Chapter 36
36
Kieran
“I like you,” she said dreamily. Her face was relaxed, and the crease between her brows that I’d been worried about was gone. She slid her fingers along my hairline softly. “If this were real, I’d tell you that all the time.”
“I like you, too. I…” I kissed her thigh. “I like you more than I’ve ever liked anyone.” The honesty felt refreshing, like I’d lifted a weight off my shoulders, even though it was this game of what-if she’d created.
“Even Hannah Carson?”
“Definitely.” I chuckled and drew circles on her hip bone and then kissed her there. “If this were real, I’d be out of my mind about you and how much I want to focus on you.”
“We’re not done yet, are we?” She sat up straighter and looked me over.
“We’ve barely gotten started.” I slid my palms under her top, exploring her ribs, and massaged her breasts. The shirt came off easily and ended up on the floor on the other side of the couch, and before I could start on her bra, she reached behind her back, unhooking the clasp and tossing the garment aside. She sat in front of me in the light of the fire with an impish grin on her face, and I couldn’t look away.
“You’ve got a lot of clothes on still,” she said, tugging at my hoodie and adding it to the pile on the floor. With the heat from the fire warm against my back, I pulled her in for another kiss. The pressure of her hands moving down my chest and over my stomach pushed me to deepen the kiss, needing more of her heat, more of her skin. Sybil broke the kiss, unfastening my jeans and looking at her own ministrations as she lowered my zipper and freed me from the confines.
Her strokes were unhurried and firm and already driving me wild. “Sybil,” I groaned, but her lips were on mine again, her tongue meeting mine stroke for stroke, and I pushed down my pants, making a grab for my wallet.
“Condom?” she asked, pulling at my pants and boxers as I looked through my wallet.
I held up the foil packet and kicked my pants aside. Her expression was so…Sybil. One part wide smile and another part devious expression. I stroked her lower lip with my tongue, this time soft and slow, wanting to savor every moment before giving way to the kiss, knowing we might not get this chance again.
“Pretending to date a really organized guy has perks.” She plucked the condom from my hand.
“It’s real tonight, remember?” I said before kissing her again and dragging my lips down her neck. “Do you still want me to lose control, Syb?”
“God, yes.” She stroked me again, her palm moving up my length. “I need out of control. Everything lately has been too…ordered.”
I guided her to turn toward the couch, stealing a kiss along the nape of her neck and dragging my lips lower over the curve of her spine, then back up, enjoying the way goose bumps sprang up along her spine as I kissed each spot. “I want to tease you and do all kinds of things to drive you wild, but your body, Sybil…” I palmed a full round cheek, earning a perfect noise from her.
“Well, what if you don’t tease me now, and then we spend the rest of the night figuring out how to drive each other wild?” Her sharp intake of breath when I punctuated her question with a light smack was all the encouragement I needed. “You know I like spontaneous.”
I kissed the side of her neck. “Mm, okay. I like that idea.” I pressed my palm against the middle of her back, easing her down. “Bend over and spread your legs.”
I watched her body curve forward and hurriedly rolled on the condom. When I stepped back to her, I pressed against her heat, sliding my length along her slit and teasing her clit. I had to close my eyes to the overload of sensation. “It’s not spontaneous, though. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time.” I moved my fingers between her thighs, finding her wet and hot, and I stroked her clit, pulling a mew from her lips.
“Kieran,” she said, grinding against my fingers. “Don’t make me wait.”
I nudged her opening with the head of my cock, teasing her even though I’d said I wouldn’t, and reveling in how it felt when she backed against me. “I know you want this,” I said. “But do you want hard and fast or soft and slow?” I stroked her lower back and palmed one cheek again. “Because with you, I want both.”
“Hard. Fast.” She wriggled against me. “Now.”
I smiled to myself at her last addition and pressed into her opening, the squeeze of her wet heat an immediate jolt to every sense as I slammed forward all the way in and she cried out. Sybil backed into me, urging me forward, and I pulled out and slammed into her again, her slick, hot body welcoming me with each powerful thrust. Each of her cries was like a shot of adrenaline, and I could already feel heat gathering at the base of my spine. “How’s your balance, Syb? Can you use one hand to stroke yourself?”
“One-handed is new,” she panted out when I thrust in again.
“I bet it’s not new at all.” I shivered at the roll of her hips against me and her own hand. “I want you to think of me, to think of us, the next time you do this.”
