I looked down at him. His head was thrown back, his eyes closed, apparently already lost to me fucking him. My heart skipped a beat. Christ, he was stunning. I cupped his jaw in my hand and thrust into him, a ragged groan escaping me. How had I not dreamed of this . . . of the tight, wet heat of him clamped around me? Of his blunt nails digging into my hips? What the fuck had we been doing all this time when we could’ve been doing this?
“Jas.”
Kim tensed and I quickened my pace, arching my back as his heels drove me deeper into him. He cried out and warmth pulsed between us, coating our stomachs. His body clamped tighter around me, and I knew I was about to become beautifully and wonderfully undone.
I mourned the loss of the magic that sealed us together, even as release rushed up on me, searing through me until I was devoid of all else. I dropped my head and groaned, seizing up and shuddering as I came.
Still groaning, I dug my teeth into Kim’s chest, and I lost myself to his embrace, sweat and come mingling, our breathing so laboured I couldn’t tell where his ended and mine began. I was suddenly profoundly tired, wrecked, but conversely too wired to close my eyes, and too enchanted by Kim to reclaim the hold he had on me. And so we stared at each other, unblinking, chests heaving, until Red placed a warm flannel on the back of my neck.
“Clean up. He’s not going anywhere.”
I took her word for it and briefly detached myself to clean us up and ditch the condom. When I returned, I found him as I’d left him, smiling and drowsy, what little un-inked skin he had stained with an entrancing flush.
Drawn to him, I lay down beside him, dragging a gentle kiss over his jaw. “You okay?”
Kim hummed. “I’m wrecked.”
The echo of my own sentiment made me grin. The floor of his trailer was surprisingly comfortable, and I couldn’t imagine ever moving.
Red draped a blanket over us. I forced myself to look away from Kim and saw that she was dressed again.
“Don’t go.” She seemed surprised. I held out my hand. “Stay.”
The conflict in her eyes was clear to see, and Kim, who’d said very little since I’d stumbled into his home, finally stirred. “Let her go, Jas.”
Whether it was the way he said my name—the low tone that made me shiver—or something in his eyes that only she could see, I had no idea, but the standoff was brief. Red shook her head gently at me and left the room, and then she came back with more blankets and put another log in the burner. I wanted her to look at me again, but she didn’t. She kissed Kim’s cheek and left, and then Kim and I fell asleep, tangled warmly together like we’d lain like this a thousand times over.
The tickle of sunlight on my face woke me the next morning. My hips hurt from being curled on the floor, and my shoulder was bent at an odd angle, but Christ, Kim’s arms around my waist felt good.
It seemed criminal to move, but curiosity got the better of me. I shifted slowly onto my back and found Kim fast asleep. For a fleeting moment, it slipped my mind that the empty space behind him meant something. I touched his face, recalling the ethereal strain in him the night before when he’d come. I’d never seen anything more gorgeous.
As entranced as I was, Kim’s peaceful silence set my attention drifting, and now I remembered Red, and the rueful hope in her eyes as she’d watched Kim and me add a primal brick to our foundations.
Carefully, I disentangled myself from Kim’s addictive embrace and glanced around. A scrawled note by the burner caught my eye, and I reached over Kim to snag it. The note smelled of Red, though her handwriting was almost as illegible as my own. Squinting, I could just about make out the words:
Boys,
I’m hitting the road, and I won’t be back anytime soon.
Be good. Be kind. And thank you. Your love is beautiful, and I’ve learned more from you than you’ll ever know.
Lena xx
There was a cryptic message in there somewhere, but Kim stirring kept me from brooding over it. He opened his eyes, and I handed him the note immediately. “Lena’s gone.”
He nodded, still blinking away sleep. “I thought she might.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He sat up slowly. “She kept telling me that she was waiting for the moment when she knew I didn’t need her anymore.”
“But you’ll always need her.”
I believed that as much as Kim, maybe more, but he shook his head. “Something changed between us when I met you. It’s like this—” he gestured between us “—whatever it is, has set her free.”
Could matters of the heart be so kind? Unwelcome, Rich’s belligerence when he’d been caught flashed into my mind. The cynic in me had sought strength from it, vindication, but as Kim’s theory sank in, I realised that perhaps I wasn’t as emotionally jaded as I liked to believe.
Kim lay down again, tugging me with him. “I like sleeping on the floor. Makes me feel young.”