Page 73 of Touch

Her laugh comes out nervous. “Stop.”

“If we could touch, the last thing you would do is tell me to stop.”

Those destructive words curl around her knees like smoke. He’s right. No longer worn out, she’s enticed to experiment beyond their limitations, to snare his hands and guide them over her body.

Low. Deep.

To have his palms sketch her skin. To have him intensify the pressure, firmer and harsher. To have his fingers bend, slip through the wet clamp of her cunt, pitch them between that tight slot.

Andrew’s pupils glitter as if aware of her thoughts. Love cannot help the pleasure of witnessing him on edge, viewing the effect she has on this human. Like a fever dream, she imagines him manipulating the textile along her breasts, nipples, and navel. Then over the apex of her thighs, easing the ache in her pussy until she drips through the material.

From the torched look on his face, similar visions dominate Andrew’s mind. A low noise skids from his lungs, enhancing the illicit fantasy.

As she sweeps aside the sheet and crawls to the mattress edge, Andrew rakes his eyes over Love’s silk camisole and shorts. Chucking aside the leaflet and coat, he wastes no time mirroring her gesture, moving toward her on all fours, then rising to his knees. The position is equally sacrificial and assertive, a pose that few gods manage to perfect. Yet this human succeeds without trying, putting every promiscuous deity to shame.

This is reckless, forbidden, and unpardonable. But as she aligns herself with his torso, Love couldn’t care less. Let the celestials and every Dark God condemn her for this crime.

This felonious moment, she will take from him. This fleeting pleasure, she will give to him.

Matchmaking can wait. Love has several more days, then she’ll bind Andrew to another. Until then, let destiny grant her this time with him.

“I think we would kiss now,” Love pants.

“I know we would,” Andrew rasps. “I’d have seized your mouth before you finished that sentence.”

“Then let us imagine that.”

“Fuck imagination.” He swipes his mouth over Love’s, his lips passing through her own and ripping a gasp from her lungs. “Didn’t I say, I crave honesty?”

“You did,” she utters, her skin pebbling, her head fogging.

“Then give me what’s real,” he urges, slanting his mouth along hers. “Give me that stubborn mouth of yours.”

26

Scarcely finishing, Andrew pitches his mouth forward. On a whimper, Love drives her fingers into the mist of his hair and meets his lips with her own, their flesh merging, bleeding together like steam. The instant they cross that boundary, a small cry abandons Love’s tongue, her open mouth tingling from the impact. Their parted lips drag hectically over one another, skimming, seeking.

With a hiss, Andrew brackets his arms around Love, his palms attempting to clasp her ass. The rush of his movement pushes through her like something on the brink of manifesting, like a true means of contact. It pulls a needy moan from her throat, the exhalation brushing Andrew’s lips. His mouth would be firm but smooth, unyielding and skilled while tugging on her until she’s crying into his kiss. Her lips would break against Andrew’s, and his tongue would capture her own, rocking them together in a steady tempo.

Love’s eyelids fall shut. Her mind conjures the sensation of his mouth gripping hers, sketching the contours, the flat of his tongue rowing sinuously against her own. They would fit together well, the kiss agonizing, enduring long after it ended.

Somehow, fantasy becomes reality. Only more potent, the dream solidifying, the shade of a touch somehow becoming accessible.

Andrew is not actually clasping Love to him. Yet she feels him in spirit and soul.

He tracks his intoxicating mouth over hers, teasing and wracking her with shivers. Their heads blend like specters, the air’s thickness an intimation of touch, an inkling of what might be, which is a relief and a torment.

It is also a battle cry for more. Love wants to shout against his mouth, to claim him with her teeth, to lick his flesh, to taste his groan.

She traces his lips, the phantom kiss striking her like an arrow. Deep. Painful. Andrew’s palms roam over her, doing their best to cup the back of her skull, to fix her mouth in place, to reach her, to claim her. Just as she endeavors to claim him.

It is not enough. Yet it’s everything.

Only the crack and pop of the fire manages to pry them apart. Love teeters forward, the severed kiss disrupting her balance as Andrew hums, dragging his lips away and hovering his forehead against the outline of hers. Somehow, this motion has its own force, preventing her from toppling through him.

Those euphoric irises hood while he speaks against the apparition of her mouth. “That was beautiful.”

She shudders. “That wasn’t all.”

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