But I blink, and then it’s gone.
“You…” I don’t know how I’m going to finish that sentence. I don’t even know what I have to say.
The color’s back in your cheeks, I think.
And I collapse into him.
“Gwenna,” his voice rumbles in his chest, against my ear. “Baby. What’s wrong?”
Baby. Vaguely, I feel like I should hate being called that—that it’s weird, literally infantilizing.
But I don’t. Not from him. Because when Lanz calls me that, it’s like nothing I could do is wrong, that everything I feel is okay, just because I’m...
Because I’m Gwenna.
I gulp, shake my head. ““Elena—she—” No. Hopeless, trying to explain that. “Everything’s wrong,” I say. “Everything’s wrong, and it’s all my fault. I don’t know what I’m doing and everyone needs me to besomethingand I just don’t know what thatis,I don’t know what that fucking is and I can’t figure it out in all these stupid poems and hymns and now the earth isdying and the sun isn’t rising and…and…people arerotting, and, and…”
I’mhysterical. Lanz pins my head against him, letting me sob messily into his shoulder like a fucking lunatic, and I cry and I cry and I gasp and I cry until finally, gradually, I run out of steam, calm settling in from sheer attrition of energy. My sobs even out into deep breaths. I can feel my nose running, my eyes gone swollen and my lips stuck with spit at the corners.
And yet he holds me so tightly it’s like I’m the only thing anchoring him to Earth. Or vice versa.
I push away again, and this time, he doesn’t resist. He winces, hard, grabs his chest, and immediately,instantly, I forget whatever idiotic emotions I’m stewing in.
He’s hurting.
“Lanz—you’re?—”
“Gwenna. No.” He shakes his head, jaw firm. “I’m fine. I’m okay.” He looks into my face. “If you’re okay.”
I…am I?
“I’m…more okay than I was,” I say. The truth. His face brightens—with relief, with something more, something that makes my throat tighten and my stomach flip.
“What?” I say softly.Am I blushing?I think.God. I’m blushing. But the way you’re staring at me, Lanz…
“Nothing.” He glances down at his hands, like he’s weighing some decision. “You’re…”
He looks back up, then reaches for my face, holds it, gently thumbs the corners of my eyes where a few tears are still stuck.
“I just can’t believe I got to meet you,” he whispers. “I’m so lucky.”
I don’t know if he moves first or if I do, but the next thing I know I am kissing him, we are kissing, and it is so good and kind and unbearably sweet that I nearly want to cry again, because who says things like that? Who shows up like that,runs towardsmewhen I am at my most awful and hateful and ugly, not once but twice? As many times as I’d want?
I can’t believe it either.
There is no urgency to the kiss, no mad rush or wild abandon. He is taking his time, kissing me as if kissing me is all there is to do, slow and smooth as melting honey. And I want it like that, neverending and steady, even as I feel the warmth of building need welling up inside me. I clutch his arms, the lean, easy strength of them, and he pushes me back in response, then up onto the counter, just like that—like I’m light. Like I couldn’t ever weigh him down. Gently, he pulls me into him by the back of my neck, places kiss after kiss on my mouth, my neck, my collarbones.
All at once I need more.
I grab him, pull his face to mine, and open my mouth. I drop my hands to his wrists, guide his hands to my hips, and wrap my legs around his waist, kissing deeper, deeper, deeper the whole time. I feel him nod, feel the soft push of my sweater up my ribs and over my head, the careful skim of his fingers over the cups of my bra. I arch my back and contort my wrists to undo the clasp and peel the stupid thing away, and when I’m like that, naked to the waist, wrapped around him still, Lanz looks up at me.
Those big, blue eyes. Asking. Hoping.
“Please,” I say.
He shuts his eyes and parts his lips and takes me, his mouth hot around one nipple while his fingers find the other. I gasp, shudder, clenching already just from that, and wet, so wet I’m sure he can feel me even through tights and panties and sweater. His eyelids flicker as he works his tongue, his lips, firm and pulling as his fingers are light and brushing. The contrast, the difference in sensation overwhelms me, and I have to lean forward, onto him, and bury my face in his neck to let out a moan so loud it surprises both of us.
“Gwenna.” With a swirl of his tongue he lets me go, breathes my name against my own damp skin. I grip his neck, not too hard, and pull him back so I can see him.
