Chapter 24 #2
I feel her hold her breath as I guide my erection toward her with my hand.
When I move inside her, it feels like time’s falling apart.
My hand hits the cold tiles behind her, her brow moves away from mine as she puts back her head.
I feel her hands on my shoulders and suppress a gasp as she starts moving.
I force myself to hold still as Emma moves her hips gently forward and back, cautiously at first and then more determinedly.
We pant at the same time as I bring my hips toward her.
She groans quietly, and I do it again. And then again.
Until her legs are trembling and her breath is going as fast as mine.
They’re not movements anymore, they’re thrusts.
Emma, who’s guiding my hands to her thighs and wrapping her legs around me as I lift her up again.
My fingers slip over her skin, hers dig like claws into my shoulders as we pick up speed.
It’s more intense than anything I’ve ever experienced.
It’s hard in the gentlest way, it’s deep and thrilling, and as she starts to throb around me, and the pressure builds within me, I can no longer hold back my groan.
The panting sounds she’s making, her legs pulling me closer, her fingers on my skin, her hot breath on my neck, and then the pressure gets too much.
I have to shut my eyes as the tremor rolls through my body.
My breath is still heavy. Her hands are roaming through my hair. I know she didn’t come when she pulls me closer and holds on tight. Her fingers stroke the nape of my neck, and her lips are gleaming red as I raise my head again. She’s looking at me with that smile in her eyes.
“Sorry,” I whisper, kissing her. Slowly and carefully.
“What for?”
“You didn’t come.” I look at her. “Or did you?”
She shakes her head ever so slightly. “It’s not so bad. It was still lovely.”
“We could . . .”
She kisses me, and I forget what I’d been going to say. Nothing else matters, and there’s something so beautiful about that.
Emma closes her eyes as I pull myself out of her and lower her carefully until her feet touch the floor.
She draws me closer but stops in midmovement as I push my hand between her legs.
Her pupils widen almost imperceptibly as I look at her.
She bites her bottom lip gently, and I feel her twitch as I touch her with two fingers. I kiss her mouth and move my hand.
“Tell me if it’s good like this,” I whisper into her side and feel her get goose bumps.
“You don’t have to,” she murmurs and falls silent as I stop.
“I don’t have to, or I shouldn’t?”
There’s just a look, then Emma’s hand on mine. She increases the pressure and I understand. We kiss as I touch her. I only relax when she gives that quiet groan again, and I drop to my knees in front of her.
Emma
Henry on his knees in front of me and with his mouth between my legs is more than I would ever have thought possible.
It was incredible enough feeling him inside me, but this is something else.
It’s the throbbing heat in my belly and the certainty that I could come like this.
My knees start to tremble, I feel his hands on the backs of my thighs, and I have the feeling my legs might give way beneath me at any moment .
. . It’s ridiculous that I’m thinking about that of all things.
I have to tense my stomach muscles because it’s too much, but the trembling doesn’t stop.
Henry doesn’t stop, and it’s almost more than I can bear.
He finds the right position, the right pressure, he stays there until I fall apart under his hands and his mouth and, oh, God, his tongue.
I claw my fingers into his hair, he digs his fingers into my skin. I’ve never been so hot. Maybe I’ll burn up into nothing right here and now, beneath his hands, but at least it would’ve been worth it.
My head falls back, my eyes close. A sound escapes me, one I’ve never heard myself make before, and it makes Henry shiver.
It’s a wave flowing through my body from the parting of my hair to the tips of my toes, until my legs won’t hold me anymore and I fall to my knees in front of Henry.
My body is soft, my muscles have stopped working.
They’ve simply dissolved into thin air, but it’s all right.
Henry pulls me to him, I sink onto the tiles in front of him. He kisses me. I can taste myself and him, and it’s incredible. My head is empty, I can’t think. Only Henry. Henry everywhere. Henry in my head, Henry in my mouth, against my stomach, on my skin.
