Epilogue #2
I could feel her wet warmth pulsing against me, and I had to fight not to just thrust up and rub myself against her.
She had me shaking at the edge of control.
But I would pause until I received permission.
I’d rather go insane with want than ever push her faster than she could handle.
I would wait forever if that’s what it took.
Iris’s gaze met my eyes, I could see her love for me swimming in them, yet they were glazed over with lust as well.
It was so potent, so desperate I had to look away so as not to spin her over and pin her to the mattress.
I wanted to taste her everywhere. I wanted to discover all the secrets of her body.
I wanted to make her scream. I shocked myself with the thought and I bit the inside of my cheek to make my imagination halt.
This was Iris, my Iris, I needed to go slow with her.
I needed to go slow with me. She reached up, her fingers slid up my neck, grounding me.
She turned my face back to hers and then she nodded with a look of almost desperation that melted me from the inside out.
“Okay,” I breathed. It felt like a prayer and a thank you wrapped in one.
I pressed forward—carefully—slowly, and her breath caught.
Mine did too. I hadn’t known what to expect.
But she was so hot. So tight. So wet. Don’t come.
Don’t come. Don’t come. I wiped away her tears with my thumb, I kissed away her gasps of pain, I waited, tremulously, until she urged me to keep moving.
And then… it was just us. Bodies tangled.
Breath synced. Fingers trailed over soft skin and ribs and pelvic bones and then to a soft, wet heat that had me calling out, gasping, and falling into her.
I memorized the sounds she made, the way her hands gripped my back, the whispered yesyesyes when I kissed her just right.
Her name left my mouth like a prayer. Mine left hers like a promise.
She pulled me down. I let go. We fell together into each other.
Into groaning bed springs, taut muscles, panting breaths, seeking hips, another flash of pain from her, a moment of desperation from me, and then finally really moving in synchrony until I was convinced I saw the pearly gates of heaven because nothing had ever felt so glorious in all my life.
The sounds she made wrecked me. They were so soft and real.
Her hands gently led me to where she was aching, swollen and needing me.
Teaching me to strum her, starting gentle but then applying more pressure until she gasped and shook and clamped around me so hard I saw stars behind my eyes.
It didn’t take too much longer after that.
Just a few more strokes, a few more quick movements of my hips, a few more gasps from behind clenched teeth until I grunted out my love for her as I flooded the latex and felt myself fall off the edge of a cliff, tumbling into a place where I could never imagine my life without her.
Into a place where my obsession for her grew in leaps and bounds.
The things we could learn to do to one another.
I felt excited to trace all of her with my tongue.
To make her do that half gasp, half cry again. Against my fingers, against my mouth.
I would do it again, just as soon as I could feel my body once more.
We lay in a heap of blankets and discarded clothes; the windows were open just enough to let in the winter air.
She curled into me. I tugged the blanket over her body.
I didn’t want to, I wanted to stare, I never wanted to look away from her rosy flushed skin but she was cold, so I pulled the comforter over us as she lay down on me once more, her head rested on my chest, one hand over my heart like she was checking that it was still beating.
It was. For her, it always would be. Even one day when we were both long gone.
Her fingers traced the scar from the bullet.
I kissed her temple. I breathed in her scent.
I basked in this moment. She was mine. This life was mine.
“Still glad you stayed?” she whispered suddenly, shaking me from my thoughts.
I glanced around the room—the plants on the windowsill, her pile of books on the night table, back to her, then to the discarded condom wrapper on the floor. Then back to us.
“I’m more glad than I ever thought I could be,” I told her.
She giggled as I kissed the tip of her nose and brushed the wayward strands of hair off her face.
She promised me she wanted more, told me how good it had been.
I asked her if she was lying; I knew it had hurt.
She insisted it had been amazing. She didn’t know why we had waited, she wanted to do it again, and eat chocolate, and take a nap, but not in that order.
She laughed as I kissed my way down her neck, but her laughter turned to groans as I took one nipple in my mouth and then kept moving lower, tracing the lines of her ribs with my tongue, nipping on the jut of her pelvic bone, and then reveling in the sound she made as her body bowed when my tongue delved deep against her warm wet skin.
“If I had died before tasting this,” I told her, “I would have been very angry with myself.” She laughed, then moaned again as she gripped my hair, pulling me as close as she could get me.
I got her chocolate after I used three more condoms and fed it to her, piece by piece, as I listened to her talk. Then we slept.
I didn’t dream of blood or pain or falling off cliffs. I didn’t wake up choking on fear or guilt. I didn’t wake up at all. I slept. Deeply. Fully. Safely. Wrapped in her warmth, her breath against my neck, the steady rhythm of her heart beside mine.
And finally—just being alive was enough.
The End