Page 76 of The Wedding Forecast

‘Anna,’ he says.

‘Yes?’ I stand up.

‘I—’

He moves closer. Very close. He’s giving me the same look he gave me in the restaurant hallway at the wedding-rehearsal dinner after I kissed him. On impulse, I hold my hand out, press it against his chest. I can feel his heart beating.

‘Show me what you were going to do. Last time,’ I say.

He looks at my hand on his chest for a minute, then picks it up and kisses each of my knuckles one by one very gently. He turns my hand over and runs his lips over the inside of my wrist.

My skin tingles all the way up my arms.

He pulls me closer to him and softly tucks my hair behind my ears. Then he leans down and kisses my neck, lingering there, his tongue warm against my skin. I make a noise in my throat.

He lifts his head, looking into my eyes for a moment, taking my face in his hands. And then he kisses me. I expect it to be gentle, but it’s fierce, hungry, like it was at the restaurant. His tongue is in my mouth, his hands slide into my hair. After a moment, he tugs off my jumper, then his own top. I step backwards, until I’m on his bed, and he is on top of me, kissing me frantically, like I’m about to run away, and I can hardly catch my breath, and nothing has ever felt so good in my life as his body pressing down on mine. We stay like that for what might be five minutes, or might be twenty. I’m losing all track of time.

He kisses across my collarbone, unhooks my bra and kisses across my breasts, down my stomach. Then he looks up at me.

‘I read your book three times,’ he says.

I don’t know why he says this. It makes me laugh for a second, but then he’s kissing me again, further down my stomach, unbuttoning my pants and sliding them off, sliding off my underwear, and putting his mouth on me.

23

HE MAKES ME come, fast, so embarrassingly fast, faster than I’ve ever come before. It dispels none of the urgency, in fact it doubles it somehow—I want him and I want him and I want him, it feels like I’ve wanted him for so long I can’t remember wanting anyone else. Not just anyone else, but anything else. I pull him down on top of me and unbutton his jeans. He groans into my neck.

‘What’s wrong?’ I say, because I’m suddenly worried it’s a bad groan. I don’t know his groans yet.

‘Nothing. God, fuck, nothing.’

It’s a good groan.

‘Do you have a condom?’

‘Yeah.’ He leans out one hand and rummages in the drawer of the tiny end table next to his bed. He can’t quite reach, and we slide as one closer, because I don’t want any part of his body to move away from me, not even for a second. It makes me laugh, and I’m not even sure why, and he looks at me and laughs too, then groans again.

‘Why are we laughing?’ he says.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.’

‘Why are you swearing?’

‘Because I want you so fucking much right now.’

‘Do you want me to—’ I slide down a little.

‘No, no, stay up here, let’s just—’

He puts the condom on, and kisses me, pushing his hands in my hair.

‘Tell me what you like,’ he says.

‘Everything you’ve done so far,’ I say. ‘Everything you’re thinking about doing. Everything you ever want to do.’

I slide my tongue into his ear as I say this. I haven’t spent a lot of time on ears before, but he makes me want to explore every single part of his body. I don’t want to miss any of it. He moans in a frantic way when I do this, kisses down my neck, slides inside me. He’s on top of me, which shouldn’t feel this good. I normally like to be on top, on top and facing away to be exact, and I usually need my hand or his to be doing some work, but there’s something about the way our bodies fit like this, or maybe it’s the way we’re angled at the edge of the bed, or maybe it’s about being in New York, or that I just like his face so much, or his voice—that voice, in my ear, that alone might be enough to get me there—or he’s just that good, but whatever it is, it’s working.