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She sighed and opened herself up to him. They stayed locked, leaning against her front door, all tongues, and lips, and hands, savoring the kiss.
The smell of him changed up close and with the combined heat of their bodies. He smelled spicier and richer, almost like expensive dark chocolate. A taste to relish, rather than to rush through.
There is time. The thought struck Mina as his hands moved down to grasp her butt, and he pulled her closer. She lifted up on her toes and relaxed into his hands, letting him bear most of her weight. If they did this right, there could be time for everything, no need to hurry to get to it all.
Like that’s not rushing wedding bells, she reprimanded herself.
Levi was the one who broke the kiss. In the dim light of her entryway, his eyes were dark and heavy with desire. The anticipation that had been building inside her pulsed.
“Hi,” she said, though whether it was to Levi or desire, she didn’t know.
“Hi.” His answering smile started slow, then widened to lighten up his entire face. It took her breath away.
“Hi,” he said again, smoothing her hair away from her face. Their previous kiss had been passionate, new and exciting, but his hand on her face had the exquisite tenderness of a longtime relationship. Passion, sure, but love was there, too.
Again you’re rushing into this. It was too early for love to have anything to do with her feelings for Levi. All the bubbly warmth spreading through her body and tingling between her legs was lust. She hadn’t had sex in a long time, and the orgasms she gave herself didn’t have the same depth. But if she didn’t pull back, she’d end up hurt and confused. And, unlike the night she’d told him about her HIV, any recovery would be slow in coming. She knew this, because she still latched on to every hope like a drowning sailor to a lifeboat.
Or, more accurately, a moth to a flame.
Sex and orgasms she could want. That was real and that was now.
“Do you want a drink?” The words felt clichéd, but in all her years of dating, she’d never figured out a better way to ask a man to stay.
“I don’t want to leave.” Desire had deepened his voice, and her toes curled in response. “But I don’t want a drink.”
“Um, I don’t have condoms.”
His lips twitched, but he didn’t step away. “Stupid of me. I thought that if we got to this point, you would be prepared.”
“Waiting until the third date, taking things slow, had seemed like a good idea, earlier today.” She’d stood in the aisle of the grocery store, her hand on the blue pack of Trojans, wondering if she should. Eventually she’d decided that it would be prudent to wait a date or two for sex—to give both of them a chance to feel comfortable—and she’d left the box on the shelf. Insurance, she’d thought, like not shaving your legs or wearing holey underwear for a date. A reminder that this should not happen.
At least, not yet.
But now she was standing in her entryway, her arms wrapped around Levi, one of his hands on her butt, the other resting on her neck, his fingers caressing her jawline, and insurance seemed like it had been a terrible idea. Sex seemed like the much better one.
He barked a short laugh. “That’s one way to plan.”
“I’m regretting it now.”
“It was probably a smart decision,” he said, bending down to drop a kiss on the top of her jaw. “I want...well, I want us to trust each other. We might both need to take this slower than we would like.”
“You’re not... This isn’t...” She didn’t want to ask the question. She didn’t want to feel like she should ask the question, but it lingered in the back of her mind and would fester and rot if she ignored it. She’d learned that the hard way. It seemed like she had to learn everything the hard way.
“About your HIV? No.” The very fact that he addressed the question so directly told her that he was being honest. “You’re the first woman I’ve been really interested in since Kimmie died. You’re right about us taking our time. I want to enjoy every moment.”
His voice caught, and the hand now resting on her shoulder felt gentler than it had before. Like he had found something fragile in her bones that he hadn’t known was there. She would wonder again if his hesitation was about her disease, but his gaze was somewhere off in the distance.
