Chapter 6 #2
I pull her against me. My hands slide into her hair, then down her back, then under her shirt.
Her skin is warm from the drive over and I can feel her heartbeat against my palms. She makes a sound into my mouth, quiet and urgent, and I pick her up.
Her legs wrap around my waist. I carry her through the bedroom door.
We fall onto the bed. She pulls my shirt over my head and runs her hands down my chest, fingers tracing the lines of muscle like she’s memorizing the map of me.
I pull her shirt off. She’s in a white cotton bra, simple, and the simplicity of it hits me harder than lace ever could.
I unhook it and slide it off and she’s bare underneath me and I lower my mouth to her breast.
I take one nipple in my mouth. Suck gently, then harder when her fingers twist in my hair and she gasps.
I move to the other. Kiss the freckles across her collarbone.
The ones I’ve been staring at since The Burning Tree.
She’s pulling at my shorts. I’m pulling at hers. Then there’s nothing between us.
The afternoon light is on her skin and she’s underneath me and I want to remember every second of this. The freckles on her shoulders. The curve of her waist. The way she’s looking at me like I’m something she decided to keep.
I kiss down her body. Slow. Her neck. The hollow at the base of her throat.
The space between her breasts. The soft skin below her navel.
She opens her thighs and I settle between them and press my mouth against her.
She’s wet already. Swollen. I drag my tongue through her heat, tasting the deliciousness that is her, and her hips lift toward my mouth.
I work her clit with slow, flat strokes and she grabs the sheets and says my name.
But I don’t stay down. Not today. Today I need to be inside her.
I kiss my way back up her body. She reaches between us and wraps her hand around my cock, hard and thick in her palm.
She strokes once and I groan against her neck.
She guides me to her entrance and I press in slowly.
Watching her face. Feeling her open around me inch by inch.
She’s tight and warm and wet and when I’m fully inside her she makes a sound that’s low and broken and her nails dig into my back.
“You feel so good,” I say. My voice is rough and barely mine. “So wet for me.”
I hold still. Letting her adjust. Letting myself adjust. Being inside her is the closest I’ve ever felt to another person and my whole body is shaking with the effort of not moving.
She rolls her hips. Permission.
“God,” I breathe. “Marissa.”
I start to move. Slow at first. Long, deep strokes. I’m watching her face because I always watch her face. Her lips part. Her eyes stay on mine. She rolls her hips to meet every thrust and the angle shifts and we both feel it.
“Right there,” she says. “Don’t stop.”
I don’t stop. I brace on one arm and slide my other hand between us, finding her clit with my thumb. She gasps. I keep the pressure steady, circling her while I thrust, and her hands grip my shoulders and her legs tighten around me.
She moans. Her back arches. I can feel her tightening around me and I’m losing the rhythm because I’m losing control and I don’t want control anymore. I want to fall into this.
I flip us. She’s on top. She sits up, hair falling around her face, and she starts to ride me.
Her hands flat on my chest. Hips rolling.
Finding the angle that makes her eyes close.
I grip her hips. Not guiding. Holding. Feeling every movement she makes.
She’s so wet I can hear it and the sound pushes me closer to the edge.
She rides me faster. I watch her chase it. Watch her face change. Watch her body tighten. When she comes she says my name like it’s the only word she has left and I feel her pulse around me, squeezing, and I can’t hold back.
I sit up. Pull her tight against me. Her face against my neck. Her breath on my skin. I thrust up into her, deep, once, twice, and I say her name. Not trouble. Marissa. I say it into her hair and I come inside her with my arms around her and for the first time in three years nothing is held back.
After. In my bed. She’s against my chest. The light through the window has gone from gold to deep orange. We’ve been here awhile. Neither of us has moved except to get closer.
Her fingers trace my collarbone. Slow. Absent-minded. Like she’s learning the shape of me.
“Your cabin is nice,” she says.
“You haven’t seen most of it.”
“I’ve seen the ceiling. It’s well-built.”
I laugh. Quiet. The kind of laugh that comes from a place that used to be empty.
“Danny’s in Denver?” she says.
“Yeah.”
“Do you talk a lot?”
“Every couple weeks. He calls. I call. We don’t talk about the river.”
“Maybe you should,” she says. “And tell him you’re building something again.”
I look at the ceiling I built. The beams I cut and placed. Her hand on my chest. My hand on her back. This cabin. The mountain outside. The river below it, running the way it always runs.
“I’ll call him,” I say.
“Good.”
“He’d like you.”
“Obviously. I’m extremely likeable.”
“You audited my business from a raft. That’s a very specific kind of likeable.”
“It’s a highly desirable skill.”
I laugh again. She smiles against my chest. I can feel the shape of it on my skin.
She tilts her face up. I push her hair back from her forehead. The freckles on her shoulders are darker from yesterday’s sun. I trace one with my thumb.
“Hey, trouble.”
“Hey.”
“Stay.”
It’s not a question. It’s the word I’ve been afraid to say since the clipboard. Stay. On the mountain. In this cabin. In this life I’m going to rebuild because she showed me it was worth rebuilding.
She doesn’t answer. She puts her head back on my chest. Her hand over my heart.
She doesn’t leave.