“I mean how long do you think this will last?”
Closer and closer. “I guess that depends on a lot of things.” He pulls me toward his chest and envelopes me in his arms. I’m home. I feel like I belong here. I want to stay here, in this moment, forever and ever. Blanketed by his arms, his soft, tender touch, his smell, his mouth on mine.
“Depends on her?”
“Not necessarily.”
I’ve never asked him to break it off with his girlfriend. I know that sounds silly. When our relationship began I was attracted to him, but I wasn’t sure how deep my feelings for him would become. I’d told myself that we would just be having fun.
“Do you love me?” It’s a sincere question. He’s told me he has before.
He doesn’t speak. Only nods.
“Do you tell her that you love her?”
Another nod.
“Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Love her?”
He shrugs and stares off blankly. “I used to. I’m not sure how I feel about her anymore.”
I give him a questioning look. “Is that the truth?”
His lips form a straight line and he gives me a strange look. “What’s with the twenty questions? “
I take another sip of my beer. “I don’t know, Henry. Sometimes I think about what we’re doing and how maybe we shouldn’t.”
“Why would you say that?”
“What if eventually I become crazy? What if, despite what I’ve said in the past, this really does get to me? I’m already so involved.” I don’t know if I’d be able to handle it if this ends badly.
Henry sets his cup down. He curls his fingers around the nape of my neck. I look away, but he pulls me closer and places his warm lips against my ear. “I need you,” he whispers. I can’t fight him. I’m completely undone. My conscience slips away from me. Tattered and torn lying in pieces on the floor. Another whisper, “Let me love you. Let me worship you.”
He hops off the washer. Part of me is mad, mostly at myself because I can’t tell him no. People say, you can always say no, but those people don’t know Henry. Henry and his magnetic gaze. Henry who oozes perfection with every brush of his fingers,
every irresistible whisper, and every mind-blowing kiss.
I’m not even drunk from the beer. I’m drunk off of him. He digs his fingertips into my thigh and pulls me to the edge of the dryer. Then crushes his mouth to mine.
As the tip of his tongue brushes against the roof of my mouth, I’m seeing fireworks. An explosion of colors, brilliant and beautiful. The explosions of beauty leave a trail of colored smoke in the sky and a trail of colored smoke in my heart. Red. Bright red. The color of passion. The color of love.
He pulls away. “Come back.” I’m panting. His kisses knock the wind out of my lungs. I crave him, like chocolate. I want to taste him.
My legs are wrapped around his back and he places both of his hands on my cheeks and just stares. Two sets of blue eyes, gazing intensely into one another’s. We’re gone. Swimming in seas of blue on some deserted, uncharted island.
I’m fascinated. I can’t move. He’s a hypnotist. One snap of his fingers and I’ll be clucking like a chicken.
We’re both breathing, soft and slow. He reaches up and yanks the hair-tie from my hair. “You don’t know what you do to me.”
Then his lips caress mine. It’s only a brush, but the warmth overheats every part of me. Leaning back, my elbow bumps into the power button on the dryer and the old appliance starts moving. Spinning. Spinning like my head. Like my heart.
My hands are in his hair and his arms wrap around my waist tighter. I know what Henry does to me. I’m space bound. A rocket about to blast off. And all I want is for Henry to send me to the moon.
Chapter 4