“I don’t know how to say it,” I admit. “I don’t know if it’s something you can say.”
“Can you draw it?”
I glance back over my shoulder, just far enough that I can catch his eye. He’s so close to me now, still and taunt, like a hunter approaching a rabbit.
“Draw it?”
He reaches for my hand, prying it off my bicep and tugging until I’m forced to turn around. He spreads my fingers and places my palm on his chest. I feel the heat there, just like that day in my apartment so many weeks ago.
“Draw it.”
He bends my fingers closed one by one, leaving just the pointer extended. He starts to drag my hand in patterns along his chest, so my finger traces circles and lines against the soft wool of his sweater. It’s so ridiculous, so silly and weird—soJP and Molly. I take control of my hand to trace a smiley face between his pecs.
We both laugh, but not hard enough to break the tension. If anything, it intensifies.
I trace shapes he’ll recognize: hearts and music notes, stars and crescent moons. I draw pictures he won’t understand: two little girls hiding under a bed together, an empty classroom with a single student bent over an easel, a sea of laughing faces as a beautiful boy shakes his head ‘no.’ I cover his chest in the story of the moments since I met him: the Metro Records logo, a hummingbird made of glass, a Pac-Man game covered in fire, and a wild-haired girl holding her own heart out with both her hands.
I trail my finger to the top of his sweater, up the skin of his neck—smooth at first, then pebbled with stubble. I trace the lines of his jaw, the planes of his cheeks. I brush the bridge of his nose and the angles of his eyebrows. He lets his lids fall closed, and as if I’m stroking the most delicate of bird’s wings, I run the very tip of my finger across the swoop of his eyelashes.
When I reach his lips, he lets his lower one droop under my touch, his breath and his skin hot against me, soft and firm all at once. He keeps his eyes closed, but when my hand finally stills, he wraps his own around it and presses my finger hard against his lips, kissing the pad of my fingerprint with a desperate sort of urgency.
He lowers both our hands and finally looks at me with hooded eyes. I know as an absolute fact that right then, there is no other girl in the world but me, and there are no other lips than his.
Our kiss is a crescendo.
It’s a sound so loud it shatters the earth around us until we break away from the rest of the world. There’s just the two of us, caught in each other’s arms and lost in each other’s need. He coaxes my body like a conductor controls an orchestra, moving his mouth on mine in ways that make me give up sweet high notes and trembling low bass calls.
We kiss until I’m dizzy, until air finally feels more important than filling my lungs up with him. I gasp as I break the contact, my fists balled around the neck of his sweater and his tangled up in my hair.
He mutters a long string of French that’s too fast and too profane for me to fathom its meaning, but the harsh consonants and the way he curls his lip as he breathes them out makes my thighs clench.
“I’ve wanted to kiss you for a long time, Molly.” He presses his forehead to mine. “For a very long time.”
My name sounds more accented than ever on his lips:Moe-LEE.
“Why didn’t you?”
He has his eyes closed, but I keep mine open, staring at the way his eyelashes rest against his cheeks. The fine, dark hairs are the most delicate thing about him—a glimpse of fragility in this man who’s otherwise a churning twister of energy.
“I didn’t know if this was what you wanted. Is this what you want? On the phone...The roles, you know?”
I move my hands up to grip his shoulders. “I’m...thinking about auditioning for a new one.”
“Ah,ouais?”
“Yes. What about you?”
He tips my head back and kisses me again, harder this time. When I moan into his mouth, it’s like I’ve set something off inside him, like a fuse was burning down between us and finally hit the sticks of dynamite at the end. My back hits the wall behind me. JP presses his body against mine as he tugs my hands above my head and holds them there, moaning as much as I do when his thigh slips between my legs.
I rock against him, the rough fabric of our jeans catching as I shamelessly grind on his leg. I don’t care if I look desperate. In that moment, Iamdesperate—desperate for more of his skin, more of his touch, more of the way he sucks my lip between his teeth and bites down on the tender flesh in a way that’s somehow both gentle and deliciously rough.
I’ve never burned like this before. It’s like blushing with my whole body, only I’m not embarrassed or ashamed right now. I’m like the hot centre of a planet surging toward its surface. Everywhere he touches me, I feel the heat swell and threaten to break through. I’m both terrified and mesmerized at the thought of what might happen when it finally does.
“Come with me.”
He doesn’t give me much of a choice, just lets my hands drop so he can grab me by the hips and hoist me up. My legs and arms wrap themselves around him on instinct. We keep kissing like it’s our life source as he walks us towards what must be his room. One hand digs into my ass as the other fumbles for the doorknob, and then I’m tumbling down onto his mattress while he looms over me, hips planted firmly between my parted thighs.
I can’t even bring myself to take in the details of his room. There’s just him, mouth stretched in a cat-like grin as he thumbs his bottom lip and stares down at me with explosive eyes.
