Page 92 of The Time It Takes
Jesus. I’m done for.
He pulls out and thrusts back into me slowly, inch by inch. His head drops into the nape of my neck as he keeps the same excruciatingly slow rhythm.
“Nothing feels like you.” He thrust harder into me this time, emphasizing what he means. “So. Fucking. Good,” he groans.
His pace picks up and I’m levitating in his grasp. I think I’m talking gibberish when his skillful thumb finds my clit. I come apart in his arms with his name on my lips and I never want to be put back together again. I’m having trouble remembering what life was like before this. I’m not sure that I want to.
He jerks himself out of me and I know he’s found his release too. Slowly, he lowers me back down and I’m met with wobbly knees. His thumb runs over my bottom lip as we stare at each other. Oliver places an achingly soft kiss on my forehead as if he didn’t just fuck me against the shower wall.
“Uh oh,” he murmurs as the reality of everything we’ve done starts to sink in.
I smile so hard that it hurts. “Is now a bad time to ask what we are?”
We both burst into a laughing fit like two teenagers. It feels so freeing to laugh with him, especially after what we just did.
Eventually, he insists on washing my body and the feeling of his fingertips against my skin has me moaning all over again. I’m taken back to a time when life appeared to be the easiest thing to live. I realize now that it was him. He made it all bearable.
As we both dry off, I’m still smiling, and I wonder if it’s supposed to be this terrifying.
It starts to hurt on a deeper level than it should because I never want this feeling to end, and I know it will.
MY EYES BLINK OPEN as the sunlight blinds me through the windows. The sun is high in the sky, and I know it has to be late morning, if not already noon.
As I come to, so do my senses. I can hear soft breathing behind me and my body tingles in awareness. I glance down at the hand resting on my hip and bite my lower lip to hold in a giddy smile. I untangle my legs from Oliver’s and turn to face him. He shuffles onto his back and with his eyes still closed, he smiles. My eyes are drawn to the dents in his cheeks.
“You’re not going to believe the dream I had,” he says, his voice groggy from sleep. I stifle a moan.
I trace my middle finger down his chest. “Oh yeah?”
He nods and then opens his eyes. He grabs my hand and brings it up to his lips, placing a kiss on each fingertip.
“Well, are you going to tell me about it?”
He shakes his head and his smile falters some.
I tense. “What’s wrong?” I ask. Maybe we aren’t on the same page after all.
“Nothing.” He swipes a hand over his face. “It was a really good dream.” His head rolls to the side as he looks up at me. He pushes my hair behind my ear. I reach up and lay my hand over his so that his palm rests against my cheek.
He swallows. “In another life, you never left,” he whispers.
I slowly move his hand away from my face to turn it over and stare down at his palm. I trace the lines there to distract myself from kissing him.
“You know…” I trail off as I try to find the right words. “I hope it’s true that alternate realities exist. I’d like to think that somewhere out there is a version of us that did things right. A version of ourselves that are less afraid to do what our hearts demand.” I lift my eyes to his. “I hope there’s a version of myself out there that refused to let go of you. A version that kept fighting no matter what.”
“You’ve been fighting in your own way. Maybe not for me, but for something.”
I shake my head. “I haven’t been fighting. I’ve been running.” I swallow roughly. “I’ve forgotten what it’s like to breathe without having to remind myself to do it.”
He runs his hand down my arm as his eyes soften. “Forget other universes and fates. The only one that matters is this one. Right here, right now.”
I crawl over him and press my lips to his. We kiss each other softly as if trying to savor it all before the reality of our situation pulls the rug out from under us. Neither of us has brought it up and I would be thankful for it if I didn’t feel so uneasy about it.
I sit up so that I’m straddling him. His hands roam up and down my thighs and I place my hand over the tattoo on his chest—the butterfly with a broken wing.
“You never did tell me what this tattoo meant,” I mention as I trace the outline of it. He’d gotten it when he turned sixteen.
“You never asked,” he teases.
