The Plan (30 page)

Yet this is different somehow. My moves are tentative, more so than when we were together before, more so than I have perhaps ever been before. This kiss carries the weight of a year’s worth of acknowledged and answered longing.

Where he holds my face is soft. Reverent. Not so with the hand on my back. It grips. Tight. Nearly hurting. As if he thinks I might evaporate and leave him clinging to mist and air.

It’s as though he is trying to remember and memorize me simultaneously. He seems to want to catalog this moment. Journal it. Hmm. Novel concept…

He’s sharing with me that he is still afraid this will end, that we will end. His kiss tells me that he’s as worried as I am, but that he’s done the calculations. Risk versus reward.

My hands wind their way under his shirt and move along the skin of his back. He moans into my mouth, the sound sliding down my own throat.

We continue to kiss, tongues entangled, never parting. I mean to bring a hand around and run it along his chest—the same chest that has rendered me near mute on all my not quite accidental hotel room barging-in recon encounters—but, instead, I encounter the coarse hair that stretches from the top of his suit pants in a narrowing trail toward his navel. I run my fingers across it, and it becomes my turn to moan.

“Emma,” he says, breaking our kiss and moving only enough to hover over my lips. His breath is warm, his voice a rasp. “Are you sure? I don’t know if—”

“Shh,” I say softly and place two of my fingers on his mouth to silence him. He kisses them quickly before his hand is there and his fingers close around mine, and then he brings our clasped hands to his side. He is still breathing against my mouth; each breath seems shorter, shallower. He seems to quit breathing entirely when he begins to walk slowly backward, gently pulling me by my hand, toward the bed.

By the time we reach it, we have separated enough that I’m able to truly see everything about his face. The point where his throat meets his sharp jaw. The slight turn of his nose. The faint, growing creases near his eyes that beg to be tasted. The light that plays and dances across his features reveals a mixed look of excitement and an unnamed something more.

The room is bathed in silver Christmas moonlight that spills in from the single window across the white sheets, leaving the rest of the room in shadow.

We near the bed. He glances away to gauge the distance and, still, I can’t label the look I have been seeing, but I can’t make myself dwell on deciphering it or anything else beyond wanting…and touching…and truly feeling.

And suddenly, it’s happening. Hands in hair. Cradle and crush. Against his chest. Align. More than aware of every breath, of coursing blood, of crumbling walls. He kisses me with a level of intensity that distances itself from all our earlier kisses. I feel him breathe in deeply, as if he is trying to bring all of me into him. His lips, mine.

My mouth. His tongue. He delves, locates the deepest recess of my mouth, stakes his claim.

Fingers, thumbs in deep pressure circles, entangle within my hair. Flat of a palm, small of my back. Lower us to bed.

Us.

He bends, sits, then moves back more, pulling me on top. Unbroken kiss. Reassurance. And his desire for me strains against my stomach.

Tugging, not yet frantic, at sleeves. My dress is a splash on the floor. His palms skid across my waist, back to front. Hand and arms close around me there. Nearly encircle. As though his hands and fingers may stretch and reach completely from my navel around to my spine in glorious, hot pressure.

Moan into his mouth and, now, stunned when the sound returns to me tenfold from him. From inside him. I want him inside me.

Shift against him. Try to retain balance along his length, along his frame.

But, he shows me, it’s not necessary for me to worry about falling off; one leg wraps around my own and secures me to him, his lean thigh aligns with mine, his calf braids against my ankle and foot. He pushes his other hand up between us, shoving his shirt out of the way. Pulling us together as if it hurt not to feel skin on skin.

He shifts our kiss, holds my locks back, presses his lips to me. To my face, my throat, my collarbone. Ripping, popping seams, he gathers what’s left of his shirt in his fist.

“Emma, I need…to feel…to feel you.”

I make a move, stretch up, yank at his clothes. His shirt peels most of the way off, but he holds me tighter yet. Relinquishes his grasp only when I can’t suppress a giggle at the catch-22 of it all. He begins to laugh, too, but the sound catches in his throat when I have my camisole halfway over my head. Once it’s completely off, I feel my hair spill down over my bare back and exposed chest. Reflexively, my hands cross over my breasts. His eyes narrow slightly, and he shakes his head once, slowly. He sits up and gently lowers first one of my arms, kissing its wrist as he displaces it, and then the other.

