And right now, I need him like I need blood.
So, when his hands skim down the sides of my body and come to rest on my thighs, I don’t pull away. I’ve already given him consent with my words, but now I offer it with my body, too, hooking my fingers around his waistband and pulling him flush against me, so close I can feel that racing pulse in every place we connect. He makes a small noise, something somewhere between a sigh and a grunt, and the grip of his hands tightens, pulling us even closer together.
And then he ducks down and his lips meet mine.
The start of our last kiss was slow and tender, but this one is frantic from the off, all heaving breaths and grasping hands, the almost-bruising pressure of his fingers, the warm slide of his tongue in my mouth.
He’s not afraid of how vivid his feelings are. He doesn’t try to temper his need at all, and he’s so honest with it, soraw, that it makes me want to meet him with the same. I’ve spent a lifetime– more than one– holding on so tightly to my emotions that it’s taken years for people to really see me, yet a few weeks with him have stripped down every last wall.
There’s a loneliness that comes with this life– a dark, clawing beast of a thing that curls itself around my breastbone and squeezes tightly. It holds me there, a silent reminder to never drop my guard, to keep my secret buried deeply, so far down that no one could ever dig it up.
But it isn’t like that with Quinn. I don’t have to worry about him finding out my secret because he knows. He’s known from the start, and it hasn’t changed a thing. And now we’re here, entwined in each other in his tiny kitchen and there’s no place on Earth I’d rather be.
Except, perhaps, for his bed.
He pulls away with a gasp as my fingers find their way underneath his shirt, trailing over warm skin, feeling the ripple of muscle under my fingertips. His eyes track my hands, watching them work his buttons open, bottom to top, pushing the shirt open and off his shoulders. He shakes it free without a word.
After that I don’t see where he’s looking because I’m transfixed, marvelling at the expanse of chest I’ve uncovered, broad and toned and dusted with light brown hair. I was right not to look earlier; I would never have been able to stop. I feel hypnotised– brought to a standstill by this spell he’s cast on me. Part of me worries I’ll be stuck here for eternity.
He clears his throat and when I tear my eyes away from his body and look back up at him, he’s watching me with an expression of such wonder that it knocks me off kilter, just a little bit. What are the chances that, in all the years of my life I’ve spent moving around, I’d be in just the right place at just the right time to meet this man? It feels equal parts impossible and inevitable, a twist of fate, perhaps, or maybe something more than that.
‘Florence,’ he says, his brows tugging together, his voice rough. ‘We don’t…’ He gulps a breath and tries his best to steady himself on the exhale. ‘If you don’t want… We don’t have to…’
I shake my head and keep my eyes on his as I work the buttons of my dress and let it gape open, caught between us only where my legs are wrapped around his hips. He drags his eyes down over the curves of my body before he looks back up with an audible swallow.
‘You—’
‘Does it look like I don’t want to?’ I interrupt, smiling as steadily as I can past the roar of feeling pulsing through me.
He doesn’t say anything, but after a moment or two, his mouth crashes back into mine, and I find my answer in the way he kisses me– deep and hungry, like he’s just barely holding himself back. But I want everything he’s got.
I break the kiss to trail my mouth across his jaw, over the soft bristle of stubble there and down the column of his neck, where I can feel his pulse racing. It’s addictive, the feeling of his body working beneath his skin, intimate in a way I’ve never experienced before. I can’t help extending my fangs a little as I drag my mouth back up his neck. It’ll probably leave a mark, I realise, and the idea of it fills me with a disproportionate amount of pride.
‘Touch me, Quinn,’ I plead, testing my teeth on his earlobe. I don’t know if it’s the teeth or my words that pull an answering groan out of him and send goosebumps scattering across his skin. Either way, he does what he’s told, skimming warm hands up my sides, thumbs pausing at the band of my bra before they continue their path up and over the black satin of the cups.
When I feel the friction against my nipples I almost combust. It’s been decades since I slept with anyone, but even accounting for that, I can state with absolute certainty that nobody’s ever made me feel like this. I feelincandescent, a solar flare licking out into the darkness, so bright that my light could travel for a million years in any direction.
Quinn’s mouth joins his hands, nipping at my skin through the thin fabric, winding me tightly. I’m practically wrestling him to push the fabric down, and the sudden contact of his mouth on my bare skin when I manage it makes me cry out. I feel him smile against my skin when he hears it.
‘You’re perfect,’ he breathes out between kisses, labouring over the syllables like it’s the most important thing he’s ever said. I feel like I should return the sentiment, but the truth is that what’s happening here is better than perfect. It’sreal.
It’s real and it’s honest and it’s so much more because of that. I want to memorise it all: the faint traces of salt and chlorine on his skin, the calloused parts of his hands that scratch against me, the rough little noise he makes when I arch into his touch, urging him on.
I want him, and it seems like he’s finally beginning to believe it. All at once he gathers me up, pulling my legs tightly around him and lifting me off the breakfast bar.
‘You have to tell me,’ he murmurs into my ear as he walks. ‘Tell me if you want to stop this, because I don’t know if I’ll be able to.’
‘Don’t stop,’ I whisper urgently. I can hear the whine in my voice at the very idea. ‘I want everything.’
His laugh isn’t more than a breath out, a rush of warm air on my face. ‘Florence,’ he says carefully, grit in his voice. ‘I would give you anything.’
I feel the drop as he sits on the edge of the bed, pulling me with him so that I’m straddling his lap, my knees digging into the soft fabric of his bedspread. He’s hard– I can feel the ridge of him against my thigh. The thought of it sends a fresh wave of sensation rippling through my belly, and I rock against him to relieve some of the pressure that’s started to build behind my hips. The movement makes him throw his head back, a muttered curse falling from his lips before they find mine again.
His hands slip around my back, flicking open my bra strap in one fluid movement. I try not to think about how often he’s done that for the action to be so smooth, but as soon as I feel his hands close around my bare skin it wipes the thought from my mind entirely.
The important thing is that we’re here now, with these versions of ourselves, and it’s perfect.
‘Let me touch you,’ I murmur, lips brushing his, but we lose the contact as he shakes his head.