Page 75 of Love at First Sighting
I need to know every inch of her and take my time. The prior two times we’ve had sex, it was quick, rushed, but I had no complaints. The desk was impulsive, as was what happened in the back of my car when I dropped her off at the Nest the following morning. This…
I have all the time in the world and I’m going to use it generously.
El brings her hands to the sides of my face, tilting my chin down so her tongue can slip inside my mouth. She still tastes like the vodka soda with cranberry she had at dinner and thefruity tang of her lip gloss, but nothing tastes as sweet as the bite she gives my bottom lip as she winds her fingers in my hair and grinds her hips into mine.
I work my hands into her back pockets, curving them around her ass. She lets out a heated moan along my jaw as I hold her tighter and tilt my head back. El takes that as an invitation to paint all over the extra canvas I’ve given her. Tongue and moans and mauve-pink lipstick marking me left and right.
“Shit,” she mutters, yanking herself away from my throat. The loss of her touch is like a branding iron. “Leonard.”
“Don’t worry,” I sigh, guiding her lips back to mine. “He won’t hear us.”
“How do you know?”
“Listen.”
El shuts her eyes and listens closely. The walls in my apartment are thin, so I can actually hear more of Leonard’s late-night Zoom D&D sessions than he will probably hear of me getting laid. Judging by the neon lights coming from beneath his bedroom door when we entered and the shouts of “LEEROY JENKINS” and “let me get out of your AoE,” I was led to the apt conclusion that he was already busy.
“He’s raiding a dungeon or something. And he isnotgoing to hear all the ways I’m going to make you come tonight. And even if he does…”
I trace my thumb down the slant of El’s jaw. Her mouth is pink and swollen from kissing me and her eyes are the deepest, darkest brown and it makes me want to melt. I’ve never met a woman as intoxicating and indomitable as El, and she’ll always feel like far more than any human deserves.
“Besides, short of you telling me to stop, there’s nothing that could keep me from touching you.”
“An alien invasion?” She laughs, stroking my cheek.
“Eh, with the bureaucracy, it would take a while to get down to my level. We’d have a few minutes, at least.”
This makes El dial up the intensity. She drowns me in another kiss, and I cradle her in my arms because she’s the most precious thing I’ve ever held. She knows all the angles to hit, what she’s searching for, and I’m struggling to keep in control. She has me so enraptured, I can’t even think abouthowI want to take her, so long as I get to have her at all.
I want her spread out, my tongue swirling around her clit, her crying my name, her bundled in my arms as I drive her to a climax. El is someone I am never going to get sick of making love to.
She breaks away for a split second to pull her T-shirt over her head. Fuck, I am so in love with every curve of her body, the swell of her breasts over the cups of her bra. I want to put my mouth on all of her—tasting the ever-soft dip of her sternum, the firm muscles of her stomach, following a trail from her belly button down.
“Fuck, you are so beautiful,” I gasp between kisses.
“I’d say the same, but Imightneed to strip you down more to confirm.”
God, this woman. “Have your way with me, Agent Ariel.”
“Great.” She laughs. It’s so intoxicating, joyful, and sweet. “I’m going to begin with a strip search.”
“My queen of escalation.”
El smothers a laugh in the crook of my neck. It makes my heart grow catastrophically large and there’s never been anyone I’ve wanted to care for the way I want to care for her. “Stop making me laugh. Let me get you naked.”
“Sorry. If you’ve got to punish me, I suppose I understand.”
El finds the hem of my T-shirt. Her fingers curl around the bottom, tugging it slowly up my body and over my shoulders. We’ve never stripped each other and there’s a sense of intimacy that feels like baring our souls. When she pulls away and tosses the shirt on the floor, she eyes me like I’m a sculpture. Something worth studying instead of using.
El’s manicured fingers—a pale pink that’s nearly invisible—wander down my chest, exploring my low-budget muscles and drawing her thumb down the trail of hair leading into my jeans. She runs her tongue along the inside of her bottom lip. Her eyes settle on the scars on my arm—a jagged one on the inside of my elbow. She follows the long-healed markings to my shoulder.
“Don’t worry,” I whisper. “I’m not fragile. You don’t have to be gentle with me.”
El digs her hands into my hair, kissing along the shell of my ear and laughing. “Good. I wasn’t planning on it.”
I bring my hands to El’s thighs, hook my grip around her, and hoist her into my arms. She mutters “well, shit” as we stumble toward my bed. I hope if I can leave her gasping my name and begging for more, it’ll excuse the fact that this mattress came in a box.
I rest El on the bed, one hand behind her head, and look her over. Her dark hair spreads out in a halo on my sheets, and I know the smell of her cool cucumber shampoo will bleed into my bedding. I’m imagining waking up to the sound of her breathing and falling in love with the sweet sounds she makes as she’s sleeping. I’ve never thought about anyone that way. No one has ever felt like home the way El does.
