1JACK
THEN - MAYBE
It hits like a summer wave.
Salt and heat in the air, snatched inhales breaking the heady quiet. It’s dark by this ocean. So fucking dark. But it doesn’t matter. We are skin and light and breath. We are the low murmur of my name as I curl my arms around him and laugh.
Ilaugh.
Or maybe it’s him. As the sound comes again, so bright and familiar, I can’t tell. And I don’t spare it much thought as the spark between us—the lit flame—draws him closer and we entwine as if we’re made for each other. As if we’ve done this before.
We haven’t.
I’m sure of it.
I’m drunk as hell right now, but I’d remember something this good. I’d remember something this right.
Warm hands on my body.
On my face.
Then his voice, deep and melodic. “What are we doing, love?”
Old as time, the endearment falls from his lips so easy and free.
Love.
Is that what this is? This explosion of sensation and head-spinning emotion?
I don’t know that any more than I know where we are tonight. And I’m a liar. But as heat climbs my throat and the world spins, the confession fritters away.
Soft lips and gentle, biting teeth. A thudding, sonorous heartbeat beneath my palm. Everything tilts again, and Guinness and Kraken-fuelled mirth expands to raw need sluicing through me so fast I’m drowning before I know it’s happening.
“Jack…”
He’s still holding my face.
Sol.
Fear and wonder hang over us, confusion in his eyes that makes my chest clench until I quiet it and my name tastes sweet in his mouth. On his tongue, his body beneath me—a body I’ve known all my life, but never like this.
Hard planes.
Unyielding muscle.
He’s under me still instead of beside me and it’s not the sea crashing against the shore anymore, it’s him as we roll past the point of stopping and something between us gives way.
His final plea catches on a gasp. On the edge of something too sharp and vibrant to name. I smother it and time hurtles forward, slipping through my fingers. The salt in the air hits my tongue, the back of my throat, and light flares, white and blinding, until we break.
Until we shatter.
2JACK
NOW
Thunder rolls. Brittle.Loud. I jerk awake to an empty bed, heart pounding, sheets twisted, nerves thrumming with unspent want.
I’m shaking. For a charged second, I don’t know where I am. Just that the storm outside is real and the imaginary one that has my stomach aching with pent-up need is far from over.