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With his big hands, he pulled the blanket carefully off my shoulders, and it pooled onto the porch with a soft thump. Briefly, I shivered, but Ian’s hand curled over mine, his other sliding around my waist as he guided me against his chest wordlessly.
The hands we had clasped together, he tucked against his body, his thumb brushing over my knuckles as we swayed gently to the haunting melody he’d chosen. The ache in my chest blossomed into something impossible to ignore.
So I didn’t.
I committed everything to memory. The soft cotton of his shirt under my cheek, and the slight scratch of his beard where his chin rested on my forehead. The unbelievable warmth of his skin, the shift of muscles through his T-shirt where my hand lay on his back as he guided us in a slow circle.
We were suspended in some magic space, not the real world, not in a fantasy. An in-between that didn’t have definitions or labels or consequences. A place where I could sway in my best friend’s arms and not worry about what might happen next.
He tightened the arm around my waist, his fingers lightly dancing along the ends of my hair where it fell down my back. I shivered slightly, pressing my face into his chest and inhaling.
Where his chin rested on my head, I could feel that telltale tightening of his jaw, and it had me pinching my eyes shut. Even in this sweet moment, that battle still raged on. And I had a feeling that if I lifted my head to look him in the eye, I’d get my answer. Suddenly, I was terrified that I’d been wrong. So very, very wrong.
The song came to an end, but we stayed like that, a sway that could hardly be considered a dance. A dull ache stretched over my skin, something I wasn’t sure I could ignore. An insistent tug that wanted something else. Something more.
“Ian,” I whispered, tilting my chin up so I knew he could hear me.
He didn’t let me go right away, and I finally dared to look up at him. Ian’s eyes were closed, his brow furrowed slightly, like he was in pain. It shredded my heart, desperate to make that pain go away.
Slowly, I eased my hand from around his back and spread my fingers lightly over his cheek, cradling his jaw while my thumb brushed the skin above his beard.
“Thank you,” I said, imbuing those two meager little words with every ounce of my feelings. But it still didn’t feel enough.
Still, he didn’t open his eyes.
Push, I urged myself. Just one little one.
So I rolled up on the balls of my feet and pressed a featherlight kiss against the side of his mouth, just catching the edge of his lips with mine. Off-center enough that it could’ve been a mistake.
Being honest with myself was one thing, because I knew it wasn’t a mistake. But could I be honest with him if he asked? If he pulled away and laughed it off and asked what the hell I was doing.
Except he didn’t do those things.
His breath caught and his eyes snapped open.
We froze like that, and when he didn’t pull away, my heart went wild, knocking against brittle bones and a tight chest.
Was his heart doing the same thing? Did he feel like his insides could shatter if it beat any harder?
Just as I was about to pull away, swallow down the mortification of an almost kiss that was all in my imagination, he turned his head a fraction of an inch, brushing his nose along mine. It brought his lips over mine, hovering so closely that my skin buzzed.
I exhaled shakily, the hand cupping his face easing down to grip the fabric of his shirt and tighten into a fist.
It was all he needed.
Ian’s mouth slanted over mine, his lips firm and delicious, the groan he let loose from the wide expanse of his chest rattling me down to my toes. He tasted so good, his body was so big and warm and hard, and his hands were holding me so tight. I rolled up onto the balls of my feet again, opening my mouth the instant I felt the soft brush of his tongue against the seam of my lips.
A fierce storm roared through my bloodstream, fast and fierce and loud, demolishing everything in its path, all the things I thought before this kiss were buried in a single beat of my heart.
Then both of his hands were gripping my face, his fingers tangling into my hair as he tilted my head to a new angle. At the heat of his tongue licking against mine, my stomach curled, my breasts went heavy and aching, and a soft whimper escaped my mouth into his.
That whimper flipped some switch in his head, his lips devouring, body pressing, hands tightening as they moved to grip my body to his, so hard and strong and firm that it felt like my bones may shatter. I wanted them to. I wanted a bruise on my skin, something I could touch later and know this had happened. He stole the breath straight from my lungs, and I let him. There was no pausing, no slowing, not for me. Not to question a single bit of what was happening. Of what could come next, whether we should stop, or if this was the worst fucking idea we’d ever had.
My only thoughts were more, more, more.
And he gave it to me. More of the heat of his tongue, slipping, sliding, tangling with mine, more of the tug of his teeth in my bottom lip, more of the harsh pants of our breath because we couldn’t bear to separate.
It all felt permanent. The kind of alteration that wasn’t quickly undone. Like ink under skin or the severing of a limb.
