More Than Words(73)

Nina smiled. She hadn’t heard anyone use that phrase in years. Literally, your eyelashes are sticking together. Her mom used to say that when Nina was young, trying to stay awake past her bedtime, fighting sleep even though she was about to pass out. Hearing it, she realized how tired she was. “I’m exhausted,” she said, stifling a yawn.

“I’m pretty beat, too,” he answered, resting his chin on the top of her head. “It’s late. Maybe we should turn in for the night.”

Nina let the feeling of closeness, of intimacy, melt through her. She imagined what it would feel like to be wrapped in his arms, under the covers. Then she stepped away from him and turned her head. “Would you mind unzipping me?” she asked.

Nina felt his warm fingers graze her neck as he grabbed hold of the zipper pull.

She wasn’t sure if she should take her dress off in front of him, but then Rafael walked across the room, hung his suit jacket on the back of the rocking chair, and started unbuttoning his shirt. She could see the azabache dangling from the back of his collar. In response, Nina slid her arms out of her dress and let it fall to the floor, slipping off her heels as she stepped out of the pool of patterned satin. She was wearing nothing but a nude bra and white lace underwear.

“So that’s what you look like,” Rafael said, taking off his pants.

When he was free of them, standing in front of Nina in a pair of gray boxer briefs, she echoed his words. “So that’s what you look like.”

Nina could feel a heat thrumming deep inside her, a heightened awareness of Rafael sharing her space, breathing her air. After what she’d told him, after what he’d said . . .

“Bedtime?” she asked, climbing under the covers in only her underwear.

“Bedtime,” Rafael answered, climbing in next to her.

Nina turned out the light, so grateful to be with him, so glad that her day was ending like this. The room was inky black—there was no ambient light to filter through the windows. It took a while for Nina to be able to see the outline of Rafael’s profile next to her. Soon his long eyelashes came into focus, his sharp nose. She reached out, tracing his body from his shoulder down to his hip.

Rafael responded by running his fingers down her torso, too.

Nina rolled herself sideways, so she was facing Rafael.

“This feels like a big deal,” she said, confessions coming easier in the darkness.

“I was just thinking the same thing,” he told her. “I feel like I’m about to lose my virginity all over again.”

Nina laughed. “Who was she?”

“Brenda Caruso,” he said. “The summer after my senior year of high school. We both worked scooping ice cream at Coney Island the year the Brooklyn Cyclones started playing at MCU Park. We had sex under the boardwalk, like that song by the Drifters.”

A wave of jealousy washed through Nina. “Can we do that?” she asked.

“Well,” he said, “maybe not at Coney Island, but I’m sure we can find a quiet boardwalk somewhere. What about you? What was your first time like?”

“I’m boring,” she said. “It was my college boyfriend, Max. We met during freshman year and had sex in his dorm room while his roommate was away for the weekend. It was the first time for both of us. He pretended he wasn’t nervous, but we admitted to each other later how afraid we both were that it would be awful, that we would be awful, that we’d disappoint each other.”

Rafael shifted closer to her. She felt the mattress dip as he moved. “Is that what you meant before when you said this is a big deal? Are you worried we’ll disappoint each other?”

That was almost what she was worried about. “Maybe,” she said, moving toward him.

Rafael bent forward and kissed the top of her head. Nina closed her eyes.

He kissed each eyelid.

“I’m actually worried that I’ll disappoint you,” she whispered. “Or I’ll do something or want something that you . . . that you’ll think . . .”

He kissed her lips. “Never,” he answered.

He kissed her again, harder, and this time let his kiss slide down to her neck. Then his hand was in her hair as he ran his tongue along the length of her collarbone, his fingers trailing along the bottom of her jaw. She turned her head and caught one of them between her lips and he closed his eyes. “You are so damn sexy,” he said, opening them again, looking up at her.

Rafael slid his finger out of Nina’s mouth and she half smiled. “It’s nice to feel this kind of desire,” she told him.

“It is nice,” he said. “It’s been a long time since anyone wanted me like this.”

“That’s not true,” Nina said. “I wanted you. I just kept it quiet.”

“I’ve wanted you, too,” Rafael said as Nina moved her hand down his body. She could feel him getting harder against her fingers. She kissed him.

Rafael kissed her back just as insistently and reached under the covers, slipping his fingers inside her. She moaned, then licked her fingers before putting them back on his erection.

The two of them rocked against each other’s hands, the pleasure of it making them shiver. But Nina wanted more than hands.

“Can we?” she asked, rolling to her side, guiding him toward her under the covers.

Rafael nodded in response and Nina wrapped one leg around his hip while sliding onto him. “Oh,” they both breathed in unison.