“You wrote this about me?”
His smile was weak and his gaze slid away, to the floor, the table, then back to me. “I never know what to say when you’re standing right in front of me. Still don’t.”
“God, Connor,” I laughed and sighed with relief at the same time. “This is exactly why I’m here. What I wanted to tell you…is that you can talk to me. Whatever you’re thinking, I want to hear it. I need to hear it. All your thoughts and ideas and dreams. They’re as important to me as being with you. I mean…” I held up the sheet of paper again. “Do you want…this?”
“I want…” He swallowed hard, his voice firming. “I want to be with you. That…” He jerked his chin at the paper in my hand. “That’s what I want. With you.”
A warmth spread through my chest, down to my stomach, washing away the tight knot there. I went to him and ringed my arms around his neck.
“I can’t be casual,” I said. “I wish I could, but I’m not built that way. And that poem…” I shook my head, the warmth heating toward something more. “It’s not casual. It’s beautiful.”
“You’re beautiful,” he said, and kissed me, holding my body to the strong wall of his. His lips trailed down my throat. “And I don’t want casual. I want you to stay.”
“I do too,” I breathed, clinging to him, my fingers sinking into his hair. “I think I just needed a little something more from you. Does that sound totally crazy?”
“No.” He kissed the hollow of my throat, and then raised his head to look at me. “I have a lot to give, Autumn. I promise.”
I stroked his cheek. “I know you do. And I wish your parents could see that too.”
Connor’s expression shifted, hardening into something fierce and full of want. His arms around me tightened and he kissed me hard, wide-mouthed and demanding. I took it in, dizzy with him and the words now burned into my brain. I kissed back just as hard, as if I could siphon off the poetry in him.
He lifted me off the ground, never breaking our kiss and carried me to his bedroom, to his king-sized bed where he laid me down. My clothes melted away under his deft hands, and I surrendered myself to his expert machinations in every way.
In sweated sheets…
We tore his bed apart, voracious, as Connor’s body on mine—so heavy and thick above me and inside me—worked me into a delirium.
Grasping at relief…
My fingernails raked down his broad back and then clutched at him hard, as that ecstatic release found me.
Again and again, through all the hours of night, and one final time when I was nearly asleep, yet starving for more. I collapsed in the strong ring of his embrace, my body warm and heavy and breathing—
can breathe again
—in perfect cadence to his.
Autumn
The alarm on my phone went off at five a.m. Disoriented, I fumbled my hand on a nightstand that wasn’t mine, trying to shut it off.
“The agony,” Connor mumbled.
The beeping silenced, I rolled to face him. He lay on his stomach, face half-buried in his pillow, and everything we’d done that night came flooding back to me, bringing a flush of heat to my face.
“Sorry,” I whispered. “Go back to sleep.”
“I plan to.” One green eye peeked open and he gave me a lazy smile.
I bit my own smile with my front teeth. “Last night was really good.”
“Really good?” His arm snaked out and pulled me in tighter. “I can’t let you leave here with ‘really good.’”
I laughed and gave his chest a playful shove. “I have to work. And maybe I was understating it a little.”
He kissed me softly. “I’m glad you stayed.”
Oh God, the butterflies.