Great Big Beautiful Life(79)

“These pants are about to rip,” he half laughs into my mouth.

“Then take them off,” I suggest.

Instead he kisses his way down my body, lets his mouth chart a slow, purposeful path along the edge of my underwear, before finally dipping his tongue under the fabric. I press up into him, and he slides the waistband down, bringing his mouth back to me as soon as he can. My hands twist into his hair, my lungs struggling over each breath as the flat of his tongue presses against me, and colors blaze against the backs of my eyelids at the slow, sure movement of his mouth. His grip on my thighs is firm but gentle, careful, like I’m not only delicate but valuable, and it feels as if something inside me is overflowing.

I want to say his name, to tell him how good this feels, how good he is, how much I missed him in the last two days, and how easy it would be to love him, if he’d let me, but I can barely breathe as the pleasure mounts, and with it so much affection for him that it couldn’t possibly fit in my body.

And then it all peaks, breaks, and I cry out raggedly, waves of sensation rolling over and through me, dragging me under like a riptide I would gladly give myself over to.

He crawls up me as the final shock waves are settling, kisses me deep, our hands wound into each other’s hair, our skin slick with sweat between us, his heart hammering a million miles per minute against my ribs.

“I want you,” I whisper into his ear, wrapping my thighs around him as he shivers against me.

He slides off me, onto his side, his arms pulling me tight to him. “If you still feel that way in a week and a half,” he says, his voice rough, splintering from restraint.

“I will,” I insist, touching his sweat-dampened face. I can barely see his features in the dark, just a splash of light in the corner of one eye.

“You don’t know that,” he says, tenderly running his fingertips over one side of my jaw.

“What do you think is going to happen?” I ask.

Under his breath, nearly a whisper, he says, “I think if I get this job, you’re going to break my fucking heart.”

Tears sting my eyes, and my breath catches. “No,” I say softly, trying to pull him back to me, kissing his left cheek, then his right, then his forehead. “Hayden, no.”

“You can’t know,” he says softly, almost pleading. “This is a bad position to be in, Alice.”

“I don’t know,” I tease quietly. “It was working out all right for me.”

His face remains serious. “I know you think you’ll be fine, no matter what happens,” he grates out. “But I need you to be sure. I don’t want to do this and have you hate me in two weeks.”

“I won’t,” I whisper, kissing the corner of his mouth again. He lets out a slow exhale, his eyes closing and hand cupping the back of my head, relaxing a little but not completely.

I can tell he doesn’t believe me.

He clears the gravel from his throat. “Maybe I should just drop out.”

I snap up onto my elbow. “Absolutely not,” I say. “I’d never forgive you if you did that.”

He blinks up at me, runs a hand up over the back of my arm. “Okay, okay,” he says quietly. “Then what do we do? Because we have less than two weeks until one of us goes home, and there’s no winning for me here. If I get the job, you’re not going to want anything to do with me—”

“That’s not true,” I cut in.

“And if I don’t, then I’m going back to New York, and you’re here, and it doesn’t matter anyway. So what are we doing here?”

“I don’t know,” I admit.

He laugh-groans, slings one hand over his eyes. I pry it away from them, kiss the center of his palm, and he nestles closer. “I don’t understand what’s happening.”

“We’ll figure it out,” I tell him.

“No, I mean…” He huffs. “I mean, we barely know each other. And I feel like—like…I don’t know.”

“Tell me.” I take his face between my hands. He sets his over them.

“All I ever want is to be around you,” he says raspingly. “It’s not just sex. I mean, I do want to have sex with you.”

My limbs warm at the suggestion, but he continues. “But that’s only a part of it. This is different. It’s…” He looks at me, hopeful or maybe expectant, like he thinks I might have the words that are evading him.

I don’t. I’m so overcome that the closest I can get is a threadbare “I know.”

He smooths my hair away from my eyes again, kisses my temple so gently I could cry, and then his stomach gurgles, volcanically loud, and I descend into laughter. “Hungry?”

“A little,” he admits. “I was in a hurry to get here, before the storm got worse.”

“Come on.” I sit up, grabbing my sweatshirt at the sudden rush of cold air that hits me from all sides. “I’ll make you a snack.”





25




Hayden and I sit in a nest of blankets on the living room floor, eating our peanut butter and banana sandwiches, the candles glowing in a line on the mantel and TV stand.

“I haven’t had one of these since I was a kid,” he tells me between bites.