He pulls himself up a little, to turn on the water. I keep my eyes closed and lean back my head. The warm droplets fall onto my face. The tiled floor is cold—I’m only just noticing that again. We’re in the male showers, it was our first time, and it’s perfect. It really is pretty perfect.
Once we’ve showered, Henry pulls a change of clothes from his locker for each of us.
I may never understand what it is about wearing a sweatshirt that belongs to someone you like.
It’s soft and way too big. It smells a little of laundry detergent and a lot of Henry.
On the way to his wing, I’m relatively certain that I’ll never be able to take it off, but then I’m lying next to him in his bed, and everything is so cuddly and warm.
Henry pulls the hood of his sweatshirt up around my face and ties the drawstrings under my chin.
I let him because he’s smiling so much as he does it, and then he bends down to kiss me. I’m seriously smitten with him. Shit.
I don’t think a thing like this with Henry happens that often.
It doesn’t compare with anything. When Noah and I got together, it just kind of happened.
We didn’t talk all that much. At some stage, Isi started making jokes until everyone knew we fancied each other.
There was this theme party put on by that year’s Abitur class, and it was the first time I’d drunk alcohol, and Noah kissed me.
And then it was kind of a thing, Emma and Noah, for quite a while.
It feels like a lifetime away, but I remember how much it hurt when it was suddenly over.
I look at Henry and wonder what it must be like for something old to come to an end and something new to begin.
All in such a short time. I guess it’s exhausting.
“What’s up?” he asks quietly.
“Do you miss Grace?” I ask.
“Em . . .” Henry hesitates.
Maybe it’s inappropriate to bring up the subject of his ex-girlfriend right after we’ve first had sex. I don’t know.
“I’m just wondering,” I mumble. “I want us to be able to talk about anything.”
Henry’s eyes soften. “I want that too.”
“You see.”
“And yes. I do miss her somehow.”
“You were together a long time.”
Henry nods. “Although I don’t know if ‘miss’ is the right word. But I think about her a lot and hope she’s OK. I never wanted to hurt her.”
“I’m sure she knows that.”
“Probably. But it doesn’t change anything about what I did.”
“So long as you didn’t break up with her over WhatsApp, I’m sure it’s not too bad,” I murmur, and maybe that’s mean of me, but I can’t help my cynical side taking over when I remember how that felt.
“Is that what Noah did?” asks Henry.
“Yeah, it was pretty shitty.”
“Have you seen anything else of him and your friend?”
I shake my head. “I muted them.”
“On Instagram?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s good.” Henry picks at the hoodie string’s bow until it undoes. “Don’t let it get to you.”
I really don’t have to let it get to me. Of course, it does a bit, but I’m trying.
“I think Olive hates me,” I say, out of nowhere.
Henry frowns. “Why would she?”
“Because I arrived here and, first, I came between her and Tori, and then I stole Grace’s boyfriend.” And now he’s lying here with me. “She said so herself.”
Henry stays silent for a while. “If she has to hate anyone, she ought to hate me.”
“Henry . . .”
“No, seriously, I mean it. You didn’t come between anyone. Tori likes you, you get on well, and if Olive has a problem with that, it’s between her and Tori. The same goes for Grace and me. You’re not the cause of the problem. Don’t let anyone tell you you are.”
“So you wouldn’t say that none of these problems even existed before I got here?”
“That’s rubbish and you know it. They were just simmering under the surface. Like a dormant volcano. It was clear that it wouldn’t work out in the long run. And I’m glad you’re here.” Henry smiles. “Don’t you dare go anywhere else now.”
“Apart from St. Andrews with you?” I say it half ironically, but his eyes gleam in that hopeful way that gives me a stomachache. What if I don’t get in? I curl up beside him. “Do you honestly think I could do it?”
“Of course you can do it.” He says it without a second’s hesitation. “You can do anything you put your mind to.”
“My grades aren’t good enough.”
“But you’ve got almost two whole years here.”
