On her toes, plastered against him, her breasts rubbed the hard plane of his chest while his shoulders and arms engulfed her. For an instant she worried about his balance, but his hands pushed under her coat, and she released her hold one arm at a time to wiggle out of the extra padding, but he didn’t stop kissing her.
She felt lighter, but no cooler, when his hand slid under her turtleneck. He rubbed circles on the bare skin above her waist, the exact spot where she carried travel tension. His mastery of touch fired nerves from her skin to her core and reminded her that he was much more than letters on a screen. Rey was a man. He wasn’t gentle, not with his kisses.
Response flamed inside stronger than she’d ever felt, until she wanted to crash into him, take him down, but she didn’t know into what, or how, so she explored with her hands. She thought she knew his mind and his opinions, but his arms, his back, hisshoulders, the places she touched, were facets that remained to be learned.
His hair was coarse and thick between her fingers as she tugged his head lower. He pulled her so close that his buckle dug into her belly. She wanted answers to the swirl of questions and needs filling her brain and stealing her breath. His tongue sought to connect the same way her hands searched his body. Where she touched, he was tight and corded and heat rolled off him. Focusing on how his fingers pressed into her skin at her waist made her knees wobble. She needed air. When she stood on her tiptoes to reach his lips, she felt like she tilted. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was a hydrothermal vent, four hundred degrees under her hands.
Behind her the door thunked with the whoosh of steel settling in place and the click of an automatic catch.
Rey lifted his head. “Oops.” He grinned at her. “Forgot door.”
They had forgotten everything for a moment, including her decision to take this slowly and be certain about the change in their relationship.
“Too much H-B-effing-O in there,” someone yelled.
He cupped a hand to his mouth and called, “Thanks, dude.”
Muffled laughter from the hall made her want to cover her face, but her astonishment was stronger. “Rey, you can talk!”
“Better. Not well.” He hadn’t stopped rhythmic strokes across the cashmere. “This is. Soft.”
They stood connected by hands and hips and shoulders. The sound of their breathing matched her pounding heart as she felt caught between that kiss and wondering what was next.
He apparently had no such quandary, because he nodded toward a cart holding an olive-colored duffel and a gym bag, parked next to a streamlined black and chrome wheelchair. “My stuff. Goodbyes done.” With that, he shrugged into a gray trackjacket that said AR on one side of the zipper and MY on the other. “Ready?”
Undoubtedly he meant ready to go. The question the road trip would answer waited: Was she ready for him?
Virginia
Interstate 66 became morescenic the farther suburban D.C. sprawl faded into Grace’s rearview mirror. With her phone connected to the rental car stereo, the folk-rock guitar and vocals of her favorite Seattle singer filled the car. If her arm-hairs weren’t tuned to the tiniest movement of the man in the passenger seat, this would be a relaxing drive.
“White girl music.” He set down her smart phone with its playlists. “All of it.”
“Oh, please.” She retrieved her latest coffee from the cupholder. “The census bureau considers you white, but not me, you know that?”
“Culture.”
She snorted. “Are you saying I’m culturally white? What’s with that? We’re from the same town. You’re confusing the colors of our rice for skin tone.”
“You jog.” He held up one finger.
She allowed that the finish line at half marathons was not so diverse.
“Pilat-pilat—” He raised a second finger while pretending to pull on a weight bar.
“I did one session of pilates! I didn’t like it as much as…” His point, she realized, was about to be proven. “Yoga.” She shifted in her seat and checked her mirrors.
Another digit added without a word.
“G.E.D.” He pointed to his chest, then lifted a fourth finger as he pointed at her. “P.H.D.”
That was one she didn’t know how to answer, except to make fun of herself, because it felt like it was about him rather than her. For months, his messages had revealed a man with an intense interest in the world, a command of the written word and a deep curiosity. She didn’t care if his degree was a high school equivalency.
“You are so last year on stereotypes, Rey. Didn’t you know that white people get more GEDs?” She totally fudged that, having no idea if what she said was true. Given that Caucasians were the largest share of the population, it was probably a safe assumption, but would he call her on it? “If I was a white girl I’d have a sorority ring, maybe a tiny flower tattooed on my ankle, and a fun degree like English or early-childhood education.” That was in fact her sister’s tattoo and double major. “But I’m a stereotypical math and biology Asian girl who was on the path to med school until salmon sidetracked me.”
“This.” He indicated the music that had started the discussion. “White.”
“I should inform you that the correct taxonomy of my lovely Lori Jason is alt-country Seattle lesbian folk rock.”
