I do the same to her, dragging my teeth along her plush bottom lip and licking it slightly with the tip of my tongue. She lets out a soft moan, and it urges me on. There’s no way of holding back after that. Our lips collide furiously. When her tongue glides against mine, every lingering thought is erased. My sole focus and moment's purpose is to be kissing this woman. She tastes like lemons dipped in sugar—tartand sweet.
Wrapping one hand behind her neck, I push my fingers into her hair to tilt her head where I want her. She moves with me easily. My other arm circles her hips, just above her ass. I drag her even closer, closing any gap left between us. It's been hours of coy smiles and flirtatious conversation. This, right here, is one helluva payoff.
I walked into this bar to drink away the uncertainty. Forget about the path my life is no longer taking. Be a stranger in a strange city. Find myself in the luxury of having no obligations and being completely alone.
But right now, I’ve never wanted to get lost with someone else more in my life. I’m certain of it.
3
Giselle
You kiss by the book.It’s not a line that would have stuck with me if I read Romeo and Juliet. Which I haven’t. To be honest, the idea of kissing, according to the way a book instructs, seems like a boring-ass kiss. Assumptive. Unoriginal. But when Claire Danes breathily said it to Leo DiCaprio in the movie version of Shakespeare’s story, I nearly had a coronary from too much blood draining from my heart and into my lady bits. Both of them were beautiful. An innocent, puffy-lipped virgin and a heroic fuckboy in training. They were nothing short of perfect sexual chemistry in motion. My perspective about that one line changed utterly, simply by the way it was delivered. But I suppose that was the point—the delivery.
I’ve never thought too long about kissing someone. I take what I want, and offer what I desire, but kissing was never as epic as Claire proclaimed to Leo. With anyone. Except right now, this sexy stranger that I’ve known for less than a handful of hours has nearly dismantled everything I’ve ever assumed about a kiss.
I always approached kissing as a warm-up. An appetizer for the main course to follow. But not right now. Right now, I’m thinking this man kisses my lips and invades my mouth in a way that is fucking poetic. Claire Danes or Juliet, or even Shakespeare himself, did a shit job of describing what it feels like to be kissed the way I was apparently meant to be.
“Why do your lips…” He rubs my swollen bottom lip with his thumb, seemingly in awe. And I feel just the same. “This mouth feels so fucking good against mine?” He stares at my mouth and then looks back up into my eyes. I can’t help but smile. Back and forth, he grazes my lips ever so slowly. I taste the tip of his thumb, making him groan. The low hum that he’s making. The approval and praise of it, mixed with the low octave, feels like I’ve been tea-bagged with pure fucking eroticism.
My phone vibrates on the table behind me. I want to yell at it to shut up so this magic we’re coated in doesn’t fade. It’stoogood.
Then it buzzes again.
There are very few people who would be texting me right now. After 2 a.m., it usually means someone’s looking to hook up.
Another buzz.
“Need to get that?” he asks, still lazily moving his thumb around my lips.
I reluctantly stand up off his lap, but before I leave him completely, I quickly kiss and nip his lips one more time. It pulls a smile out of him. He was really fucking sexy when he came in tonight, with his severe and somewhat grumpy exterior, but this man smiling is an entirely new high for me. A new kink, because I’m almost certain that smile has the ability to disarm me in every way.
The phone buzzes again as I pick it up.
Three missed calls and text messages from my pops. That’s not good.
Pops
Need you to stay away from the house
Love you, kid
I call him back. My guess is he’s had too much fun playing horseshoes with the guys tonight, decided to collect on the sexual innuendos that Lenora from across the street throws his way on the regular, and doesn’t want me to be traumatized. Maybe even decided to polish off the new batch of limoncello my cousin made.
No answer. I stare at the texts one more time. The last one isn’t something he’d usually say to me.
“Everything okay?”
I nod.
“Let me walk you home,” he offers, standing up and dragging me back into his arms. “Tell me your name. I still don’t know your name.”
“Gia.”
He kisses me lightly. Almost a ghosting of his lips against mine. “I’m Henry.”
“I live in the Bronx. You’re not going to want to walk all the way there.”
“I’ll make sure you get to your train, then.” He pauses for a minute and moves his hands from my face and neck down to my shoulders and arms. “Give me your number so I can make sure you got home okay.”