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“Do you know,” he said absently, breaking the reverie, “that tents are an integral part of marriage ceremonies in a variety of cultures?”
“Oh yeah?” My heart raced at the mention of marriage.
“Don’t worry,” he snorted. “I’m not getting down on one knee… yet.”
Joy coursed through me. Obviously, I was twenty-one. Marriage wasn’t right around the corner. And, given Carter’s colorful past with women, I wouldn’t blame him for taking years to make up his mind. But just to know that he was thinking about it, and so soon, was enough. He was serious about me.
“Now,” I said, pulling away from the tension. “Can we get out of these disgusting clothes?”
He chuckled, his smile cracking lines in his smooth cheeks. “I’m so sore, I don’t know how I’ll pull this T-shirt off.”
“Luckily, you know someone who’s willing to help.”
“That woman outside, watering the plants?” he joked.
I slapped him lightly across the forearm. “You wish.”
“No,” he replied, his tone serious. “I wish for nothing else right now except to be with you. Absolutely nothing.”
My body grew calm, as if centering on the truth that was Carter’s love for me. My racing blood slowed, my brain went still. Our first romantic encounters had been desperate, hungry, needy. This, I knew, would be different. It would be love-making.
I reached for the hem of Carter’s shirt and slowly dragged it up, over his chiseled torso. He winced, lifting his arms up, and with great care, I navigated the shirt away from his skin.
The skin revealed was a deep reddish-pink, which was a stark contrast to the light brown. The shirt caught his now-mussed curls up as I pulled, setting a couple of them loose from their slicked-back gel molding.
“How do I look?” he asked, the words joking but his tone earnest.
I kissed his shoulder. “Like a man who’s been through hell.”
In a deep voice, he added, “And who has found heaven. My turn.”
He shifted forward so that he could copy my actions, helping me carefully take the shirt off. The pain was subsiding by then, receding into a distant memory of my body, an album of scars that maybe I would open someday. But for now, the book was shut — there was something far better to revisit.
He stripped me down to my bra, then leaning in, reached behind me to unclasp that as well. It slid down my arms, exposing my breasts.
Carter’s eyes ran over me, examining and somehow also caressing me.
“You’re pink,” he observed distantly. “Everywhere.”
“Just well done,” I kidded.
“Your neck,” he said, his brow furrowing. “It’s…”
“Kiss it better,” I told him, my voice stirring with emotion.
“I’m at your service.”
He surged up to me, lips landing on my neck, the softest of kisses, like a butterfly alighting on a brilliantly colored flower.
“How’s this feel?” he asked as his lips followed the circle.
“Like medicine.”
He stopped, breathing warm air onto my neck, little puffs of healing. I was home. I was safe.
“The rest of me aches, too,” I said pointedly.
“Well then, let’s just see what we can do about that.”
His lips journeyed from my lips to my collarbone, which he ran over with his mouth and fingers, caressing me gently, tapping himself into my skin. Carter, apparently satisfied with his doctoring, then went to my breastbone, laying a full hand across it.
“This is strong,” he said.
“What?”
“Your heart.”
I took his hand and pressed it more firmly on my heart, as if to leave an imprint.
“And it’s all yours,” I told him.
Carter bit his lip, holding back a smile, before moving his mouth back to my chest and finally mounting the hill of my breast, descending to the peak of my nipple. He took it between his lips, his touch feather-light.
I breathed deeply, feeling better already. It was like he awakened the healing systems of my body, directing my cells to every piece of flesh he passed.
His head ducked and moved laterally to the other breast, where he tenderly took in my other nipple, suckling at it so lightly. It occurred to me that there was an inherent irony in his movements. Though his face at my breast suggested I was nursing him, it was in fact he who was nursing me.
The thought propelled my own hands to his torso, dragging him closer so that I could run fingers across his perfect abs, the little curls of brown hair that led into his pants.
In one smooth motion, I laid down, pulling Carter atop me. His body hovered over mine. He was carefully maneuvering his weight such that none of it landed on me. I looked to the left, and saw his fist pressed into the ground, balancing him in thin air.
“You can lay on me,” I told him with a smile. “I won’t break.”
“I can’t take that chance.”
He spread his legs out on either side of mine, creating a base so that he could crouch up, just enough to undo my jeans and pull them down my legs. He tucked them in the far corner of the tent, knowing full well that we had to conserve space. In the same motion, he unzipped his own jeans and shimmied them off.
