for all the soft places so few get to touch like this. His fingers move the fabric, and his tongue works exactly as it does when he speaks, quick and smart and eager to make corrections.
“Hold on,” I eventually pant out, too worked up to find more words. He stops, eyes gazing up from the space between my thighs.
This is our one shot. Our place outside the rules of the trailer.
All he has to do is look.
He holds close to me as he slides his way back up my body, slowly, methodically, making sure I feel every inch. My hands reach for his belt while our eager mouths work together. I unhook the buckle and slide the belt out from the loops. Then I rope it behind his neck to pin us closer yet.
“That’s better,” I say.
“Is it?”
He laughs into my hair, laying his head against the side of mine for a moment. All the while he is struggling, and failing, to pull down his own pants. I toss the belt to the ground, and he rolls off me to situate himself.
There are so many things I cannot believe, but the first is that I am sober, and I want to be sober, and I want to always feel lit up like this, like every breath we share is a bolt of electricity. The second is that we are both laughing, and it’s such a good, true laugh. The kind of frenzied excitement that says we arehere, and we’re rushing a bit, but it’s better than we ever could’ve imagined, because it’s real.
These moments, the small exchanges between the big things,are the ones that always manage to stay with me. And Joe’s face—amused and desperate and so full of adoration for me—is an image I know I will never lose.
It doesn’t hurt that he’s now properly discarded his clothes and gotten the condom from his wallet.
When we come back to each other, I have my hands on him, working in a way that makes his pupils dilate. He has his arms on either side of my head, so much like that first moment in the trailer. But we are not those versions of ourselves anymore either. The Joe I see now is the one I like best. He kisses me, full of wild hunger, and I’m already sure that the Joe I meet when I wake up in the morning will be even better.
But right now.
Oh. Right now.
“Are you sure?” he asks, wanting, but serious. Deadly serious.
I could tell him with a look, except I need to say this out loud. “You are the only thing I want.”
At that he leans back. Slowly slips my underwear down my legs and off me completely, then tosses them onto the pile of clothes we’ve built on the floor.
“My god, you are marvelous.”
He kisses all the soft parts again, treating each stretch of skin like it’s sacred.