Never breaking the gaze we share, he reaches down and removes his shirt, making it as thin as possible before it slips over his head and lands in a distant corner. I grip his arm, trace the indentation where his shoulder and bicep meet.

Both his hands up my sides, thumbs pad under the swell of my breasts. Cups one. Rubs across. Tensing. Teasing. Taut.

Then his other arm slides around, draws me close to him. Close. Presses me into his chest, infuses.

His touch is no longer tentative; he blazes a trail.

Soft kisses along my neck are now nibbles, nearly bites along my collarbone.

Licks salt and skin between kisses. My fingers through his hair. He explores me. Again. More. Even when I think he knows all of me, he finds more. A spot. A pulse. A place that makes me quake, quiver.

Stealing moments, helter-skelter, whenever I can find my mind, I curve and kiss his forehead, the corners of his mouth, and the slight saltiness of sweat. Dew on breaking Christmas morn.

Of their own accord, my hands tug and pull his waistband. He notes my intent, breaks away from our embrace. Rests his head on my chest, panting and watching me work them down. Rise and fall, his chest heaves. He nods, head lowered. Some silent pact with himself, some secret I still yearn to know, wish to learn.

A monumental shift in our positions. He finishes removing his pants, leaves me for a moment. Bereft. I never knew its real meaning before. Then he’s down beside me. I can feel my hair splayed out around me. Slowly, he combs the already tangled ends out with his fingers. Reverent. Continues to kiss me, forever kissing me. He is braced on a single forearm, moves his touch from my hair, to my face, and down. Draws a line along my body, pausing. Pauses briefly over my heart. He presses his palm flat there. Bends. Places open lips there, on the space that drums below him, that might now have fulfilled its dual purpose in life.

Yeah, well, open my envelope and call me a Hallmark card. He already said I gave the very best…

The rough of his hand slips lower, then lower. I cannot stop, don’t want to stop my reactions. Hips rise. Plunging my hands into his hair. He slides a finger under lace, past the band of my panties.

I know if I shift ever so slightly I will be able to feel his erection, pretty much ride it. But he is trying to be gentlemanly about it. How very sweet.

But we will have none of that. None of that, I say.

It is touching…but I want to touch him.

His fingers skim the near flat of my stomach as he approaches…me. His focus on our kisses falters for the first time; while he continues to press his lips to mine, a greater portion of his attention is clearly elsewhere. As is mine. For, while he had been successful in keeping the physical evidence of his arousal somewhat discreet, there just is no disguising my excitement.

At this point, I’m pretty much a Slip ’N Slide. Like, a Slip ’N Slide with Wesson oil and the hot on full blast. Wheeeeee.

He grips the edges of the fabric, drags it down my thighs and legs. My flesh contracts where the fabric leaves a wet trail along my inner thighs. I feel my breathing still as I await his reaction to the effect he’s had on me. My panties find their way onto the floor, and Alaric wraps one arm around me at the waist and the other around my shoulders.

His face buried in my neck, he continues to cradle me within one arm, the other drifts. Glides.

Fingers play along my hip. Thigh. There.

A gasp. Harsh and low. Resounding below my ear. Moment of stillness, and he stills momentarily, then his deep moan into the hollow of my neck makes my thighs clench together over his hand.

“My God, Emma,” he rasps. Single finger slips inside. “You are killing me, lady.”

Bite back a moan. Fight back all sounds, all words, not trusting what telltales may escape. Or shocking compositions of curse words. Like Beethoven found a late-life penchant for salacious symphonies. Alaric’s been so composed, worshipful, while I was on the verge of shouting some incredibly vulgar things. He must notice what I’m doing, because he gently pulls my bottom lip from between my teeth with his own. Half suck, half bite. Watches my reaction through hooded lids.

