“If you stayed here…I’d find it hard to go back to London.”
“What if you didn’t have to?”
Is this real?
“If I didn’t have to? If I could stay with you?”
He nodded. His irises skidded from right to left, as if he was terrified she would give the wrong answer.
“It would be a huge decision,” she said. He wanted honesty. He would get it. “But I think…I could live here.”
“Really?” He smiled boyishly and hugged her close.
“Really.”
He kissed her neck, then drew her away from the parapet, linking her arm in his while they passed the sketch artists and ukulele players, the bangle sellers and jugglers. It was a wrench to leave that low-lit river, but if anything could lure her away it was the thought of going back to the hotel with Milan.
The church bells were chiming eight o’clock as they entered the lobby and crossed to the lift. No tactical breaking of their embrace tonight—from now on, it seemed they were ‘officially’ a couple. A couple of flautists came out of the elevator, passing them as they went in, and scampered off, whispering. As soon as the doors shut, Lydia and Milan fell into a passionate kiss that lasted all the way to the top floor.
“Stay with me tonight,” he whispered, opening his door and whirling her round and round the room until she fell backwards, laughing, onto the bed.
She wanted to remember everything about this night, from the tiny cracks around the ceiling cornicing to the way Milan’s muscles moved in his face, his skin stretching and slackening over his jaw and cheekbones while he mock-pounced on her. She wanted to remember the placement of each strand of unruly hair, the exact blue shade of his eyes, the length of his neck and the V of his skin that was exposed when she undid the top button of his shirt. The bed creaked and some of the orange-brown, swirly wallpaper had peeled, but no room had ever held such promise and such joy—and such desire.
Milan dropped off the edge of the bed and removed each of Lydia’s shoes with a dramatic flourish, hurling them to the far corner of the room, then repeating the action with her socks. After diving back on the bed with a springing movement, ending in a low crouch over Lydia’s body, he unbuttoned her jeans and began to shimmy them slowly over her hips. Helping him out, Lydia arched her spine with an inviting smile. All of this was his—all of it could be his forever, if he wanted.
He uncovered her legs reverently, letting the denim slide slowly over inch afte
r inch of thigh, then down past her knees, speeding up to rip them off her ankles and toss them aside. She opened her legs like scissors and clamped his hips, yanking him down with her heels on his buttocks for a long, lascivious kiss. They lay like that, feeding on each other’s mouth, for a long time. Lydia felt him grow and harden at the apex of her thighs, his erection pushing down and begging to be let inside her pussy lips, although they were protected by her knickers. She rubbed her heels up and down his arse in delight, loving the feel of his clothes against her skin. His kiss, always voracious, was also tender, and Lydia sensed that he wanted her to understand and receive his passion as a promise, a solemn vow of togetherness. Once she had allowed herself to hope, it was easy to slip into the consciousness of love and of being loved. Yes, there was a future here, at last, and yes, she meant to seize it.
He curled his fingers under the hem of her hoodie, one he professed to hate with the orchestra logo across the front, and before she knew it he’d slid his hands up her ribcage and lifted the garment over her arms and head, leaving her in no more than her underwear. She writhed beneath him, plucking at his shirt buttons, wanting to equalise their footing, but he took her wrist and held it down above her head, lording it over her for one heady moment before unbuttoning the shirt himself with his other hand.
The cotton flapped over her stomach and ribs, caressing the slopes of her breasts, until he released her so he could shrug it off completely, exposing broad shoulders, muscular arms and the precise definition of his chest. Lydia worshipped him with her eyes, mouth watering at the way his belt sat on his hips below a tight stomach, drawing her eye lower. He smirked down at her, revealing his awareness of the power he held over her, and held her breasts, using his thumbs to peel away the bra cups. Her nipples popped up, red and ready for him, and he circled them with languorous fingers, licking them now and again, building the sensation within her up and up while she shut her eyes and let it take her over.
She abandoned her thought processes and gave herself up to pure sensation. Soon all the barriers between them were gone and they lay, skin against skin, heart beating against heart, transferring warmth between them until it was no longer clear whose warmth and scent belonged to whom. An endless vortex of heat and wetness, need and tension, span Lydia around. She knew that she moved, she knew that she reached and touched. It was all she needed to know. She and Milan, joined, were the beginning and end of the universe.
After the kissing and feeling, the exploring and teasing, they plunged into the serious business of coupling. Lydia spread her thighs to welcome her lover, her one beloved, to hold him inside her and keep him for as long as she could. Filled with his cock, she was whole.
“I love you,” she whispered, over and over again.
“Miluji te,” he said.
Her orgasm ripped her apart and remade her, and his, when it came shortly afterwards, completed the ceremony, which she thought of as a bonding ritual.
Now they were one. Now their life could begin.
She lay in a fog of satisfaction and unspeakable emotion for a long while, waiting for her mind to come back to her. Milan lay on top of her, so heavy and limp that she almost thought he might have lost consciousness. But eventually he stirred into life and rolled to the side, allowing her to breathe freely again.
“Are you okay?” he asked eventually, sounding worried.
“Of course.” She propped herself up on her elbows, squinting down at him. He looked scared. “Are you?”
“I really felt that,” he said. “I haven’t felt it like that…not for years.”
“Felt it like what?”
“I don’t know. I felt free, I guess. I wasn’t performing. I was just…letting my body… I don’t know. This all sounds stupid.”
“No, no, it doesn’t. It’s pretty amazing. I almost felt like I was having, like…” Lydia laughed self-consciously. “A spiritual experience.”