“Probably. Because we’re in love.” And the goofy grin remains.
I shake my head and cut myself a bite of lasagna and look at her, wide-eyed as I chew. “Oh my God.”
“Told you.”
There seems to be an unspoken agreement that we table the conversation while we enjoy our amazing food. Our words have changed to hums and moans of approval, and at one point, our eyes meet across the table and we both burst into laughter.
It’s a most enjoyable dinner, and I’m sad when we’re finished. At the same time, I’m glad, because I’m ready to be alone with Marina.
We’re outside, standing on the sidewalk and waiting for Jacob to pick us up when I say four words that I know are going to alter everything going forward.
“Come home with me.”
Marina holds my gaze for a split second before she nods. Just one nod. Then she holds out her hand and I take it.
“This is all yours?” Marina wanders my apartment, wide-eyed, mouth agape. She stops at the bank of windows in the living room and gazes out.
“It is.” I move to stand next to her. “This view has given me much peace over the past couple of years I’ve had the place. I love to stand here without any lights on and just look.” The buildings are a combination of offices and apartments, various squares lit up. Sometimes I can see people, sometimes not. “It’s a little voyeuristic, but also kind of entertaining.”
Marina wraps an arm around me and pulls me in tightly. “You’re cold,” she says, pressing her lips to my forehead.
I’ve just walked Reggie. “Then warm me up.”
She takes that for the gentle command that it is and lowers her mouth to mine, and it’s like no time at all has passed since the last time she kissed me. We’ve kissed, what? A hundred times? Two hundred? It doesn’t feel at all like I’ve been deprived of these lips for more than a quarter of a year. Rather, it’s so achingly, lovingly familiar that it feels like the last time was yesterday. I pull back and turn in her arms so we’re face-to-face. She’s looking down at me with such love in her eyes, I can’t understand how I didn’t see it before. It’s so clear. I reach up and stroke her cheek. “I love you,” I whisper, and there’s no fear, no worry. Only certainty.
“I love you, too,” she whispers back, and she kisses me again.
We make our way to my bedroom. We move almost as one, kissing as we go, slowly backstepping, sidestepping, dancing our way there. Reggie seems to get it, because instead of hopping up onto the bed, he makes himself comfortable on his own little donut bed in the corner.
It’s different tonight—it seems so clichéd to say it, but it is. We don’t have sex, we make love. Every move is slower, more intentional, at least I know it is for me. I don’t just want to rip Marina’s clothes off, I want her to know that it’s about lovetonight. I want to see her naked body, I want to touch it, because I want her to feel how much I love her. And I don’t know for sure, but I think she’s having similar feelings. She undresses me slowly, taking the time to look at me, her eyes moving over my skin so hungrily that I can almost feel them.
She’s above me on my bed, and as she meets my gaze in the dark, she says, “I’ve never wanted someone so badly in my entire life, Lily, the way I want you right now.”
A surge of warmth runs through me, and if my underwear wasn’t already soaked, that would have done it. I swallow hard, grab her face in both my hands, and kiss her as thoroughly as I have ever kissed any woman. I want her to know. Ineedher to know how I feel.
Clothes are removed, and hands explore and mouths crash together and tongues come into play to stroke sensitive skin, and when Marina finally slides her fingers inside me, the cry that is ripped from my throat is so foreign, there’s a split second when I wonder where it came from. And then I’m taken to heights I’ve never seen. Marina pushes me to the edge, then backs off. Again and again, she gets me so close, and then she stops, teasing me mercilessly until I’m practically begging for release.
“Look at me,” she says, and the words don’t compute for me the first time. “Lily.”
God, I love the way she says my name.
“Look at me.”
I meet those rich brown eyes, sparkling even in the dark of the night. I can see them, see the love radiating from them. I’ve never seen anything like it before. I’ve never been so sure of anything before.
“I love you,” she whispers as she holds my gaze, and my eyes grow wet.
“I love you, too.”
And she tips me over into the abyss. Down I go, but I only fallfor a short time and then I’m flying, tethered to the earth by her fingers as they slide in and out of me, and we rock together in a rhythm we both feel, we’ve both created. My hips are up off the bed, but she’s holding me, and I know I’m safe as I cry out, my hands gripping her body like I may never let go.
We are awake on and off all night. We make love, take forty-five minutes here or twenty minutes there to doze, and then we are on each other again. I’ve never wanted another person so badly in my life, and while I have been ridiculously attracted to Marina since pretty much the moment I laid eyes on her, this goes beyond. Way beyond. At one point, I start to chuckle as she’s kissing down my body, and she stops to shoot me a look of confusion.
“Sorry,” I say, still laughing softly. “I’m just wondering how long I can keep up this level of desire before I simply burst into flames and turn into a pile of ash in this bed.”
Her confused face morphs into a very satisfied grin. “Let’s find out,” she says, before lowering her mouth to my center and taking me even higher than the last three times.
I do not burst into flames.
