Something Wilder

But being this close to Leo felt just as natural. It felt right to share her body with him. And even more than that… it felt right to let him into her world. She hadn’t wanted to figure out how to build something lasting with a lover in years, but the thought that she could try with Leo flickered like a firefly around the edges of her thoughts, teasing.

“I’m just lying here in the darkness,” he said, “trying to imagine going back to my life the way it was last week, and I can’t. I can’t even imagine what that would look like.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know what it means, exactly. I guess it depends on what you want.”

“I don’t know.” She drew absent circles on the side of his neck. “Right now? I want you. Right this second, I want to feel you. But I guess if you need something more permanent than that, then… don’t kiss me.”

Please kiss me, she thought. Her pulse was rioting. His breath was warm and still sweet with the mint of his toothpaste and mouthwash. The kiss in the rain, against the rock, had been bruising and angry, but right now she remembered every other kind of kiss Leo could give and she wanted them all. Sweet, deep, searching, frantic. Her breath seemed to hover in her throat as he thought it over.

And then, just when Lily thought she might cry out in needy frustration, his full mouth slowly came over hers. Like a match had been dragged down the walls of her veins, a fire exploded in her blood, and she didn’t let him pull away, chasing his lips, opening to him, soft and pliant. The kiss felt nothing like last time; none of the anger and hurt, only pleasure that promised to stretch her to the breaking point. God, she’d forgotten the undiluted bliss of kissing Leo, of focusing every drop of energy on the way his lips felt, the wet slide and drag of them, the teasing licks and deep, sweet invasion of his tongue.

She couldn’t keep her hands still; there was too much to touch and feel. Everything from the shape of his mouth to the heat of his skin to his perfect, quiet sounds felt tailor-made for her. Outside there was the rush of the river, the swirl of wind through sagebrush, the insistent clicks and chirps of insects. But in here there was only breath, the sound and feel of kissing, the soft noises they couldn’t hold inside.

Maybe they would just kiss like this until morning. Maybe the sun would rise, and they’d still be here, unable to get enough of how it felt to lick and taste and suck. Lily suspected that kissing Leo could satisfy her forever, but then he made a fist in her hair, licking a hot path up her neck, and something turned over in her. Her body cautioned that without deeper relief, she might crack open and spill fire everywhere.

A warning bell rang, quaking in her arteries, pounding down every limb. Lily wanted him with a broken-glass intensity. Her hands were greedy, gliding everywhere she could reach, palms flat, fingertips a blaze of sensation. Leo’s arms tightened, pressing her flush against him, and he read her posture, rolling forward when she rolled back, and inside of the tight sleeping bag he came over her, hips shifting between her legs, arching forward when she rose, and the relief of him there, the compound bliss of his weight and the pressure of him—desperately hard, just where she needed it—made her cry out. She was nothing but hollow ache. If he reached between them and touched her, he’d know without words that there’d never been anyone that turned her on the way he did. Leo dug down, but not for that. He bunched his shirt up her body and over her head, tossing it somewhere to the side. She wanted to cry at how good he felt when he came back against her, the slide and heat and solidity of his bare chest on hers.

He pressed forward, rocking into her, and his mouth rested on hers, open and overcome, and when he quietly asked her, “Does that feel good?” she wanted to bow down in gratitude to the universe that, no matter what else happened to him when they’d been apart, these essential elements of Leo—sweet and attentive and inquisitive—hadn’t vanished.

Her brain flashed, How did we ever end? How did I not get on the first plane to New York, or demand he get on the first plane back to me? What she’d felt for Leo—what she felt for him still—was too big to name or tame, too big to shove back in a box when he went home. And if he stayed, she couldn’t even promise not to fuck it up, but it wouldn’t be because she didn’t want him.