Page 63 of The Wallflower Manifesto
She flattened her hands and felt the planes of his chest, the radiating warmth of his skin exposed at the collar of his shirt. She traced her fingers down his arms, her heart leaping into her throat when they reached the roll of his sleeves at the elbow, leaving only his exposed forearms and those hands, those hands that had not left her body.
She followed their movement for the space of a held breath, rode along with the paths they made over her, the claims they staked. She felt it twofold until she couldn’t stand it any longer.
She pushed her grasp from the warmth of his hand to the cool, taunting barrier of his waistband, tugging his shirt loose, fumbling to get it free. She heard him react, heard the sound of distracted surprise or perhaps approval as he assisted her, jerking the shirt up over his head and onto the floor, all the whilerefusing to completely remove his grip on her with one hand or the other.
He curled his tongue into her mouth, pressing her soft, smaller hand onto his now bare chest, encouraging her to explore, to claim him the way he was claiming her. And when he was satisfied that she would do just that, he pulled his belt away too.
There was a brief, agonizing loss as he pulled away to look down at himself, at her pale hands on his chest, at the contrast of softness and firmness, the clash of their skin tones. He drew ragged breaths, looking wild, as though he both couldn’t tolerate the reality of it and wanted to burn it permanently into his memory.
Millie couldn’t help herself, couldn’t stop the exploration of the planes and muscle, the warmth and dusting of coarse hair, all of it so very, very different from her own body. She watched it too. She understood the appeal and the torment of it too.
When he moved, the muscles under all of that gorgeous, warm skin moved too, and it stole her breath from her lungs. And he did move, to cover her hands with his, to crowd her closer to the wall, to stare hungrily into her face while he pulled her fingertips lower, to the dip of muscle at his hips, to what hid beneath the final barrier of his trousers.
“Bed,” he managed to say, eyes falling back down to the path of her hands as the word ripped from his throat.
She nodded, but she did not step aside to immediately obey. Instead, that border that he’d drawn her fingertips to begged to be crossed, called to her, sang to her. It wasn’t that she couldn’t fight it, it was that she refused to.
And so she touched him. She dipped her hands under the waistband of his trousers and she found him, his arousal, the proof of his desire, her fingers stroking and exploring with breathless awe and instinctive need.
“Oh,” she heard herself whisper, shocked at how all this demanding hardness could also be so deliciously soft. How heavy and full her hand felt. How right.
She felt his body tense, felt every muscle in his magnificent form bunch and freeze. He released more air than his lungs could have possibly been holding, trembling with the power it took to hold himself still, to let this thing he hadn’t expected but wanted more than life to unfold.
Even that part of him she was touching seemed to tense, to move of its own accord in the softness of her palm, to beg her for more.
“Millie,” he said so softly, she might not have heard it through the blood rushing in her own ears.
She looked up and met his eyes, fingers still lingering on him.
Somehow, it held the power of thousands of words, the flash of impact of meeting those eyes, of feeling them hook into her own and dive directly into her soul, even here in this dark room.
“Bed,” she whispered, murmuring the mirror of his own command. She let her hands float back upward, over his hips and stomach, and she felt herself moving, not pulling exactly but inviting, as she found her way toward his bed.
He followed her, his gait almost prowling but not imposing. Giving her the space to choose, to move of her own accord.
She stopped just short of the mattress, her fingers tracing the sheets, the sheets Abe slept on, this secret thing that was only hisuntil he let her into his domain. She marveled down at it, this place where he slept, her heart aching at the nights she hadn’t shared there, all those wasted nights.
She turned back to him and gathered the hem of her shift in her hands, raising it carefully, deliberately, as though he could stop her if it was a step too far. But he didn’t, of course. He watched, rapt, like she was a comet in the sky or a rare bird landing on one’s finger. He watched while he breathed with effort as she revealed herself to him. Completely.
“Gu fòiridh Dia orm,” he intoned, without even seeming to realize he was speaking, the alien sounds tumbling from his mouth in a raspy gasp of breath.
She wasn’t sure what came next. Part of her expected to feel compelled to snatch up her shift immediately and undo what she’d just revealed, but the panic of regret never arrived; the concern that she’d made a mistake never registered.
All she could think to do was hold her hand out to him, to invite him closer.
He took it.
They fell into the bed together, bare skin colliding in agonizing contradictions with awakening and burning and ache. They were one thing, a tangle of limbs and mouths and want.
She didn’t know when he divested himself of the last of his clothing, didn’t register the perfection of their shared nudity, but when he finally claimed that empty space inside her, when he pushed his arousal into hers, it no longer mattered, because it felt as though he had always been there.
It was impossible to know if it had been seconds or hours.
Was he being careful? Was he being harsh? Was it both or neither or all manner of things at once?
Yes, she thought,yes. It was all of it. Her eyes rolled shut, her body reacting and mirroring the motions of his as he took her, as he filled her, that gorgeous body beside her, above her, inside her. She could feel the way she was changing him, the gathering slickness with every renewed collision, the shared madness of it.
“Abe,” she cried, clutching him to her, “my Abe.”
