“Nate,” I begin. His eyes snap up to meet mine like he’s been waiting for just that one signal to confess. So, he does.
“I lied to you that night,” he says, his eyes searching mine. “My flight was canceled because of the storm, but I booked one for later that evening. I was just killing time in the bar; I wanted to catch the end of a game. And then you walked in.” He takes a deep breath and sighs, and there isn’t anything in the world that could make me look away. “I was glued to the seat, Callie. I couldn’t get up, I couldn’t leave. I had to keep talking to you, I can’t explain it. It was…as necessary to me as breathing.”
“Then why did you lie?” My voice cracks as the words come out.
“Strangely enough, because I didn’t want you to think I was using you. I can see now that wasn’t the best plan. My mom, she tracks my flights, and I didn’t want to have to explain why-”
“Why you skipped your flight to have sex with some woman you met in a bar?” I try to sound lighthearted about it all, but it falls flat.
“No,” he says, closing the distance between us. Without even realizing it, I’ve walked a few steps towards him. Nate drops the bag, then reaches out for my hand. He holds just my fingers, lightly skimming the pad of his thumb across my nails. “I didn’t ask you to leave the bar to have sex with you. I mean, I wanted to have sex with you. I want to have sex with you.” He lets out a breathy laugh as he shakes his head, and the frustrated smile makes a warmth blossom in my chest. It’s cute, the way he stumbles over the words, and he looks at our entwined fingers as he continues. “If you had just wanted to talk that night? I would’ve sat there and talked to until the sun came up. I would’ve missed ten flights if I had to.”
He squeezes my hand, looking down at me, and the soft light from the lanterns makes his perfect face seem almost ethereal. My breath catches, right in my throat. I want to ask him why, why he wanted to talk to me so badly. Me, the girl whose father left and whose boyfriend turned to another woman for comfort. The girl who’s never been quite good enough to make people want to stick around. But somehow, he wanted to.
He searches my eyes, and maybe he knows. Maybe he can see all the doubt inside of me.
“You flipped a switch in me that had been off for a long time,” he says. “That night, with you, everything just…lit up.”
My heart skips, and the air around me feels so heavy all of a sudden. I don’t care about cleaning up or about the trash we’re going to leave out here, I don’t care about anything other than Nate’s smile, and the warmth of his hand, the way his skin feels against mine. I want to feel his hands on me, everywhere.
I slide my fingers through his and we just go together, like my palm was made to fit against his. I lead him across the yard and into the house, through the living room and down the long hallway that leads to our rooms. We pass mine, and walk into his. I turn on the light and close the door.
Nate looks a little surprised, and I want to kiss that surprise right out of him. He has questions, I know he does. I don’t have many answers, not yet. Maybe I never will, but I think he understands that about me. He understands a lot about me without really knowing all that much. He’s brought back some of the confidence I lost when I found Ethan cheating on me all those months ago. He’s made me feel desirable again; it’s something I’ve been missing for far too long.
I untangle our fingers and bring both of my hands to rest on his chest, using his body as leverage as I push myself up on my tiptoes to press my mouth against his. The kiss is soft and tender; very slow, and exactly what I need. Nate’s hands come to rest on my hips, steadying me, his fingertips slipping beneath my shirt, branding the skin there. I pull away for just a second to unzip his sweatshirt.
“Callie,” Nate says, his voice very tight. “What…” My fingertips stretch across the taut muscles on his abdomen, up along his chest, and the question gets caught in his throat.
As I slide the sweatshirt off his shoulders and into a puddle on the floor, I whisper, “You flipped a switch.”
NATE CRADLES my face in his hands, his eyes locked with mine as he gently drags the pads of his thumbs along my overheated cheeks. There are specks of gold buried under all that blue. I’ve never noticed them before, even though I’ve been close enough to see them. Maybe I never truly looked for them; maybe I’ve been too afraid to really see them, been too afraid to look deep enough to see the emotion that hides beneath the surface of Nate’s beautiful, expressive eyes.
The air between us holds a current; it’s charged with something that’s making every single nerve in my body stand on end. Every time Nate touches me, the electricity doubles, creating this sublime, almost unbearable surge of energy around us. It’s so completely unlike our last time together, but still incredibly familiar. Everything about this feels amazing, wonderful.
It feels inevitable.
Nate’s hands slide back and cradle my head as he gives me a gentle, tender kiss. Then those soft, perfect lips ghost across my cheek and brush against the shell of my ear. He buries his face in my hair, breathing deep, and I cling to him, running my fingers through the short hair at the nape of his neck, tugging gently the way I know he likes. One of his arms bands around my back, the other around my waist, and he holds me so tight. Tight enough that I think he’s trying to imprint my body with his, tight enough that I think he might be afraid to let me go. Like if he lets me go, I’ll disappear.
I want to tell him that I’m here, I’m here, I’m not going anywhere, but I can’t tell him that. Trying to convince him otherwise would ruin this anyway.
He lifts my shirt over my head, tossing it to the side and then he unclasps my bra, sliding it down my shoulders. His fingertips gently ghost across my collarbone, down the valley between my breasts. His palms slide up and down my sides, cupping the swell of my breasts before the pads of his thumbs tease my nipples. He touches me very slowly, testing out all the ways he can make my body respond to him, and he watches me like he’s trying to commit every single second of this to memory. Then his mouth and tongue follow the path his hands have just taken.
I let my hands explore his chest. I memorize the ridge of every muscle, the raised plane of every scar. I taste the salty sweetness of his skin, licking and sucking and nipping him with my teeth, doubling my efforts whenever he gasps or sighs or groans, which is often.
Curling my fingers around the waistband of his jeans, I pull him with me as I walk backwards, falling onto the bed when the backs of my knees hit the mattress. Nate laughs, god it’s my favorite sound, and I make quick work of his zipper, pulling his jeans and boxers down until they fall around his ankles. I skim my fingernails along Nate’s upper thigh, across the dips in his hips, drawing a light hiss from his mouth and making goosebumps bloom all over his tanned skin. I slide my palm down his erection and his head tilts back as he exhales in complete satisfaction. I can’t help but smile, and I’m driven by this newfound power that I feel just knowing that I have this gorgeous man completely at my mercy.
My hands slide from his hips to the curve of his ass, and I spread my legs as I grip him, giving him room to come closer. I lick him from shaft to tip, gently taking him into my mouth. I hollow out my cheeks, taking him as far into my mouth as I can, and every muscle in Nate’s body seems to tense up, although he still seems very relaxed. His hands tangle almost lazily through my hair as he watches me sucking him, his eyes a little unfocused and his lids hooded to the point where I can only make out the faintest hint of blue. Just when he’s on the brink of coming—I can tell by the way his breathing speeds up and the way my name is falling from his lips, like he’s praying and begging at the same time—he gently pushes me back on the bed, sliding me up towards the headboard. He holds himself up over me as he reaches over and grabs a condom out of his nightstand, then he finds a pillow somewhere behind me, fluffing it up before he lifts my head and slides the pillow underneath it.