I wriggle my hips against his, impatient. “Are you gonna keep naming soft fruits all evening?”
I can’t remember the last time he smiled like this. Like the weights that burden his shoulders all day have been temporarily set down. “I wouldn’t goraisinyour blood pressure like that.”
“Alex!”
His laugh echoes around the hall, a little blush forming on his cheeks. I fall in love all over again, ridiculing the girl inside me who thoughtno stringswould last. He sighs, expression sobering as he regards me like I put the moon in the sky and arranged the stars around it, just for him. “I’m pretty sure she’s listening outside.”
I run my fingers over his chest, worried he’s not real. Maybe Clementine murdered me with her giant kombucha bottle, and this is the afterlife. Maybe Eikeisa dangerous driver. “I don’t care.”
His hands on me are shameless and clumsy, flying from my waist to my hips to my breasts to my thighs like he can’t quite believe I’m here, either. His thumb traces over my lips, pupils so dilated that his eyes are an inky abyss. “Can you be quiet, Ophelia?”
“Canyou?”
A breathless laugh tickles my throat. His hands move dangerously close to the top of my thighs, scorching a path across the freckled skin. “I wouldn’t have thought so, no.”
His fingers dip between my legs, spare hand steadying my waist.My head tilts back, his name a desperate gasp between my lips. He guides my legs farther apart, skillful fingers sinking into me to ease an ache that has plagued my nights for so long.
It’s different now; there are no secrets weighing down the back of my mind; we’re not trying to cram too-big feelings into a friendship-sized box. My heart is in his hands, and his in mine.
His fingers brush my clit, lips tracing my collarbone, and while his actions may feel sinful, his words feel anything but. His words are worship.
“I can’t live without you, Ophelia,” he breathes, against my pale skin. “Not in this lifetime, not in the next.”
“You’ve gone all philosophical on me.”
His tongue grazes my nipple, and there’s no way Clementine doesn’t hear the soft moan that echoes around the empty hall. “Well, you’ve given me hope for the future.”
My fingers fumble with his top few buttons until more of his skin is exposed to me. I breathe in his scent, letting him fill every inch of my lungs. The rush of euphoria that follows is dizzying. “And you’ve made me stronger than my past.”
My fingers flex over the zipper of his dark jeans. His breath catches in his throat, giving way to a quiet whimper. It’s my undoing. “And you’re going to make me a one-minute man.”
I laugh, slightly grateful for the turn to less emotional conversation. The last thing I need is to start crying during hot makeup sex. There has to be at leastoneevent in my year that I don’t cry through.
His fingers move faster inside me, thumb circling my clit. A long thread of warmth unravels in my abdomen, forehead dropping to his shoulder. His spare hand splays over my stomach, both of us covered in differently colored streaks of chalky pastel.
“This is how my dreams go,” he whispers. “Every night, this is how they go.”
We’re an artwork of his creation, messy lines that form something wonderful in all the chaos.
“Fuck, fuck, I’m gonna—”
He stops abruptly, pushing me off the stool, and I think maybe he’s as close as I am, just from a few touches. “JesusChrist, Ophelia. Turn around.”
I do as he says, turning to face the blank canvas. His breaths are heaving when he reaches around me and grabs two of the pastels. The fabric of his jeans is rough against the sensitive skin at the back of my thighs, every graze of his shirt against my arms sending a jolt of electricity down my spine.
He swipes the colored pastels over my hands in long, languid strokes, unhurried even as the evidence of his desire presses into my lower back. A shudder racks my body, the sheer weight of the anticipation between us almost too much to bear.
A soft kiss lands on my neck; a strangled curse floats over my shoulder. Two large hands drag my hips back just enough that I have to splay my hands over the blank paper to steady myself. Brown and orange handprints mar the pristine white page.
Alex’s voice is husky in my ear, breath thawing the cold shell I’ve spent so many years building around my skin. “Paint me a picture while I fuck you, Ophelia.”
The noise that escapes me is embarrassing: a moan and a garbled version of his name trying to escape at once. Orange claw marks rake over the paper as I fight to keep my balance. Alex traces his thumb down the dip of my spine, murmuring a string of muttered French.
He seems keen to take his time, to drink in every detail of this moment, hands kneading the skin of my back like he’s a sculptor and I’m the prize in his collection.
But I’m more of afuck now, examine each other’s vertebrae latersort of girl.
“What’s the hold up?” I demand, voice edged with desperation. He’s dragging this out just to watch me squirm. “Stuck in traffic, or something?”
