In Harmony

He looked up. A tilted smile came over his lips. “Hey.”

“Hi.” A longing stirred deep within me. It had been waking slowly over the last few weeks, my body thawing from its freeze under Isaac’s hands, though he’d never done more than touch me over my clothes as we kissed.

Or maybe because he’d done nothing more. Never pressured me, verbally or physically. He kissed me and the kissing was perfect. He touched me gently, until my body understood the difference between his hands and the shadowy phantom of X.

Now I wanted more.

Isaac got to his feet and crossed the short space between us. At six foot two, he towered over me and I loved how protected I felt standing beside him.

“I brought something for Benny,” I said, my heart pounding. “For acing his science test.” I showed him the comic book. “According to Angie, Luke Cage is a serious badass.”

“According to Benny too,” Isaac said. “I’ll take it to him tomorrow morning.”

“How’s your dad?” It was Monday, which meant Isaac went to the trailer yesterday to give his father money for the week.

Isaac’s eyes darkened. “Not good,” he said. “I think he’s drinking more. I tried to talk to him about a treatment facility, but he won’t go and I can’t afford to put him somewhere nice. Not yet.”

“You will,” I said.

He bent to kiss me softly, but I deepened the kiss immediately, pulling him to me and exploring his mouth with mine until we were both breathless.

“Okay, I’m ready to work,” I said abruptly, and moved to put my bag down. Isaac stared, his smile stunned, while I floated light above a heavy, warm stone of desire between my legs.

I want him.

The truth of it shocked me, crackled down every part of my body like electricity. I shook out my trembling hands.

“I’m really nervous about opening night. I’d like to work my last monologue in Act Three.”

“Okay,” Isaac said. “Whatever you want. Though after a kiss like that, you ruined my concentration.”

A high-pitched laugh burst out of me. “I’m going to walk the maze.”

“Go for it.”

I went to the beginning of the maze and sucked in a deep calming breath. I tried to ignore the strange feelings pulling beneath my skin, but they were a magnetic force that wanted only Isaac.

I needed to put myself in Ophelia’s place at that moment in the play: the beginning of her spiral into psychosis and sorrow. But at that moment, standing at the start of the maze, I was stepping into something good and real.

“Oh, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!—

The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword…”

I recited my lines as I walked through corridors of hedges, spring-green and buzzing with life. By now I knew the path perfectly. Likewise my lines came to me by rote; I didn’t have to think of them anymore. They came to me like song lyrics, and I added my own little tune to them.

I emerged from the maze. Isaac waited on the bench. My brooding Dane. Dark and dangerous to everyone in the world but me.

“Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh; that unmatch'd form…”

My eyes trailed over his unmatched form. Lean muscle under smooth skin. Power under softness. Strength underneath his gentle touch. The magnetic pull was inescapable now. I needed his hands on me.

He was silent as I move to stand between his knees. His hands slid over my hips. My breasts were level with his chin, my nipples hardening as his breath wafted over them. I grazed my fingers through the hair along his temples and fell into his eyes, dark and dilated, the gray-green stormy with want.

“And feature of blown youth.” I let my teeth and tongue taste the next words. “Blasted with ecstasy.”

“Willow,” he said, his hands sliding up my sides, his thumbs grazing my breasts and pulling a small sound from my throat.

“O, woe is me,” I whispered against his lips. “Woe is me…”