Which is apt.
She’s so damn beautiful under me, her hands on my back, my shoulders, my ribs, just touching me with a possession that fires my soul. Her hair tickles her shoulders and it’s thick and tousled, makeup long gone, her lips bright red from long kisses all night. Those impossibly-big eyes peer up at me and make me stop breathing, though I keep moving, making love to her with long strokes like a clock tower bell calling out the hour, the slow, sonorous beat designed to mark time.
Now.
Now.
Now.
Now.
I dip my head down to take one nipple and it tastes like salt and velvet, like my fingerprints and her secrets. She arches up, a simple gesture that asks for more, and I’m grateful again. Fire courses through me, sweat making the slick friction between our skin even easier, the glide of body against body allowing for the insatiable build-up between us sparked by each stroke.
Amanda reaches up, one hand on my ass, her fingertips digging into me, her mouth on mine, tongue searching for more connection. We’re as close as two bodies can get, her hands clinging to me, her breasts smashed against my chest, and I know this tell, too. When she tightens her hold and her touch becomes damn near frantic, she’s about to come, and I pause. Just for a second, just long enough to honor what’s inside me without interrupting what she needs.
Because in that pause, I feel all the emotions at once, thousands of feelings connected to her sighs, our kisses, the strokes and caresses, the push of being in her, the warm softness of being enveloped, the wet moans and worshipful sighs and eager urgency that all rolls into a whirlwind of energy and emotion that is the tornado within.
And then we roar together.
A crack of lightning makes us both startle and jump, the rhythm interrupted, the cacophony of a sudden, explosive rainstorm outside changing the air, ozone and salt on the tip of my tongue, replacing the taste of her from moments ago.
“You timed that, didn’t you?” she says, laughing under me, the push of muscle nearly evacuating me from her body, but we shift, holding closer, and I stay inside her.
The pounding rain makes it hard to hear. She reaches up and pushes the hair from my forehead using the same hand that was in those strands moments ago, urging me.
“Even I can’t orchestrate that,” I say with a laugh, picking up the rhythm, her eyes closing, breath quickening. We’ve lost what we had but we’ll find it again.
That’s the beauty of knowing.
You’ll always find each other again.
My throat tightens as we crest together, caught up in the crazy storm of arousal and climax, of pleasure and desire, of the mix of the squall outside and the tornado within, whirling and whirling until there is no more Amanda, no more Andrew, just a tight clinging to each other that comes from certainty. From trust.
From some feeling deeper than love, threaded together by those thousands of emotions I felt in that single pause.
The storm outside becomes louder, and suddenly I feel wetness on my back.
“Is it raining on the bed?” Amanda squeals.
I jump up, almost mournful as our bodies separate and I pull out of her, the feeling of separation like a prison sentence, and I remove myself from the unnamed half of the wholeness I feel when I’m in her. I turn into just Andrew, a naked guy in his waterfront loft who faces a stinging wall of ocean rain and wind.
I shut the balcony door and turn around to find Amanda giggling, then snickering, and finally snorting with laughter.
I am soaked.
“You look like a wet squirrel.”
“That’s not the spirit animal I would pick for myself. How about a bear? A wolf? Give me some credit here, Amanda. I would be a big, alpha animal.”
She scrunches up her face in contemplation, her eyes relaxed and happy, her body loose and half-exposed between the twisted sheets. “Ferret?”
“Hmph. How about a nice, big hug?” I say, not giving her the chance to reply in the negative, jumping on the bed and covering her with wet kisses.
She screams, wriggling under me, and damn if I’m not getting hard again.
“You’re salty!” she says with a laugh. “My lips are stinging.” I’m kissing her, face coated in rain, and she slowly stops her giggles and lets them dissolve into little sighs.
There we go.
The storm outside can rage on, but the one in here has its own tempo, too.
“I love you,” I whisper, kissing her neck.
“Love you, too,” she says with a little sound of contentment. “But I need coffee.”
“You need coffee more than me?”
“Only sometimes. Especially at 6:17 a.m. on a Friday.”
I squint at the clock. Oh, hell. “You’re as bad as Shannon.” But I let her go, enjoying the view as she stands and walks to the door, grabbing my robe. Watching her put it on gives me a sense of pride. Possession. The robe swallows her. The gesture is domestic. Casual. Understated and assumed.
Wifely.
“If I’m as bad as Shannon, will you buy me my own coffee chain?”
“You have to marry me to get that. Dec bought it for her as a wedding gift.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Every part of the room tilts. My blood stops pumping. My mind stops racing. The crazy rain outside sounds like white noise. A ringing forms in my ears, and it’s like I’m watching her through clear, transparent molasses.
Wife. Marry. Wedding.
Those words make an appearance again.
Bzzz.
She groans. “Your phone? Again? Can’t you just turn it off?”
“Between Dad’s inability to turn over the CEO role to me in full, and now Declan’s resignation, work is crazier than ever. I only have so many hours in a day.”