He exhales, his chest slumping against me, and I can practically feel his guilt. “I know it feels like a betrayal that I did that. It feels that way to me, too.”
I nod, swallowing back another sob. “Such a small one in comparison. Oliver, I’m an idiot.”
He laughs. “It feels good to finally talk about this stuff, though,” he says. “Feelings and things about us. And not just when we’re having sex. I mean out here, on the beach.”
“Okay,” I say laughing, “I guess I agree it’s good we didn’t go inside.”
“We would be making a lot of noise, but nothing intelligible,” he says, bending to press his forehead to mine. Desperate need for him explodes in my blood and I feel the ache spread like a vine inside my chest.
“Oliver . . .”
But he pulls back, eyes heavy with desire, determined to keep talking. “I’ve wanted you for so long,” he says. “Sometimes it grew so enormous it left me feeling faintly nauseous. I went on a date shortly after we met and I moved to San Diego, and was miserable. I came home and listened over and over to a voicemail you’d left me. It was this rambling monologue about how much you hate Pringles but it was really a love letter to Pringles.”
I laugh; I know exactly what message he’s talking about.
“I got myself off to the sound of your voice that night,” he admits, then looks at me darkly.
My heart hiccups; heat spreads from my chest down down down between my legs.
“I’ve done very, very crude things to you in my head.”
“Like what?” I ask.
“Licking, biting, fucking,” he says quietly. “Coming inside you. On you. Just after you or, sometimes before you, making you play with me until I was hard again.”
I can’t catch my breath, can’t remember how to swallow.
His eyes darken again when he says, “And that thing we did in the shower.”
I suddenly feel very, very aware of the fact that he hasn’t kissed me again since we left his house. That it’s been over two weeks since he had his hands on me, and far longer since I let myself be completely lost in the feel of them.
His head angles down, lips skirting across my jaw. “Your turn for a recap.”
“I had a crush on you in Vegas but sort of got over it when I thought you weren’t interested,” I tell him. “And then I was buried in the launch of Razor and just . . . mainly . . . fantasized about you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I tell him. “Licking, biting, fucking. And that thing we did in the shower.” He laughs without sound: a gentle rumble in his chest against me. “But then I drew you nearly naked and the fantasy wasn’t enough anymore. I mean, I have approximately twenty drawings just of your dick.”
“Must have been hard to find places for all that poster board,” he says, smiling.
“I mean, obviously. Go life-size or go home.” His hands slip into my coat, ducking under the hem of my shirt. Cool fingertips meet the warm skin of my waist, my ribs, the top swell of my breast above my bra, and our eyes meet for a few seconds until he bends, kissing me once.
“Hi, girlfriend.”
I feel my smile all the way to my knees. “Hi.”
“You’re okay?”
I nod. “I’m so, so good.”
Silent communication isn’t new to us, but the message in his eyes is. There aren’t words for what he’s saying, at least not in any language we know. He’s desperate but elated; his body is amped up, but it isn’t about fucking for the sake of orgasm, or ironing out some twist between us with pleasure. It’s this intense, perfect connection he feels. I know because the same thing is thrumming in me.
I slip the top button of his jeans free while his eyes hold mine, granting silent permission. The three beneath it open with only gentle coaxing. Oliver’s breath comes out fast and warm on my cheek.
“What are you up to, Lorelei?”
“Touching you.”
I look down, watching my hand dig into his boxers, but I can feel when he looks up and behind me at the beach, making sure we really are alone out here.
I tilt my face to his, silently asking for a kiss.
“This massive, massive love . . .” he murmurs into my lips, trailing off when my fingers slide over the swollen, slick head of him.
Oliver wraps his coat around us both, obscuring my bent arm, my hand when I pull him free of his boxers. His mouth opens against mine, tongue sweeping over me for tiny strokes, hands clasped together at my back to keep our cover intact. There are so many ways to declare love, to make love. I swallow his sounds, stroking him in this slow, nearly lazy way until he’s shifting against me, until he’s shaking, until his kisses stop and he’s too focused on the pleasure of it. His lips go slack, simply pressed against mine, and I’m greedy for the little grunts that begin when he’s close, swollen to bursting, knuckles pressed into my spine, begging. We’ve been nearly silent: a couple embracing, kissing on the beach in the darkness, but when something splits open in me—relief, thrill, tension unloaded—it pulls a paradoxical sob from my throat, and Oliver leans forward, coming with a low groan.