Chapter 44 #2
He takes hold of my thighs and lifts me, slamming us into the wall in the stairwell. His body is hot against mine, strength met with careful control.
He knows me.
My edges, my body. Exactly what I need.
He uses his hands just the way he did all those years ago during our game in the dark, to control and command me. To put me right where he wants me—needs me—and for reasons I’ll never understand, I like it.
I want more of it.
“Keys,” I whisper against his lips when, at last, we reach the door. His tongue brushes mine with a spark that shoots straight through me.
“Pocket,” he says, refusing to take his hands off me for even a second.
“Which one?”
He grins against my mouth. “You’re the one climbing me like a tree. Which do you think?” He pauses. “Unless, of course, you have no feeling down there, in which case you might be setting me up for failure.”
I punch his shoulder, eyes narrowing as I slide down his body and come to stand on my jelly-like legs. “Maybe you’re going to fail anyway. I know what I like in there. I won’t go easy on you.”
He laughs, breathless and shaking with the kind of delight only I can bring on, as he digs in his pocket. “Opal, you have never once gone easy on me in your life. I wouldn’t expect you to start now.”
“You wouldn’t have me any other way.”
He pulls his head back slowly, studying my face. “Do I…have you now?”
The question hangs there, thick in the air between us—too heavy, too real—but he twists the key in the lock and shoves the door open. He kisses me again, sliding his hands down my arms to grip my waist and guide me inside.
Hand carefully tucked along my jaw, he presses himself against me, breaths mingling, hearts racing.
The apartment is dark and familiar, ours in a way that’s different from our moms’ land. Their homes are our childhood wrapped in memories. Every corner, every garden, and every tree contains some version of us—muddy, screaming, fighting, daring each other to jump from higher places than we should.
This space is new. Open. Ready for whatever we bring to it.
It’s both exciting and overwhelming.
He shuts the door with his heel.
In the silence, we just look at each other, bodies bathed in the moonlight pouring in through the windows. Just under my skin, I buzz with anticipation.
This isn’t the barn. It isn’t a stolen kiss under the guise of anonymity. It isn’t almost.
It’s deliberate. A choice.
“You’re sure?” he asks, and all signs of teasing are gone now. Maybe not entirely—I still see a spark of something playful in his eyes—but it’s threaded with something steady.
It scares me, how much it feels like home. How much he feels like home.
I cup his face, kissing him in answer. I’m not sure I’ve ever been so terrified, so unsure.
“Are you sure?” I ask in return. I’m desperate for his certainty to rub off on me. His confidence that we aren’t about to ruin whatever semblance of a friendship we’ve managed to build recently.
His lips tilt, and there’s an honesty in the depths of his expression that I feel down to my toes.
He releases a heavy breath, warm on my lips.
“I’ve dreamed of this. So many times. But I need to know you want it.
That you’re ready. I need to know this isn’t just me.
We can go slow. We can walk away. We can just…
go to bed. To sleep.” The words send a lightning bolt of panic down my chest. That’s the last thing I want.
And like that, I know.
I trace a finger up the hard line of his neck, over the shell of his ear. “Somehow, I never pegged the boy who once threw a rock at my window at two in the morning as someone so dead set on doing the right thing.”
“I was aiming for the tree.”
“You’re that bad with your hands? Noted.”
He growls, hooking his fingers through my belt loops and tugging me against him in one swift motion.
“It’s a one-story house. And you cracked the glass,” I remind him, twirling my finger in his dark hair.
His lips twist with a wry grin. “Your mom made me pay for it.” He kisses me again. “Fine, I was aiming for your window.” His fingers tighten around my hips. The pressure is just enough. Just right. “And, for the record, I’m very good with my hands. And happy to prove it.”
Heat pools lower in my stomach, then between my legs. My skin is on fire. I want him so badly it consumes me. So badly it hurts.
I need to keep my head. My words are breathless. Unsteady. “What did…my poor window ever do to you?” I ask, because this is the Will I want.
I need him to keep teasing me, to keep me on my toes.
His thumb brushes hair from my eyes, then returns to my hip. “The girl on the other side of it called me a swamp creature in front of the entire eighth grade.”
A laugh bursts out of me before I can stop it. I’d almost forgotten about that. My eyes narrow at him, his features cast in the shadows. We really have lived every part of our lives together, haven’t we? There’s so much history in the space between his heart and mine. “How did you remember that?”
