“I think I’d regret it if I didn’t kiss you right now,” I say and tug on her hand, pulling her in. She lets me guide her onto my lap so she’s straddling my hips. I settle my hands on her thighs and she settles hers on my neck, stroking her thumbs over my jaw.
“You’re deflecting,” she says.
“I am,” I say and lean in to kiss her. It’s a single, soft kiss, and when I open my eyes, hers are still closed, like she wasn’t quite ready to meet the end of that moment.
“I’ll allow it,” she says and covers my mouth with her own in a kiss that dissolves every thought about my family or hockey or loss or regret. All that exists right now is her.
I crush her against me, weaving a hand through her ponytail. Her fingers curl, digging into my neck, and the kiss becomes more insistent, her lips pressing harder against mine.
I’d forgotten what intimacy tasted like. The way vulnerability can season a kiss, give it a punch that wouldn’t otherwise exist. I had forgotten what it feels like to kiss someone with the same lips you’d used to confess things that usually stay hidden. My secrets, safe between us, and the solid walls of this old lighthouse. My wide open heart, safe in Abby’s hands.
The same hands that are traveling down my neck, my chest, and my stomach. In one swift motion, she’s removing my shirt. Without a word, she rakes her eyes over my upper body, her top teeth sinking into her bottom lip.
“My ego is going to get too big for this room to hold if you don’t stop looking at me like that,” I say.
“I can’t help myself. Look at you. You look like you were made in a lab.”
“Like a Steve Rogers situation? Or more like Bruce Banner?”
“Who? What?”
“Captain America? The Hulk?”
“You’re just saying words I don’t know,” she says.
“Are you serious?”
“Is this really what you want to be talking about right now?” she asks, stripping off her own shirt.
“We can argue about Marvel later,” I concede, and slide my hands up her ribs, slipping my thumbs under the elastic of her wide-band sports bra.
“You’re wearing too many clothes,” I murmur as I plant a trail of kisses along her shoulder, sliding the bra strap to the side.
“You can change that, if you’d like,” she says.
“I would like.”
As I slip the bra over her head, with her arms raised, I catch a glimpse of black on her side just above her ribs. I thought I saw something yesterday at the pool, but I had tunnel vision and it didn’t really register in my mind at the time.
But now, as I hold her arm up to get a better look, she resists, leaning and twisting away from me.
I catch her gaze.
“What are you trying to hide?” I ask. “Is that a tattoo?”
Her cheeks go bright red, and she folds her arms protectively across her chest, one hand stretched out on her side. To her credit, she maintains eye contact with me.
“It is a tattoo. Can I see it?” I ask. “Is it something embarrassing? Did you lose a bet?”
Her mouth opens like she might say something, but then she bites her bottom lip like she thought better of it. She moves her hand from her side, shifting her other arm back to reveal the tattoo.
It’s small, no bigger than a quarter and easily hidden by her arm or a thick strap. It sits a few inches under her armpit, at the top of her ribs.
One number. Two digits.
My heart sputters in my chest.
33.
