Chapter Thirty-Eight
Keli
One of the things I really loved about Zack was that he could never hide what he was really thinking. All through dinner, he had been thinking he wanted to get me in bed. I could see it in the way he fidgeted uncomfortably as if struggling to keep himself in check, in the way he raced through his meal as though eager to finish the date and get back to my apartment (a motivation I think he was only dimly aware of, if it occurred to him at all).
I could tell the longing had been building inside him all night, and probably for a lot longer than that. It had been weeks since we’d slept together; we hadn’t done it at his parents’ house for fear of being caught, and I don’t think I’d realized how much my body missed him until I was sitting across from him at dinner thinking about how his beard was coming in and how it made him look handsomer, fuller, and more mature. He had the look now of a college professor struggling to explain an important problem in physics, especially when he got really passionate and began waving his arms in the air like a conductor.
I had a feeling when we finally made love it would be powerful, and the longer we talked that night, the more I wanted it. When I asked him if we could go back to his apartment, a light shone in his face. It was like I was giving him permission to do all the wild and terrible things he had been imagining himself doing to me all night. But it was like I was giving myself permission, too. There’d been countless times in the last couple weeks when I’d told myself I would never be loved by a man again, that I didn’t deserve the love of a man like Zack, and I would probably be single for the rest of my life.
So when I asked him, it was as much for myself as it was for him. I wanted this. We both wanted it.
And when we finally made it into the apartment, when he pushed me against the wall and put his arms around me, I felt a sense of release like I had rarely felt in the past. This, this was what I had wanted: the brush of his lips against my neck, the feel of his hands around my waist. We were hungry and we both knew it; if I hadn’t been, his intensity might have scared me, but as it was, it was a perfect reflection of my own hunger.
“I don’t even know if I’m going to make it to the bedroom,” he said as he tore off his pants, nearly falling over in the process. “Shit, we’re lucky we even made it through the door.”
“It’s important not to get arrested, but I don’t know, it could have been worth it. Maybe they’d have put us in the same cell, and we could have had passionate jail sex.” I was kneeling on my legs on the kitchen floor, still wearing my blouse and blue jeans. Zack was just about out of his clothes, all but his boxers. I couldn’t get over how finely sculpted he was, how perfectly formed in every crest and crevice of his body.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever wanted anything as much as I want you right now,” he said in a low growl. “Almost makes those months in the desert worth it.”
I smiled and wrapped my arms around his neck, kissing him once on the mouth. “Imagine if every SEAL had this to look forward to when they came home from deployment.”
“Getting to sleep with you? I think morale would improve.” He pulled me close and tucked my head under his chin for a moment as though praying. I could feel every tremor and exhalation of his body. Then, pushing my bangs out of my face and kissing me fervently and repeatedly on the forehead, he said, “Now let’s get you out of those clothes.”
He stood up and took me by the hands, pulling me up with him. For a moment, he stood there in his boxers looking me over as though trying to decide what he wanted to remove first. Or maybe he just liked to stare at me, I couldn’t tell.
“You want me to help?” I asked quietly. His thighs were warm against mine.
“Not this time.” With an air of resolution, he reached for the button on my jeans and began to unzip them. He pulled at the legs, and I assisted by shrugging them off until they lay in a pile on the floor at my feet.
I was wearing a tiny pair of gray silk underwear, the kind with little ribbons on the front on either side. Zack knelt down and ran his hands along the top; I shivered at the touch of his skin against my waist beneath my belly button. With a firm tug, he pulled them down, around my waist, around my knees, all the way down to my ankles. I gave them a final kick, and they went flying across the kitchen floor.
“I just want to know one thing,” he said as he buried his face in my thighs, and I bit down hard on my lip to keep from crying out.
I grasped at the tufts of his hair with both hands, holding on as tight as I could. “What’s that?”
“How are you so perfect?”
This time I couldn’t help it: a shiver of pleasure ran through my body, and I let out a yell that could almost certainly be heard across the hall. I hadn’t even removed my shirt yet—was still wearing my glasses, even—and already I was experiencing a level of ecstasy that other boys had not managed even in our most intimate moments. Pleased at the effect he was having, Zack pressed on, and I screamed more and more loudly until finally, not able to handle it anymore, I fell over face-first onto the floor and pulled him with me.
“Lordy,” I panted, reaching for his hands, “if that was—we’re not even—”
Zack laughed and pulled me close for a kiss. “It’s okay, you don’t have to be articulate all the time,” he said, and I felt a surge of appreciation coursing through me. “Sometimes you’ve just gotta be still and surrender yourself to the moment.”
And over the next hour, that was precisely what I did.