He studies my face like I’m a piece of art or a book he doesn’t quite understand. “I remember…”
He swallows, then steps into me, pushing us past the island and against the wall. His hands come to rest next to my head, arms boxing me in.
“Everything about you.” His mouth brushes mine, his words sending sparks through me.
“Oh, yeah?” I tease, lifting my chin as he presses another quick kiss to my lips, my jaw. The curve of my neck. “Like what?”
He hums a laugh, brushing his tongue next to my ear. “Well, back then? How you were bossy and mean and…so goddamn infuriating. How you wore those stupid little belts under your boobs.”
He grins right before I smack his chest, knowing it’s coming. “Those belts were in style.”
“You looked like Santa.”
“And yet you were thinking about my boobs.”
His hand lifts, cupping his palm around my breast. Slowly, his thumb swipes across me. I feel the movement deep in my core. Heat laps at my stomach.
I hook my fingers behind his neck, pulling him close.
His voice drops, eyes lingering on my chest. “I have spent a significant amount of time thinking about them.” The air leaves my lungs and doesn’t return.
His hand slides down my body, thumb brushing against a bit of exposed skin on my lower stomach like he’s asking the question again, without words this time.
But then his mouth opens, and the words come.
“Which is why I need to know you want this too.”
He presses a kiss to my neck again before his lips skirt up to my ear. My body is on fire, my chest still too tight to draw a full breath.
“Opal.” He lifts his head, catching my eyes and holding my gaze. “Say yes.”
Say yes. The memory of that night, the want in his voice then and now. It’s too much.
And yet…
I jerk my chin forward with a nod.
“Suddenly so quiet.” From behind heavy lids, his eyes flash with something dark, falling to my mouth.
His brows rise. He runs his thumb over my bottom lip ever so slowly, dragging it down.
“These pretty little lips.” Each word is a full sentence.
“You have no idea how much I’ve thought about all the ways I could shut them up. ”
I swallow. My head is a thick cloud of smoke.
“But right now, I need to hear them say the word. Do you want this? Me? Can I have you?”
I don’t hesitate. “Yes.”
He doesn’t wait.
He crushes his lips to mine, his hands sliding up both of my arms. He draws them up the wall until we’re both reaching overhead, until he has me pinned in place.
It’s not desperate like the night in the barn or earlier in the car. This kiss is different. His mouth explores mine slowly, intentionally. As if we have all the time in the world and he plans to savor it.
Slowly, he moves my hands together, pinning them under one of his palms. His other hand snakes along my body, down my side.
My heart gallops in my chest. He spreads his fingers across my ribs, and I pull one hand free, tangling it in the hair at the nape of his neck.
I go to grab his shirt, to take control, but he anticipates it and catches my palm. His smile spreads against my mouth. A challenge, even here. Even now.
I give as much as he does, slipping my hand back into his hair, tugging just enough for him to breathe my name. “Opal.” Half warning, half plea.
“You said you were going to take what you want,” I remind him, nipping at his lips. “So take it.”
There is no kiss though, not right away. He rests his forehead against mine for a second, breathing heavily, and I feel it—the care, the fear, the complete and total awe.
Reverence.
For us.
For this moment.
For whatever happens next.
All of this from the boy who once shoved me into the lake on summer vacation.
The rest of that memory comes to me in a flash. How I held myself underwater until he panicked. Until he jumped in to save me.
“You matter to me,” he says quietly, his eyes searching mine. Waiting. “This isn’t just sex. It’s not…nothing.”
“I know.” And I do. Deep down, every layer of me feels it. Every heartbeat, every nerve. I understand, fully, what this means to both of us.
I take his hand and start walking backward down the hallway, never breaking eye contact. “Your place or mine?” I tease, letting the corner of my mouth lift.
“I need you in my bed.” His answer comes out heavy. Rough. Intense.
I lift my brows, smirking. “Done. Try to keep up, okay?”
He scoffs. “Is that a challenge? I know you, Opal. Wait until I show you what that means.”
“Oh, please. Like I haven’t been beating you at everything since we were six.”
“Not this.” He lunges, catching me around the waist before I reach his door. I shriek as he lifts me clean off the ground. “I’m ready for you this time.”
“Been preparing, have we?” I tease, trying and failing to mask my racing pulse.
“More than I’m planning to admit.” He tosses me onto the mattress, but he comes down too, bracing his weight on his hands so he doesn’t crush me.
Laughter spills between us, soft and electric at the same time. Nothing is awkward here. It’s just…right.