Uncharted(61)

We’re silent for a long stretch, just watching the flames dance. They cast strange shadows on the cave walls all around us as the rain patters on overhead, a muted staccato. If I believed in ghosts, this is exactly the kind of place they’d dwell. Ancient spirits at the edge of the world, in a place untouched by human hands.

Until ours.

“Do you ever think about what would happen if we actually made it home?” I breathe, half-afraid to ask the question aloud. It feels safer, here in this place of shadows and secrets, to voice the deepest fears of my heart. The ones that whisper things I don’t want to hear late at night, about ex-wives and age gaps and societal norms. The ones I push away with every ounce of strength I possess, refusing to accept any other ending than one in which Beck and I end up together.

At my question, he tenses almost imperceptibly — just the slightest stiffening of his muscles before he regains control. If I wasn’t so attuned to his every detail, I wouldn’t notice it at all. His voice betrays none of his inner turmoil.

“No. I don’t think about it.”

He volunteers nothing more than that… but I know him.

I know how his mind works, how his heart beats. I know the sound of his sighs and the break in his laugh. I know him like the breath in my lungs, the blood in my veins. And so I know… I am not the only one who wonders, in the small hours of the night, whether there is any world outside the one we have built from scratch on this island in which a future for us exists. I know I am not the only one who questions if the salvation we’ve been praying for these days and weeks and months will ultimately be our undoing.

His lips hit my forehead. Not kissing, just breathing. He does that often — breathes me in, as if he might pull me into his lungs and hold me there, beside his heart, forever.

“Me neither,” I lie, feeling my eyes prick with unshed tears.

No past. No future.

Only now. Only us.

I slide my palm against his and knit our fingers together.

We are here. We are happy. That’s all that matters.

Moving in slow motion, I slide my leg across his body and shift onto his lap. He makes a small sound as his hands find my hips, tugging me closer. Face to face, my arms draping around his neck, I stare into his eyes in the mellow light. He’s so gorgeous, sometimes just looking at him too closely takes my breath away.

Arching my neck, I lean in and kiss the scar that bisects his left eyebrow. My mouth lingers for a moment before moving to the bridge of his nose, across the sharp slope of his cheekbones, down the firm line of his jaw.

I take my time. Kissing, tasting, teasing.

His fingers are digging into my skin by the time my lips finally make it to his. I keep them an inch away, close enough to breathe his air, careful not to brush. The longer we hover there, poised on the edge of a kiss like a swimmer on a diving board twenty feet above the pool, the more potent the tension becomes.

This is the moment before the fall. The last, breathless instant of toe-curling deliberation before the dive.

My tongue darts out to wet my lips, and that’s all it takes.

The tension snaps.

With a growl, Beck’s mouth crushes mine. My hands slide into his hair as his arms band around me like steel, plastering me against him so tight it’s difficult to draw breath. He holds me like a promise, his body whispering everything we’re both afraid to admit out loud.

Mine is speaking the same language.

The bralette disappears over my head in Beck’s hands, so fast I hardly notice him removing it until my bare chest brushes against his muscular one. My teeth sink into my lip. I catch a fleeting glimpse of a wolfish grin before his mouth drops lower, laving one of my nipples with his wicked tongue until I am no more than putty in his vastly capable hands.

“Beck,” I beg, barely able to form the word.

I don’t know exactly what I need; I just know I need more of it.

Lips, teeth, tongues.

Him.

His hands are infinitely gentle as he lays me back against the cold cave floor. I feel them shaking as they trace sensual patterns on my skin and know what this display of restraint is costing him.

“Touch me, please,” I breathe, staring up into his face. “I promise I won’t break, Beck.”

“You might not. Maybe I’m afraid I will.” His voice is a growl. “I don’t think you know what touching you does to me.”

“I don’t know,” I admit, watching the firelight flicker across his skin. “So… why don’t you show me?”

His eyes flash with such intense heat I think I’ll burst into flames. I thought, after so many months, I’d memorized his every expression but now, as his mouth parts on a shaky exhale, I watch his features rearrange into a look I’ve never seen before. It’s as though he’s taken off a mask to reveal the true man beneath — his edges a little sharper, his needs a little stronger, his hands a bit less gentle.

Yes.

Finally, yes.

My heartbeat quickens to a mad tattoo I can’t control as he strips off the rest of our clothes. His drugging kisses melt my bones into rubber as his mouth moves down my neck and across the planes of my stomach. Head bowed, he maneuvers my calves up onto his shoulders.

I watch him move in the semi-dark, barely breathing. When our stares tangle once more, I see his need to possess every inch of me warring with his desire to make my first time as pleasurable as possible.