Page 68 of That Birthday in Barbados
Catherine
ANDERS IS SLEEPING.
I am exhausted. Pleasurably exhausted. Sated. Unimaginably so.
I want to sleep, but I can’t. Though my body is heavy with a tiredness that needs no explanation, my mind is wide awake.
Anders is on his back. I am tucked into the curve of his arm. Our clothes are long since missing. I rest my palm on the center of his chest, absorbing the slow thud of his heart. His resting pulse is incredibly slow, but then given his level of fitness, it isn’t surprising.
The curtains to the room are open just wide enough to allow a swath of moonlight to drape the top half of the bed. I raise my head to study his face, his enviably long lashes, the slash of cheekbone that is perhaps the most notable fact of his beauty.
And he is beautiful. There’s not a more appropriate word that applies. I want to touch him, but I don’t want to wake him. I would rather hold on to this opportunity to watch him, drink him in until I’ve had my fill.
But then I’m not sure I could ever tire of watching him.
As if he has felt my thoughts, his eyes open. I see his momentary confusion, and then the flare of recognition and the reality of me in his bed.
He turns onto his side, runs his hand through my hair. “Can’t sleep?”
I shake my head.
“Hm.” He pauses, as if thinking. “It would be rude to let you lie here with nothing to do. Don’t you agree?”
“Maybe a little,” I say, hearing the teasing note in his voice and injecting it in mine. “And you are, after all, a very hospitable man.”
“Sooo the polite thing would be for me to find some way to entertain you, I suppose so?”
“Can’t argue with your logic.”
With one finger, he reaches out to trace a path along my cheek, down the center of my throat, around the curve of my breast.
I try to say something but have no air for words.
With two hands then, he spans my waist and lifts me up, as if he’s doing a bench press in the gym, and slowly, slowly, lowers me on top of him. His biceps and chest get all the credit, tight and hard. I sit straight, shocked by how instantly my body comes alive with need for him. A small sound of want escapes my lips, and I lean down to kiss him, aware of every pounding pulse beneath my skin.
“I like entertaining,” he says in a low, desire-roughened voice.
“I can see why,” I say softly. “You’re really, really good at it.”
He laughs near my ear, and his hands rove my back before settling on my bottom. He presses me to him, and then neither of us wants to talk anymore. Our bodies write their own language.
*
I HEAR ANDERS get up at an hour that feels undoable given that I feel as if I haven’t slept all night. Which isn’t far from true.
When I open my eyes, he’s fully dressed in workout clothes. He sits on the side of the bed, leans in and kisses my forehead. “I’m going to teach. You go back to sleep. I’ll be back in a bit.”
“Really?” I ask. “You don’t mind?”
“To the contrary. I’ll spend the class picturing you waiting for me here. I’ll pedal faster.”
I laugh, pull the sheet up to my chin. “Okay, then. If you insist.”
He brushes a hand across my hair, and then he is gone.
*
AMAZINGLY, I DO go back to sleep.