“Have I?”
“I hope so.”
“I talked to Mum about it last weekend,” I say.
Henry looks at me. “And?”
“She was pleased, said it would be nice for me.”
“I think it would be nice for you too. And for me, of course.”
“I thought as much.”
“But it’s your life, Em,” says Henry, to my surprise.
“You shouldn’t make this kind of decision for her sake, and certainly not for mine.
The most important thing is for you to be happy, and if that means you’re living back in Germany next year while I’m here, we’ll manage.
There are phones and FaceTime and airplanes. ”
I hadn’t known until now how much I needed to hear those words.
It’s as if a weight I hadn’t even been aware of has been lifted off my shoulders.
There’s warmth in my belly, and I’m feeling so many things for Henry all at once.
Affection, gratitude, admiration, respect.
He really means all of that. Being with him is a whole different level of lovely.
Because he’s self-aware enough to tell me he’d like to have me here with him, while at the same time, he’ll have my back unconditionally if my plans for the future don’t match his. It feels so healthy.
“I don’t want phones and FaceTime, though. I want this,” I say. “With you.”
He smiles.
“Can you picture us going to St. Andrews together?” I ask, rolling onto my back and looking up at the ceiling.
“I can definitely picture that,” he says. “I bet there are some great nighttime walks there.”
“Not as good as the ones here, of course.”
“We’ll have to find out.”
“We could live together,” I say, without thinking. “Without wing time and the fear of getting caught.”
“And you don’t think it would take the fun out of things?”
“I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t.”
Henry leans over me. “But until then, we can make the most of the thrill of secrecy.”
I can’t answer because his mouth is on mine. My lips open for his tongue as his warm, heavy body presses me deeper into the mattress. I slide my hands over his shoulders, into the sleeves of his T-shirt until there’s no more room for me there with his firm upper arms.
Shall we do it again, Henry? I’d be so up for that, but what if someone hears us? There’s no way it’s a good thing for me to be so blasé about it. I’m too deep in love. I want Henry, and I get him, his mouth, his weight, and his scent.
It’s a little less greedy than in the showers earlier, but I don’t feel any less tingly or full of anticipation when Henry stands up to fetch a condom. He has to move faster. Please.
I slip off the joggers he lent me and then his hoodie, under which I’m not wearing anything.
Henry’s hands are trembling slightly as he raises my arms above my head and crosses my wrists on the pillow, before pushing another one under my hips.
It’s quiet. All I can hear is the rustle of the duvet and our heavy breathing.
Henry’s careful as he enters me. He’s careful as he starts to move—until I stretch my pelvis to meet him, and then he’s not careful anymore.
He leans down to me, his hair falls into his face.
He kisses me again. He thrusts gently, he thrusts harder, and my head falls back.
His hips find a new angle, one at which everything’s a bit different somehow from what I knew before.
Henry does it again, thrusts again, gasps as I gasp.
All I can do is to move with him, deeper, faster, trembling hands, empty head.
He’s making a big effort to keep quiet, but I can still hear them, his non-noises.
They push me a little way over the edge, and when he has to shut his eyes and press his lips together, it’s over. It’s simply over.
I fall into Henry’s arms, and I love it.
When he runs his lips over my collarbone, it’s perfect.
I just lie there like I’m on a tiny cloud—a ninety-centimeter mattress—smooth, hot skin, and his scent.
I can’t leave here. I’ll never again be able to go anywhere that Henry isn’t.
Every day has to be like today. Every kiss like the one where he just strokes my lips very gently with his and pauses directly over my mouth.
Until I, with a huge effort, raise my head and kiss him.
It’s the height of happiness. I understand that now.
Later, I’ll sometimes ask myself if I shouldn’t have guessed at this point that it couldn’t stay this way, because it was too perfect. Too pink, too light, too beautiful. Because the cloud was a patch of turbulence, and we’re falling. Hand in hand, but very fast. There’s nothing to be done.