The idea of her thighs spread wide, and her getting herself over the edge, pushed me closer, too. “Give me another one,” I said, with two shallow thrusts before slamming forward again.
Her thighs shook, and I braced my hands on her waist to pull her back against me. “So good,” she groaned. “Just a little more,” she said between heavy breaths.
I moved a hand from her waist and swatted her cheek, soft at first, then firmer. “Like that?”
Her only response was a moan, and I smacked her cheek again while burying myself in her repeatedly, her eager body meeting mine thrust for thrust until she tensed and pulsed around me as she cried out again, my name on her lips as I crashed through my release, fingers digging into her full hips until we both came down.
“We’re so good together,” she said, breathless and limp under me as I helped her to slowly rise, wrapping her in my arms, needing more contact. “Why did we wait so long to do that, Kieran?” Her voice was soft, and I wanted to hear her say my name like that over and over until we fell asleep. Not just tonight but every night. I’d never felt like that about anyone. I’d never taken my focus off being a doctor to imagine who’d be next to me when I did it, but now it was hard to imagine anyone else. I squeezed her tighter, not ready to separate yet and glad she couldn’t see my face, because she’d be able to tell.
···
A few hours later, I returned from the kitchen and set two glasses of water on the table by the bed we’d hastily made after another round on the couch.
“Cold!” Sybil curled into herself at the intrusion into her cocoon with my return.
“Sorry,” I said, tucking the blankets back around us. “I brought you snacks, though.”
She looked over my shoulder at the small bag of Oreos I’d picked up at a gas station on the drive up. “Cookies are my love language.”
“I know.” I pulled her against me, drunk on her, addicted to this effortless closeness we had found together in the cabin. I mingled my legs with hers, which earned me a yelp as she tried to pull away.
“Why are your toes like ice cubes!” She squealed and I chased her feet with my own, drinking in her giggles.
“You told me you couldn’t do it again if I was still in my socks, remember?”
“Just socks is not a good look,” she laughed, “but I didn’t think of the consequences!” She wriggled away from me, but I wrapped my ankle around her legs and dropped a kiss to her lips, a soft peck to steal her giggle, which deepened immediately when her lips parted, inviting me to fall into a dizzying kiss with her.
“The consequences,” she said, her voice breathy as she melted against me again. She didn’t finish her thought, or maybe she was as confused as I was at how a fake-dating relationship could feel so real, how pure and right it was to laugh with her and kiss her, how absolutely perfect it was to sink into her heat.
“Tell me something real about you,” she said, twisting in my arms and changing the subject. “Not because—well, not to convince other people just because we’re naked and warm except for your feet, and because you saved me…” Her voice trailed off, but I could hear the longing in her tone. I rolled to my back and looked at the ceiling, pulling her with me, taking in the way her soft curls brushed my neck, the way so often with her it felt like I’d known that sensation forever.
“I love the zoo.”
Sybil rolled onto one elbow. “That is not what I expected you to say. My God, Kieran. That’s practically whimsical.”
“It’s science, too.” I chuckled and ran a finger along her spine, continuing the route around her waist and across her stomach. “When I was little, my school took all of us, and I don’t know, I thought it was a magical place. All the animals, and we could just have fun like all the other kids. I haven’t been there in years, but I always think of that place as…I don’t know. Something really special.”
Sybil lowered herself again, resting her arm across my stomach.
“It’s stupid, but when I was there, everything weighing on me felt far away. That my mom left, that we had to work at the shop a lot, that there was all this pressure to take care of things, it was gone.” I remembered trudging toward the exit, not wanting to leave. I followed the line of Sybil’s spine up and down. That was the way I felt with her, like the stuff not working in my life didn’t seem to matter as much, like it was far away.
Sybil’s finger traced circles on my chest. “I like the otters,” she said finally.
“I liked them, too.” I snagged her hand as it neared my neck, kissing each fingertip while I could. “They hold hands,” I said, linking our fingers, curling mine around hers. “Like this, in the water.”
“And.” She tightened her fingers in mine and straightened. Her movements were always so vibrant when she got excited, and she propped herself up on one elbow. “I got a little obsessed with otters a while back and found out everything there was to find on them. Did you know they’re actually really smart? They can use tools, and they’re apex predators, like sharks?”
