I stopped all my movements, pulling away to look down into her eyes that were no longer honey-colored but darker, stormier. Desire. Lust. For me. I’d seen it in a lot of people’s eyes before, but seeing it in hers was almost enough to send me over the edge without having been inside her at all. Without having been the one place I ached to be.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
She was undoing the drawstring on the sweats as a way of answer. I tugged at the zipper on the side of her dress, and before I knew it, we were both naked, taking each other in.We were both artists, and I felt like we were memorizing this moment in unique ways but still ways that would pour out of us. Hers on canvas and mine on keys. Color and song.
I took her hand and led her toward the bedroom where we could explore each other without gravity or counters or chairs getting in our way. Where I could stare at every inch of her and record it in my brain. Where I could be loud and throaty when I came with her wrapped around me.
I kissed her soft, velvety lips again as I laid her down before I stopped touching her to stare at every piece of her once more, burning into my memory every hill and groove. The beauty mark on her rib cage, the gentle stretch marks I was sure were left over from her pregnancy, the way her waist flared in and then curved out with plush skin I couldn’t help but squeeze.
“What?” she asked, the longing changing her tone completely. A husky timbre full of a carnality I reacted to with a low moan of my own.
“I want to record every inch of you so I can replay it in my brain whenever you’re not with me.” The words were wrong because I could see the doubt flash through her after I’d just promised I wasn’t leaving for long periods. Not after she’d been left for months on end and then left in the worst way possible. I didn’t want to leave her. I wanted her with me every moment.
She journeyed a hand over her stomach as if she might wrap it around herself again, and I pulled it up to my lips, kissing the palm, licking it, and then bending to lick the spot it had touched above her navel. I wanted to leave my own mark on her. A permanent one. I wished it would be as visible as the beauty or stretch marks, but it would have to be written in her veins instead.
I proceeded to touch every ounce of her flesh with fingers and tongue. She tugged at the whisper of my hair that was left, arching into me, and I smiled at my ability to make her breath quicken.
“God… Brady…I need you,” she said, gasping as if she were drowning in me.
“I’m not rushing this,Cariño,” I growled back. “I’ve been dreaming of it for too many days.”
“I’m going to fall apart,” she said.
“Good,” I said, and I proceeded to make her do just that with my mouth and my hands, a hum of chords bursting from me now and then. Chords without words. Lyrics without a song.
After I’d made her come with my everything but the one part of me straining to be merged with her, I reached for the drawer and the condoms I’d placed there after she’d spent the night in my bed. A hopeful gesture, one my heart sang about coming true.
When I finally settled between her, her face was flushed, eyes glossy, and lips twisted upward. I kissed each corner, and she placed her hands on either side of my face, stroking, reading something inside my eyes. I wondered what she saw. Was it the love I couldn’t hide? The deep affection that started somewhere in the pit of my stomach and journeyed outward to every part and extremity. More than ever before.
Fuckingmore…
She inhaled as I entered her, her face bursting into a full smile. The one that lifted her cheeks and crinkled her eyes and shouted out joy. She grabbed my hips and held me still for a second, tightly.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“The colors. They’re spinning so fast,” she blew out. Then she began to rock her hips underneath me. “Blue and gold and waves of green.”
Our bodies were perfectly joined, hers surrounding us in hues, and mine surrounding us in music. My heart felt like it might explode as much as my body. We moved together in a rhythm I’d never experienced and would want to play every single damn night of my life. I wasn’t going anywhere without her. Without this woman who filled me as much as I was filling her.
We moved, a slowlegatobuilding toward acrescendoat thecoda. A magical piece that was only ours as she purred my name and I growled and shouted out hers in a gritty hue of love and desire as we both came at the top of the piece. A first that would never be able to be repeated. A first that would only turn into a glorious new mix each time we joined again. Slightly different notes but equally as magnificent.
I stilled as the waves broke over us, letting them float through the air like the very last notes in a piece. Then, I twisted so I was on my side, and she was curled up into me, our hearts and bodies trying to return to our quieter state. She rested her head on my shoulder.
“The full Brady O’Neil Experience was quite the wild ride,” she said, and I felt the smile that vibrated through her body.
I chuckled. “That still wasn’t the full experience,Cariño. That was just the opening act.”
She laughed. Light. Happy. Fulfilled. It rocked its way into my soul.
“Well, it’s a good thing my mom told me to stay as long as I needed. I think I’m going to enjoy the full experience.”
I kissed the top of her head. “Give me about ten minutes, and we can start act two.”
She was kissing my shoulder and then dipped lower to my chest, and my side, and my waist, before returning to the nipple that she’d tortured earlier, and suddenly I didn’t need ten minutes. I didn’t even need two.
???
The silence woke me. I’d had my ear pressed to her chest when I’d finally fallen asleep hours after she’d arrived. The beat of her heart had lulled me into a deep slumber, and when I woke, it was gone. No heartbeat. No Tristan.
