Page 95
“Sure. I’ll… uh draw you a bath.”
I don’t want to stop. She’ll never be out of my system. I have to trust that she doesn’t want to either.
I’m still keeping secrets, but I never considered that she might be too.
What is keeping her from opening up, and how didn’t I realize this earlier?
She stays the night. It’s surprising, after what I said, but she doesn’t seem to be so much as considering leaving. She takes a long bath, and I treat her to a grilled cheese sandwich with apple and arugula. Some people say if there’s anything but cheese, it’s no longer a grilled cheese, but I don’t think those people are worth listening to.
After eating, we curl up on my couch. It reminds me too much of the few days we spent in the cottage alone before her family returned, but it’s more intimate here in my little space. Just the two of us and the forest.
No ghosts here.
“Why don’t you have a TV out here?” she asks.
“Too distracting.” I turn the page of my book. “It used to be out here, but I read more now that I put it away.”
“Hm…”
She pulls a book from my shelf and reads it for approximately five minutes before switching to her phone. There we remain until bedtime. She could go home, but she stays, wearing one of my shirts and curling up in my bed without an invitation.
Just sex.
Yeah, right.
I hold her tight. I’m getting too used to the feeling of her soft back pressed against me, of her scent filling my nostrils. She’s already letting me know we’re temporary, but I don’t want to be. Every night, I want to fall asleep surrounded by her scent. Her warmth. Her softness.
I want to wake up with her pressed to my chest like this. Her soft breaths lull me to sleep, and I want them to live in my head, where she already does.
After what happened with the cottage, I never wanted to fall again, but I am, and it doesn’t feel scary. It feels like I can fly, just like Ryan’s familiar.
In the morning, I wrap my arms tighter around her, trying to keep her there. She mumbles in her sleep and nuzzles her face into my bare chest. When her thigh brushes against my crotch, an earlier memory of our phone calls comes to me…
Her fantasy of being woken up.
It’s not the first time I’ve thought of it, of course, but the timing may be appropriate. If I can show her how good I am, how right we are together, maybe we can be different.
For once in my life, maybe I can have something good. Permanent.
I move a hand between her legs and whisper in her ear. “Aurora?”
“Hm?”
“Do you want me to wake you up?” I ask, squeezing her mound. “Like this. But with my mouth.”
She doesn’t say anything for a moment, and I consider taking my hand away. I’m not sure if she falls back asleep, or if the answer is no…
Until she turns onto her back and spreads her legs, opening one eye to look at me.
That’s a yes.
Her eyes are still heavy-lidded as I move between her legs, pushing the shirt—my shirt—up her thighs. I can smell her sweet arousal from here, and I bury my face in it, inhaling, desperate to have more of it. I want her scent to be all I ever smell. All I ever taste.
She lets out the softest, sleepiest whimper, and I drag my tongue along her slit, gathering her arousal. It’s never-ending. I roll my tongue over her clit, sucking hard, and slip my fingers into her cunt, curling and thrusting until she’s shaking, her thick thighs wrapping around my head.
My cock is hard, leaking, needy, and she’s staring at me like she knows exactly what she wants next.
But I can’t give her everything she wants, even if my aching cock would love nothing more than to bury itself inside of her. I’ll have to take care of myself in the shower instead.
