“West—” he starts.
“Please,” I whisper, voice breaking on the word. “Don’t push me away, Nate. Not right now.” My throat is constricted by the lump of emotion gathering there. “I just…. I need a minute of this — ofyou— so I know everything’s going to be okay. Then… I promise I’ll let go.”
Something shifts in the air around us, when I say that. I can’t see it, but I sense it with every single part of my being. He stops fighting — me, himself, those demons that lurk in the back of his eyes. And then, before I can process it, his arms come up around me and he’s hugging me back.
So tight my ribs ache. So hard I think he’ll never let me go.
My tears drip against his skin and his head ducks to rest on my shoulder. It’s not about sex or lust or even love. It’s pure comfort between two people who’ve always walked the line of misery. Who’ve always carried the burden of their broken pieces in total solitude.
The shattered fragments of my heart find solace against the jagged edges of his soul. We breathe each other in and exhale out everything that makes us damaged, consoling each other in the dark in a way we haven’t since we were kids.
I can’t say who moves first. I can’t define the exact moment that this stolen embrace changes from one of simple comfort to something entirely different. I can’t tell you if it’s my hands, sliding into the curling hair at the nape of his neck… or his lips, brushing the skin where my shoulder meets my neck. I can’t tell you if the thrumming in my body, the heat between my legs, or the fire in my heart are responsible for the way I shift against him, until I feel the length of him hard against my stomach.
All I can tell you is that when that shift happens — when lips hit skin and our bodies align like two lost puzzle pieces — the electricity that always crackles through him like a live wire jumps over to me.
One bolt of lightning. A single spark.
We combust into flames.
My mouth finds his, or maybe his finds mine. It doesn’t matter. As soon as they brush, we’re both lost. His tongue spears into my mouth without hesitation and then he’s kissing me. I’ve never been kissed like this before — like I’m being claimed, branded, marked as his. Every fumbling high-school boy and drunken college crush falls away in the wake of Nate’s kiss. Teeth, tongues, hands, lips. We devour each other.
I taste bourbon and blood as my lip cracks open again beneath his onslaught. A growl rattles from deep in his chest as he tastes it, but he doesn’t stop. I wouldn’t let him if he tried.
My hands work into his hair and pull him closer, deepening the kiss. His stubble scrapes my cheeks as our mouths consume each other — a decade of lust pouring out in a torrent, fueling the fire. His hands roam my back, my ass, my sides. They slip up under my borrowed t-shirt, seeking skin and heat. I moan at the sensation of his callused hands against me, writhing to get closer.
Not close enough. Never close enough.
We are the most treacherous of fault-lines, long overdue for a quake. The pressure has built and built and built between our opposing sides for years, until finally, the very earth cracks open beneath us.
We are a natural disaster.
We are a perfect storm.
We will ruin lives and level cities and destroy everything in our wake.
And none of it matters. Not now. Not here, in his arms.
He kisses me deeper, like he can’t get enough, his hands finding the sides of my face, holding me there without tenderness. Winding into my hair, tugging until my head falls back, totally at his mercy. He’s playing rough.
I can play rough, too.
I slide my hands down his back, around his hips, up his thighs. When I find the length of him, he’s hard as steel encased beneath the denim of his jeans. I stroke my fingers against the ridges there, reeling when I hear a needy sound rattle from his throat.
I did that. One brush of my fingers did that.
It’s a rush — knowing he’s just as affected by me as I am by him. I do it again, harder this time, feeling bold with his hands in my hair and his tongue in my mouth. He breaks away, panting, his forehead resting on mine.
“Fuck.” The sheer need in his voice is barely leashed. “We shouldn’t—”
I meet his eyes as my hand grips him. His gaze is stormy, filled with guilt and lust and a million other emotions.
“Nate,” I whisper, hand running the length of him again. Except for the ragged inhales moving his chest, he’s entirely still. “Make love to me. Please.”
He groans. His forehead hits mine again, and I feel his breaths against my swollen mouth. I press my lips to his in a lingering kiss.
“You’re going to kill me.” His voice is tight.
“I’ll make sure you die happy,” I whisper.