He didn’t answer for a long moment. When he did, he did it with his eyes closed. “All I ever think about is you.”
My heart pounded.
He opened his eyes. “What are we doing, Emma?”
Time stopped. Or I did. Reality smeared.
He put a gentle hand out to touch me. A thumb rubbed against my cheek to mirror the one I had on his.
“If this isn’t magic, then what is?” he asked. “What does it feel like to be under a spell if this isn’t it?”
His gaze held mine, and I couldn’t break it. It was a spell. I didn’t know how to answer him, and I didn’t know how to push him away. I didn’t know how to stay, and I didn’t know how to leave.
I tried to imagine living here, I really did—signing a lease on an apartment. Getting a permanent position. Living in the same place for all the seasons. Making friends, growing roots. But the thoughts terrified me. Why? Why did anything with strings make me want to run?
His siblings were good kids. Great kids. I wouldn’t have to live with them. I wouldn’t have to do anything I didn’t want to do because Justin wouldn’t expect that of me. I had been through so much worse than sitting still, so why did the idea of staying feel so scary?
And then I knew. I knew why it was scary.
Because I would want to live with them. I would want to make those kids mine.
Staying meant I would fall in love.
I’d fall in love with this place. With him and his family. And that I didn’t do.
My lack of permanence was my protection. I left people and places, so I didn’t have to play. If I didn’t play, I couldn’t lose.
But if I left Justin, I would lose anyway.
The realization dawned before me. I’d been more affected by my upbringing than I’d been willing to admit. Because where else had I learned to live like this? Who else did I learn it from if not Mom, the woman who erased my past and never stopped moving? She’d trained me too well.
“I didn’t want to beg you,” he said. “But I don’t give a shit about my pride anymore. Stay. Please. Just to see what happens. See where it goes. I’ll take anything—a couple of months, a couple of weeks, whatever you’ll give me. Meet me where I am because I can’t go to you. I would if I could. I’d follow you anywhere if I was able to, but I can’t. Please,” he said again. “Stay.”
I let out a puff of air.
His eyes pleaded with me, and I was drawn to him like he was magnetic. He had been from the moment I met him.
I could feel the gentle in and out of his chest pressed into mine. The warmth of his body through our clothes. We were our own little universe. The rain pounded on the roof and the white noise insulated us. There was nothing else outside of the electric space on this bed in this room on this island.
This island.
This impractical, crappy, lonely island that I was growing to hate.
I closed my eyes and put my cheek to his. I could feel his plea in every inch of his body. There was a desperation in the soft breath that unfurled in my ear and the tension in his muscles. I pulled away and he hovered above me, poised to kiss me.
I wondered if this was going to be another one of his teases, but I saw in his eyes the moment he gave up trying to stay away from me. His mouth came down and his tongue brushed against mine and I dissolved.
It was hard to imagine that this kiss was the same thing we’d casually agreed upon once. The checklist item he’d put onto a spreadsheet.
There are so many things in life that exist on a spectrum. Trust. Kisses.
Love.
You can love someone and still not be willing to give up your way of life for them. And then there are those you love who you’d take a bullet for. It’s all the same emotion, just different levels. I’d lived on the low, safe side of everything. With the exception of Maddy, I kept my friendships at arm’s length and my relationships even further away. I never fell for anyone. I never let anyone close enough to try.
I didn’t let Justin close enough to try either, but he’d managed to get there anyway. Maybe there was never any other way it could have gone. He was always going to be this for me. And now we were in a kiss that was more than a kiss, and I didn’t want him to kiss anyone else. Ever.
I didn’t want to be kissed by anyone else. Ever.
Because how could it be better? How could I ever want someone so much again?
We stripped each other slowly. Selecting each piece of clothing to remove like we were revealing a sacred shrine. Exploring each other.
This is what my skin was for. To be touched like this. To feel this. Every nerve was for this sole purpose and I didn’t even know it until now. To feel his strong hand slide up to cup my breast, his thumb circling my nipple. To feel his breath on my collarbone. I was made to experience him.
And he was right. It was magic.
I got up wrapped in a sheet to grab condoms from Maddy’s stash in her room, and when I came back and he lifted the blanket to let me under, it felt like I was coming home again. The way he pulled me into him, warm and soft and hard and the rain on the roof and the thunder in the background.
Our breathing got heavier and his kisses got harder.
He raked down my thighs as he pulled off my underwear. Biting me gently on the way down and then pulling me to his mouth, fingers slipping inside of me, sucking and teasing until my back arched and I unraveled while he watched me from between the V of my legs.
He let me catch my breath and then I drew him down on top of me. When he slid inside of me, I had never felt closer to another person in my whole life.
I knew conceptually that sex was supposed to be like this. But for me it never was. It had always been one-dimensional, like a transaction.
This wasn’t a transaction.
