Page 83 of All Our Nevers

There’s privacy in the warm, cloudless night. A solitude here between the highway and the rows of two-family homes. I wrap my arms over his shoulders, then behind his neck, asking, “When?”

He’s a silhouette limned in streetlight yellow. His head tilts, mouth moving to find my jaw, bottom lip dragging across the skin there as he says, “Tomorrow. Now. Whenever you want.”

“We categorically cannot go on a third date during our second date.”

“Fine, then tomorrow. Dinner.” His lips move down to my neck, slow and warm, trailing wet kisses. My muscles melt into the solidity of him. “Or maybe,” he says against my beating pulse, “breakfast.”

“That’s…” I sigh, neck stretching back, welcoming the touch of his lips, “awfully presumptuous.”

“It doesn’t matter what we do,” he says into my skin. “I always have a good time when you’re there. Even when you’re ruthlessly mocking me. You make me feel… I don’t know. You just make me feel.”

I shift back. I want to see his face—want to find a lascivious grin there. But his expression is earnest, ice blue eyes melted to cool water in the low, warm light. There’s hunger, yes. But also something rarer. Something sweeter.

“Do you know what I mean?” he asks, and that simple question feels like raw honesty.

So, I answer as honestly as I can in return.

“I feel a lot,” I say, slowly finding my words. “Maybe too much. Sometimes it feels like there’s a switch that flips in me, and it's like a wave of anger hits me and I can’t stop it. I feel stressed about everything and indignant over nothing, all the time. But there are also things I rarely feel, or haven’t felt in a long time.” I trail one hand across the front of his neck, anchoring myself to the strength of his collarbone, watching my fingertips memorize his warm skin. “Safe, for one. Safe and admired and… taken care of.” I raise my hand to cup his jaw, meeting his eyes as I say, “Those are the things you make me feel.”

He presses his eyes closed, a crease appearing there. Then he’s urging me forward, pulling my cheek to his chest as he holds me, tight enough to hear the beat of his heart, the swell of each breath as it rises and falls. And it feels like I’m comforting him, by letting him hold me, by just being here together.

When he finally lets go, what I see in his eyes sets my blood on fire. Because he sees all of me—the curated and the raw, the tempting and the vile. All of my horrible, stubborn rage next to my passion, intelligence, and drive and he wants it all. Not just half of me. Not the parts that are pretty and palatable. His eyes blaze with want for all of me.

And I want him just as much.

My eyes flick down to his lips, then back to his eyes. “Unless you have any objections, I think we better get to my place as soon as possible.”

20

Owen

It’s two more blocks to Amelia’s apartment. Two blocks that feel like running towards the edge of a cliff.

My hands are on her hips as she unlocks her building’s front door, the smooth satin of her dress running like water between my fingertips. We step into the hallway, turn the corner, approach her apartment door and I’m impatient. My arms wrap around her from behind as I taste down her neck.

“Owen,” she sighs, leaning into me, melting under my grasp. “Stop distracting me.”

“Mmm… I don’t want to,” I say, sucking on the soft skin where her neck meets her shoulder.

“The sooner I unlock this door, the sooner you can fuck me.”

I groan as I pull my lips away, dropping my forehead to her shoulder as she fiddles with the lock. “Are you trying to kill me, woman?”

There’s a click, then a creak.

Slowly, Amelia turns to face me in the frame of the open door. She’s Venus in her clamshell, divinity and temptation and a pure work of art. Big brown eyes full of mischief and seduction, silken curls cascading behind her, and a thin green dress hinting at every inch of skin I want to taste and touch and know.

She steps backwards, into the apartment, eyes never leaving mine. We aren’t touching, but I might as well be leashed for how willingly I follow, step for step, into the center of the room, shutting the door behind me. Archie is asleep in the dog bed in the corner, bless him.

There’s nothing in our way.

She halts me with a hand in the center of my chest. “I believe you wanted to see my rosary collection?”

My eyes don’t leave hers. “There are other things I want more.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”