“No, Emma, don’t hold back.” Throaty rasp. “Let me know how I make you feel.” Then he slides a second finger. Stretch. I moan.

He curls them in me, searching.

My hands cling, dig. Fix to the contours of his back, then downward, and around to trace the V that has called out to me for so long.

He finds the spot. Brushes. Strokes. Then assaults. Crushes my lips.

Unable to aim. Almost on his lips. Kiss anything, all that I can find. Shout against him. Sounds, not words. The open ache of vowel sounds. No language known to man or beast.

Fall back together. Tangled arms. Foggy, I hear murmurs. Soft reassurances in my ear. Missing most of it in the thunderous blood rushing around my system.

“Always you. Only you.”

My treacherous, trembling hand fumbles its way. Close him in my palm. Brush the tip. He hisses. Thick. He’s wet, too. Coats my fingers. His hips move forward into my hand, and he’s panting.

I wrap my leg around his hip, tucking my ankle against the point where his thigh meets his perfect ass, and encourage him to move over top of me. Which he does, then halts. His weight rests on his forearms, hands on either side of my face. His eyes dance…and since it is Christmas, I will allow the comparison to Fred Astaire, because I’m my usual Ginger Rogers, doing my dance in high heels.

Heat radiates from him. Near me, not entering me. He shakes above me, apparently awaiting some unknown cue.

I’m too busy with my turn kissing his throat, his shoulders, any part of him I can reach. A shadow of dark hair below his chin calls out to me; I swirl my tongue, roughness runs under my tongue, and draw his Adam’s apple into my mouth in a long suck.

“Christ.”

He speaks, and my suction breaks with the movement. He bends and curves over the top of me, bringing my nipple between his lips, pulling at it, drawing it deeply into his mouth. He moves, repeats.

Lick, and touch, and draw long breaths. Pull back, survey his landscape. Look for something more. More connection, as if I need another sense to take him in. So I want to give him the single one left: hearing.

The problem is, I don’t know what exactly to say.

The high ceiling is invisible in the current light, only acoustics of reverberated gasps bounce back down upon us. In a room already filled with our soft moans, he needs words.

In this moment, I recognize my power. Because, for once, I can say how I feel without reservation. He needs to know, and I need to tell him. Where earlier words had seemed trite, in this space and time I accept that they can, they will, they must—must—make everything right. I conjure strength and force myself to break away and speak.

“You are who I’m meant for.”

Lowest groan. Eyes close. Breath holds. Touch lips. Tremor. Enter. Lightning strike.

The unspoken words “Take me” rattle around in my brain. The sentiment seems insufficient somehow, perhaps embedded in patriarchal notions. The idea that there is a penetration, a plundering, an invasion, so there must be a taking. It’s somehow off to me…for I am taking him. I am claiming. I receive. There will be just as much of me when we are done. If anything, he might be the one leaving himself behind. I will be the same…but more. I envelope, encase, claim. I accept.

I take him.

There is a responsibility in that notion that I never saw before. Take care of as well as care for.

He trusts me to be as strong as the both of us need me to be. We are but two short steps from loneliness, longing.

Trust gives way to thrusts, and I find I can no longer contemplate the intricacies of the universe.

He’s being so careful and slow. It’s touching, torture. Both.

Braced on his elbows, hover and touch and rasp, shallow breaths. Move, slip. Flat of palms beneath my shoulder blades. Wet along collarbone, neck. Water drips, rivulets beyond my ear. Kissed away. Pound. Harder. Harsh. I want him at the spot inside me all his own. Again. Beyond count. Fuck, I don’t even know anymore. More. More. Fuck, please just more. Thunder, shudder. Body wracks. Hair clings, slick locks.

With each movement, each in then out, he moves fractionally further. Slow and paced and acutely aware of each new stretch. He continues, quakes so much and me, maybe more. I think, perhaps, he’s resisting the urge to plunge ahead and finish the trek. I would be inclined to appreciate the need represented by such urgency—because I’m only human, heck, I want to feel that desired, that wanted—but it occurs to me that this inch-by-inch method has been going on for quite some time…and he’s not done yet.