Bending down, he grabs my thighs and hoists, settling my hips against the hard length of him. The bright burst of sensation goes straight to my head, weighing it down until it drops to his shoulder.
He strides briskly back into the yard and up the stairs. I can’t help a moan of protest when he sets me down on the porch, taking away his miles of lovely skin and all the hard places I will die if I can’t touch.
He shoots me a look so hot I want to tear off what remains of my shirt. “It’s gonna be loud,” he warns, setting his feet. One medium-strength impact of his shoulder against the door pops it open with hardly a splinter.
Through my fog of lust I think that, sometimes, closed doors can open again.
“That wasn’t very loud.” My voice crackles in my ears, jagged with lust.
He reaches back to tear off what’s left of his tail, letting it fall where he stands.
“It will be.”
Chapter Sixteen
When a player discovers what his co-performer wants, he should give it to her!
—Truth in Comedy
We’re a whole mess. Dirt rains from Tobin’s back in damp clumps as we kiss our way across the kitchen. Stray bits of rainbow glitter waft from my clothes like pixie dust. We’re all over each other, hands and lips and incoherent sounds of relief, stopping every few steps to take as much skin as we can get.
“Shower,” I mumble, licking his neck.
“Shower,” he agrees, squeezing my ass through my pants. I’m getting off on the power of being clothed while he’s not.
In the bathroom, he turns on the water, our old pipestha-thunkingas they warm. We hit that moment of delay when frantic hunger turns suddenly bashful, afraid to ask for what it wants.
The scene stalls, players fumbling for the next move.
He turns slowly, eyes on the fluffy bath mat. Oh my god, he’s feelingshy. Easygoing Tobin, gregarious Tobin, the human version of social lubricant himself, doesn’t know what to say.
Neither do I. But that’s okay. We can make it up as we go along.
“Here,” I tell him, capturing one big, rough hand and bringing it to the buttons on my shirt.
His touch is light, lighter, lightest, butterfly kisses at my collarbone. Desire is a galaxy of stars and fire inside me, burning for all time.
One button slides free, then the next. His hand whispers along the torn edge of my blouse.
I bought this shirt for an event I didn’t want to go to. It looked right on the hanger, but on me it wouldn’t sit straight. It was never good—only good enough. Now it’s not even that. It can’t ever go back to the way it used to be.
“Rip it,” I order, my raw voice making us both shiver.
He winds a strip around each hand, laying his fists against my chest.
“One.” He’s looking right at me, and I at him.
“Two.” We’re about to tear more than this shirt, and we both know it.
“Three,” we count together.
The rip sounds soft and dusty, like the shirt’s hardly trying. It flies apart in his hands, the front tearing most of the way off the sleeves.
Ripping seemed hard but turned out to be nothing at all. The truth is so, so funny.
He’s laughing, too, and we’re kissing again, his mouth ravenous against my lips, my face, my ears. I haven’t laughed during sex in a long time. I forgot how hot it is. The awkwardness of the rest of my clothes coming off has its own beauty, of limbs amusingly in the wrong places, of soft parts daring to show themselves.
He steps under the spray long enough to rinse off half a garden of dirt, then turns us in the narrow stall, backing me under the soft, soft water until my hair is streaming and I’m warm from the steam at my back and his body at my front and his hands everywhere, everywhere.
