I’d begged her to sleep, but she only shook her head, her glassy eyes inches from my own as she did her best to keep my mind anywhere but the fact we were thirty five thousand feet in the air. She was intuitive to me in a way no one else ever could be and if I’d realised anything over the last few months, it was that she was my person. She was that once in a lifetime kind of love and when we were forced to say goodbye, I was going to be depleted of a vital organ. To steal her own analogy, I would be forced to live my days on half-charge because I would never be full without her by my side.
It didn’t escape my notice that this would be sooner rather than later. The pressure to return to work was mounting. The incessant emails, although muted, lined my screen anytime I dared to glance at my phone. Old Ed was encouraging of my leave, but he was also asking about my return date, and when he found out I’d left thecountry, he would use it to his advantage. Send me locations of places on this side of the globe I could visit while I was here.
But that was the last thing I wanted to focus on, especially as my seat mate grazed her nails across my balls and a groan rumbled in my chest. Our blanket, which still smelt like her naked body on the back of my ute, was thankfully a barrier blocking the rest of the plane from a live sex-show, but it didn’t eradicate my pain. As soon as we got off this flight, I was going to fuck my fist to images of those plump, pillow-like lips which tasted of the watermelon lip balm I’d given her and the smell of lychees on her skin.
I reached for her underneath the blanket and firmly wrapped my hand around hers indicating she should stop. We’d landed and every other passenger was now standing and reaching for their bags.
“Oops, didn’t realise we were home,” she teased wearily with a final stroke down the hem of my shorts. I longed to tuck her into bed and watch her sleep for days while I solved any problem she faced. But she was as proud as she was selfless, and she would never allow me to even voice the sentiment let alone follow through.
Glancing out the window, I exhaled through my nose. Even through the closed aircraft I could feel the frigid temperatures we were about to enter, and I wasn’t even close to being appropriately packed.
“It’s going to be cold as balls out there, isn’t it?” I asked, admiring what I could of the darkened skies, desperate for a distraction from my raging hard-on.
“Correct. Might help tame the beast though,” she said with a dip of her head towards my crotch.
“You have had your hand on my cock for sixteen hours. Do you blame me?” I whispered, trying not to inhale her scent. She was breathtaking and she had absolutely no idea. No matter where we went, she drew the attention of the entire room, yet she appeared unfazed. Unaware even.
But I noticed.
I noticed the way the bracelets on her arm jingled, seizing the attention of everyone within her vicinity. I noticed the long, intentional stares of those same people, transfixed as if they could look nowhere other than her.
But I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to notice those things and so I pretended I didn’t, doing my best to remain aloof. Did my best not to be one of those fuckers who drank her in every time she entered their space – and it was hard because she was everything I would ever want.
“Sorry,” she winced, “Did I overstep?” The sincerity in her features gave me pause. Sometimes I wondered if she lacked confidence, which was baffling given how self-assured she always seemed, but she appeared to question herself more than I liked.
Right now, she was so obviously tired, the weight of our sudden departure and why she was returning, heavy on her shoulders. We hadn’t talked about her asking me to make love to her a little more than twenty-four hours ago. The meaning behind those words, if there was any, or if it was simply a spur of the moment comment. Everything had taken a backwards step when the messages from her brother pierced the bubble we’d been bouncing through our road trip within.
“No,” I answered honestly. I wanted to tell her I wished her hand was still there. That I wanted to take her into the bathrooms and fuck her senseless because the feel of her gripping my dick might just be the best thing I’ve ever felt. Even if it left me with an overload of unspent tension.
Her phone's sharp trill pierced the silence, and she answered without looking away from me.
She was quiet, listening to what I assumed was her brother, and I tugged her hand gently to pull her down until she was seated. Passengers had started exiting the aircraft, but with my situation and her call, we could wait.
“What?” She gasped, the flick of her gaze meeting my own, the worry across her features instant. “We just landed. Which hospital are you at?”
I reached over and took her free hand in my own again, stroking her wrist in what I hoped was a comforting gesture. Shelby was highly affectionate. Being with her over the last couple of months had taught me many things but the most prominent was how she sought out and collected personal warmth like a keepsake.
Initially, I wasn’t sure how to take it. How to take her. For most of my life she was an untouchable friend. The girl next door who’d taken a little of me with her when she moved.
During my early teens, just after she left, I’d overheard my folks talking often about how I was never the same. How I struggled to make friends after she left. And while I never said it aloud, I agreed. Even now, I had drinks with mates from work occasionally and I kept in touch with some of my school friends, but it was superficial. I didn’t care about their new fire pit, which sporting teams won that weekend or how their in-laws were pissing them off. They were all married and starting families, while I invested my time into my career and so the distance between us only continued to grow.
The unspoken connection with Shelby was why I’d found seeing her trickier than I could have imagined. Unlike her, no one ever really touched me. A handshake when I met a new client, a kiss on the cheek for Mum, but otherwise, it was very rare for me to touch another person, whereas she thrived on the power of physicality.
And I’d started to learn the signs, realising it genuinely calmed her in moments of sadness or stress.
If she needed to decompress, taking her hand in mine and brushing my thumb across her skin was enough to level her breathing. If she was uncertain, she would unknowingly reach for my arm and simply leaning into her touch always brought a small smile to her face. It was as baffling as it was remarkable. I’d never had that impact on anyone, let alone been the person someone sought out for anything otherthan work. And while I’d tried so hard in the beginning to maintain our friendship and stay away from overstepping those boundaries, somewhere along the way I’d given up.
I thought after I kissed her and we fumbled into the shower on what was the most surreal night of my life, I would wake up and we would continue as friends. That it was a holiday, weed-induced fling.
But I was wrong.
As if anything with Shelby and I was ever going to be a fling.
It was as though I’d caught whatever her little skin to skin fetish was and now, I was addicted.
Addicted to her.
In whatever form I could and for however long this lasted, I was going to soak up every single second of my little cuddle-magnet because I needed it as much as she did – if not more.
