Will doesn’t do that. He nods, seeming to understand that it’s always been more about protecting myself and my emotions than proving anything to others.
Will’s eyes drop to my mouth. “Time in?” he says quietly, and my stomach swoops. The steady sounds of our breathing are the only soundtrack for the moment.
“Time in.”
“If you want to kiss me again, Annie, I want you to. Take as much as you want, and I’ll keep my hands right here”—he grips my hips again—“unless you tell me to move them.”
I fill my lungs with air—feeling and knowing this is a pivotal moment in my life. The question I’m afraid to answer is why do I feel safe enough to even consider taking this further with Will when I know he won’t be here forever? When I know that with him it can only ever be passion and nothing else. I shouldn’t want this with him because there is no option for happily ever after and babies and white picket fences.
And yet…
My eyes travel up his chest and shoulders and neck, and then decide to take a leap. “You can move them.”
Four little words. Deadly words. Desire pulls the strings on my fingers and raises them to the sides of his abdomen with the lightest pressure, but I still feel his ribs expand under my hand. He holds absolutely still. I’m trembling and nervous as I slide my palms up farther, following the trail my eyes and fingers paved a moment ago. I’ve never felt anything quite like his warm skin before.
“I always keep my hands to myself because no one expects me to want any of this,” I say more as a realization than a statement. “But with you…” I frown contemplatively, letting my statement dangle.
“Kiss me, Annie. Please.”
His voice, raw with longing and restraint, excites parts of me I didn’t know existed.
Before I lose the nerve, I tip forward and press my lips to his. We’ve kissed before, but this is different. It’s intimate and loaded. The moment we connect, I am lost to the darkness behind my eyelids and the desire pooling in my body. His lips are warm and soft. He doesn’t assert himself, he only responds to my soft kisses. Exploring little presses. It’s not that I’m a complete amateur when it comes to kissing—it’s that I am an amateur at kissing Will. And if this is the last shot I ever get, I want to make it count and not rush a single second.
I pull away to look at him, he looks back, and then I lean in again, eyes open—kiss. I pull away once more, note the fiery look behind his blue-gray irises, tilt, and kiss again. He smiles lightly after the third one, catching on to my pattern. He raises a brow before being the one to lean in this time. He kisses me and lingers, slanting and coaxing. Here. It’s even better this way.
My eyes close again and I sink, sink, sink.
He pulls away, and our lips peel slowly, like they don’t want to let go. And this time, when I go in for the kiss, I linger too. I initiate a new rhythm—something deeper and more exploring.
I slide my arms all the way up around his neck so my chest presses to his. I want—need—to get closer. My consciousness is slowly swirling away from me as I lose myself to this kiss, and I hold on to him for dear life.
And then for the first time, Will’s hands slide up from my hips under my shirt to splay across my bare back. They tug me up even closer, his rough thumbs gliding over my soft skin. I have never felt more alive as Will holds me and kisses me—breathing deeply from time to time like he loves the way I smell.
I’m terrified. Thrilled. Embarrassingly needy.
Will’s mouth leaves mine to kiss my jaw and then my neck. My head lulls back and his hands roam down over my thighs and around to my backside, where he cups my butt and pulls me up to him. I gasp and he catches it in his mouth. A thread snaps and we’re lost.
Will holds me tight and flips us so he’s hovering over me and my back is against the mattress. My pulse is in my ears, heat is flooding every corner of my body as Will’s kisses extend to any part of exposed skin he can find, like my neck. The V of skin peeking out from my pajama top. And then the small section of skin on my abdomen where my top has ridden up. Just when I think I might pass out from the pure ecstasy of this, Will asks, “Why are you smiling?”
I shake my head and tug him up so that we’re face-to-face again. “I just embarrassed myself with my own thought.”
The black centers of his eyes grow. “Say it.”
I bite my lip and tell myself there’s no turning back now. “I was just wondering if you’d maybe…kiss me…passionately,” I ask, barely getting the words out and feeling so embarrassed by them that I could combust. “Less controlled. I can feel you holding back…and I don’t want you to.”