I thought about my classmates, though they’d all be ahead of me when I returned. The idea that I was going back, that it was imminent, still had not fully hit me, and I still had to get in touch with the school and Miles. “Apex predators? Sounds like they’d do well in medical school.”
She flopped onto her back, pulling the blankets tighter around us. “Do you miss it?”
“I miss being good at something, at moving toward something.” I tucked a hand behind my head. “A lot of people are driven and motivated by the competition, but for me, it’s something else.”
“It’s making things happen. Fixing.” She toyed with the fraying edge of the old quilt. “Right?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I guess that’s it.”
“Were you always like that? You always liked fixing?”
I couldn’t remember a time when I didn’t have to take care of things, but I paused on her question, unsure how to answer. “I didn’t have a lot of choice when we were with my mom. She was…well, usually she wasn’t on top of stuff even when she was there. And Lila was still so young…it was I do it or it doesn’t happen. Mom believed it would all just fall into place and…it never did. Makes you learn cause and effect early, you know?”
“Do you think you’d still want to be a doctor if your mom was more present? Like, do you think the science and the peopling would still appeal to you without that?”
I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure how I felt or what I really wanted, and that made my stomach flip. “Lila says I’m not good at peopling.”
“You’re pretty good at peopling with me.”
“You’re a special case.” I looked at the wooden beams across the ceiling and thought about her question. “I like that there are questions that can be answered in medicine. I like finding solutions. I think even if things didn’t need fixing, if I’d never had to fix things my mom left broken, I’d like that part.”
She nodded and rested her head in the crook of my neck, her curls tickling the bottom of my chin. “Do I remind you of her? Your mom?”
She had, in the beginning. I’d worried I was going to fall for someone who could leave the way she had, which made me put my walls up. But with Sybil in my arms, with her languid body next to mine, I shook my head. “The good parts,” I said. “I mean, she’d forget to buy food or take us to school, but when she was present, when her attention was on us, it was amazing.” I hadn’t let myself remember that in years, remember the way I clamored to make her smile and feel her hug me, and how full I felt when it happened. “You make me feel like that, like everything brightens up.”
She rolled her body to rest her forearms on my chest. “If this were real, I would remember to buy food. I might even have dinner waiting for you when you left the hospital.”
I chuckled and tucked a curl behind her ear. “You’re going to learn to cook?”
“Well, I’ll have Marcus have dinner waiting for us when you leave the hospital.”
“That’s less romantic, and yet probably more delicious…” I let my gaze roam her face. “It’s nice to imagine staying together, though.”
“It is. But you have to go back to school.” She smiled sadly and curled next to me again. “Do you regret agreeing to this whole thing? I know you needed the money, but it’s kind of been a lot of trouble for you. Must have taken time away from your studying. I’ve barely heard you talk about school lately.” The question was abrupt, but I was surprised how unjarring it was for her to ask it, how used to her questions I was.
“No,” I said. “No regrets.”
“Are you only saying that because I’m so fuckable?” She grinned and tickled my side with a few fingers but paused her teasing at my silence.
“No,” I said, staring at the ceiling. “If this were real, I would tell you it’s because you’re so…lovable.” I’d known I loved her the moment she walked into the shop upset. I couldn’t say that now, though, couldn’t throw a wrench into this whole thing because I’d gone and caught feelings for her. I could manage those feelings. Instead, I lifted our linked fingers over her head, rolling her to her back. She looked up at me with wide eyes, and I dropped my lips down to hers to avoid her gaze, certain she’d know in an instant that there was something I was keeping from her. I trailed kisses down her neck. “Let me show you how much I do not regret this.” I unlinked our fingers, pressing her hand to the pillow over her head before I moved lower on her body, taking one perfect brown nipple against my tongue and knowing there was nothing I regretted about us. I had no doubts. I was falling in love with her, and under the warmth of the blankets and in the path of her smile, that was what I knew was true.
“Kieran,” she murmured, sliding her fingers through my hair with slow, gentle strokes. “For what it’s worth.” She nudged my chin to get me to look up on my path down her body. “I’m really going to miss you when this is over and you go back to school.”
I kissed her sternum again instead of responding, because with her voice in my ears and her body against me, those feelings felt much less manageable than I’d anticipated. It struck me just then that if I wasn’t more careful, I was going to put my goals on the curb to stay like this.