Page 96 of When Love Gives You Lemons
He’s tearing at my shirt, ripping it over my head.
He stares at the ring around my neck.
“Tell me you don’t love me,” he says.
“I—”Can’t.
He hooks a finger into the ring and pulls me forward. Then, slowly, tenderly, he kisses me, increasing in intensity. He moves from lips to cheek to earlobe.
My head knocks back against a window. My arms go limp, Eyes rolling from intense pleasure that sends shivers down my spine.
Unable to wait longer, he pushes me up against the wall, taking full control, which is so unlike anything Fielder that it sends me into overdrive. Sensory memories of Fielder’s hands on my body, exploring me for the first time, flood me, but back then, it was never this intense, this fervent or urgent like both of us would cease to exist if we stopped. Usually, I was the one who took control, told him what to do and where to go, and he obeyed.
Now, I’m his, I’m his. “I’m yours.”
Putty to shape or mold, do anything he wants.
Without warning, he pulls away. Locks the door. Eyes me with fervor, hunger.
My weak legs tremble, and I nearly crash to the floor.
Everything is so heady I barely register where I am when his hand grabs mine and he leads me to the bed and throws me onto it, messing up the rose petals.
He wedges himself between my legs, lifting the bottom half of my body and sliding our suits off. My legs wrap around him, and he hovers over me.
I stare deep into the lemon groves of his eyes.
I couldn’t carve a statue as intricately beautiful or pen a poem as epic as Fielder Lemon. I take a moment to study him, commit his face to memory, the face I’d already memorized yet somehow see there’s so much more to him than I knew.
Our lungs expand and contract together as our bodies rock with the waves.
Time slips through our entangled bodies, and I don’t knowhow long we’re locked in this room, but I don’t care. I won’t go back to a life without Fielder Lemon.
Twisted in the sheets, I sit up, towering over him, my torso slick with beads of sweat. I brush my damp, shaggy hair out of my eyes.
He collapses on top of me, my body floating in another dimension.
Butterfly kisses on cheeks.
We rest in each other’s arms. I allow him to hold me the way I used to hold him. The control over me he suddenly has is intoxicating and exciting.
I can’t get enough.
We’re awakened by the captain over the loudspeaker announcing our return to port in Amalfi. Fielder moves to check his phone, which somehow ended up on the floor. We missed the entire cruise along the coastline. The sun is low in the sky, casting a light orange glow across the sea, but I don’t want this to end.
Not now.
Fielder sits on the edge of the bed, clutching the comforter to his chest.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“It feels too delicate, like it’s not real.”
I gently rub his back. Tears fill his eyes.
“You don’t believe me?” I ask.
“I want to. But I thought it was real before, when we were together, and now there’s a you and Cam, so . . . I don’t know. But I gotta be honest, Ric.” He looks out of breath, like he just ran amarathon. “There’s a lot you missed. A lot webothmissed.” His admission startles me. “We haven’t talked about anything.”
