“Come on.” I grab her hand and duck into an alleyway. An overhang provides a tiny patch of dry ground and shelter. “We may be able to wait it out. These showers sprout up and pass over like they never happened.”
We’re sandwiched between two buildings and there is barely any light, but the moonlight finds her, sculpting shadows beneath her cheekbones and etching dark crescents of her lowered lashes. The rain has smeared her mascara, and water-slicked hair flattens to her head. She should look bedraggled, but she manages to be the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.
I bend, tentative at first, even after last night. Even after making love to her again this morning when I chased her up the stairs. I approach slowly, giving her the chance to refuse, but she doesn’t. She meets me, eyes open, lips eager, hands bunched in my wet hair. It’s a freshwater kiss, made of rain and passion. Slow touches pick up steam until we’re frantic against the wall, hands searching, desperate to find the flesh under our soaked clothes. The inside of her thigh is slick with rain, and I trace the droplets with my finger before inching higher and burrowing beneath her panties, inside.
“Do that, Doc,” she says, a breath-starved command. “Yes.”
I lean into the damp, scented curve of her neck, leaving kisses there while my finger is knuckle-deep in paradise. Every sound she makes gets me harder, ready. She kisses my jaw, my cheekbone, pulls my bottom lip between hers.
“We should stop,” I pant across her mouth. “I can’t . . . let’s stop before . . .” How do I tell her that if we don’t, I’ll be fucking her in an alley with no regard for who might see? How do I say that without sounding disrespectful and selfish?
“Don’t stop.” She fumbles at my waist, tugging the belt from its buckle and pulling the button loose, the zipper down. “Do it.”
“Baby.” I drop my head back and groan. So tempting. I want to so badly. “The rain should let up soon. We can make a dash for it to my house.”
“Or,” she says, working her hand into my pants; finding me. Squeezing me.
“Dammit, Nix,” I groan. “Don’t make me want you any more than I already do.”
“Or,” she says again, “you can do what we both want. Take what I want to give. Right here. Right now.”
Is it surrender when you both want it? I’m not sure if it’s her will or mine that wins out, but I hitch her up, my hands full of her ass, and lock her legs at my back. I reach between us to push her panties aside and plunge in.
I feel like a god.
Yet every time she gasps and groans and tightens around my body, she conquerors me. She’s indelible. I may end up with someone else, may even love someone someday, but there is a place Lennix Moon has carved out inside of me in a matter of a few days where only she will ever fit. It’s irrational and goes against all the rules I’ve set for myself, but she feels like mine. For the next two days, she is mine.
And then we’ll walk away.
That rule has always worked for me. It kept me focused through undergrad, my master’s and my PhD. It has me headed to Antarctica and other far reaches of the Earth to unlock the mysteries that could shape a generation. Tonight, though, my body has found a slick, sweet home inside of her, and when she comes, when I do, the words, the rules, sound like foolishness.
Her legs are still wrapped around my waist. Her elbows rest on my shoulders, and she’s pinned between me and a brick wall. Harsh breaths bounce between our mouths and steam the cool air around us.
“Can I ask you something?” she asks.
Still slightly breathless, I simply nod.
She lets her head fall against the brick wall so she can peer into my eyes, search them before asking her question. “Is it always like this?”
I know what she means. Volatile. Wild. Passionate. Satisfying. Perfect.
What do I say? That in my vast experience it’s never been like this? Never been a conflagration of savory smoke and white-hot flame? That I’ve never wanted to break my rules for anyone, no matter how good the sex? That when I saw her on that hill four years ago, I knew I’d never forget her, and that when I saw her again I knew I had to have her? And that being with her, being inside of her surpasses anything I’ve ever had with anyone else?
If I tell her the truth, it might lead her to believe I can break my rule.
Worse, I might believe it.
So I lie.
“Sometimes.”
She watches me for an extra second before nodding and shifting her hips.
“Shit,” I hiss. That simple movement feels so good, my dick stirs, and I want to start all over again, surge into her and lose all sense of the world except Lennix Moon Hunter as my one point of light.
“Dammit.” I shake my head, disgusted with sudden realization. “Forgot the condom. I’m so sorry, Nix.”
Her eyes widen. She bites her lip, her long lashes dropping.
“My godmother works at a clinic,” she says, her voice husky and her breath still short. “She’s had me on the pill since I was sixteen, and I’m clean. I mean, you know I’ve never been with anyone else.”
She meets my eyes, silently asking for my reply.
“I’m clean,” I rush to assure her. “Yeah, no. I always use protection and get tested regularly just to be . . . I’m clean, but I’m still sorry I got caught up that way. I would never want to make you feel unsafe.”
“Geest als ik meedoe?” a gruff male voice asks a few feet deeper into the alleyway, just beyond the edge of light.
“Fuck off,” I snap, turning Lennix’s head into my neck so he can’t see her face.
“What’d he say?” she mumbles, her breath warm against my skin.
“Um, he asked if he could join us,” I grit out, mortified that I put her in this position.
A muffled giggle rasps into my hair. I pull back, staring down at her in the faint light from the street. “Are you . . . laughing?” I ask, the grin on my own face surprising me.
Her legs drop from my waist and her feet hit the ground. She presses her palms to my chest, leaning forward and looking up at me with a wide smile. “You have to admit it’s kind of funny.”
“No, I don’t.” I slide my hands down to frame her hips. “The rain has let up some. Let’s get out of here before he presses the issue. I’d prefer not to end up in a Dutch prison.”
I take her hand and we venture back out into the street. Now there’s only the faintest drizzle, a steady light shower. She lifts her arms, spreading her fingers like some young goddess receiving an offering poured from the sky. The rivulets bathe her face, crystalline drops clinging to the curled tips of her lashes. Something clinches in my chest at the sight of her. Some part of me moves that I didn’t know existed. I take her arm and stop us in the middle of the street, in the middle of the rain, in the middle of one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and I kiss her.
Even drenched by a downpour, we’re thirsty for each other. Her mouth goes wide and searches under mine. I feel every line and curve of her body through the wet dress clinging to her. I cling to her. My shoes are slogged, droplets run down my back, but lightning would have to strike us before I’d let her go.