Say the Word(45)
“You’re a closet romantic,” I whispered, more than thrilled at the discovery. “I bet you like Jane Austen novels and Nicholas Sparks movies,” I teased lightly, squeezing his hand in mine.
“Oh, shut up,” Sebastian growled, pulling me in for a hug as we came through the final stretch of woods and entered the clearing. “And don’t diss Jane.”
I burst into laughter and he begrudgingly joined in after a few seconds and a coercive elbow to the stomach.
My giggles abruptly dried up as I took in the clearing before me. This was clearly not Sebastian’s first trip to the glade today. Beneath the massive oak, a fluffy white blanket had been spread across the ground. Pillows were tossed artfully on top, and a picnic basket sat unobtrusively on a small mossy boulder nearby. Tall, unlit pillar candles in glass jars were scattered around the perimeter, and a string of white paper lanterns had been hung from the lowest tree branch overhead.
It was beautiful — like I’d stumbled into a scene from a fairytale.
“What is all this?” I whispered, turning to face Sebastian.
“It’s our two month anniversary,” he told me matter-of-factly. “I wanted to do something special.”
“We have an anniversary?” I asked, unable to contain the teasing smile that was overtaking my face. “I wasn’t even sure we were dating.”
Sebastian glared at me playfully, then clutched one hand to his heart and fell to his knees as though my words had mortally wounded him. I giggled and grabbed his free hand, pulling him to his feet and leading him forward into the clearing.
“We met two months ago, today,” he explained. “And I don’t care how you label yourself — friend, girlfriend, strange blonde girl who follows me around…”
He laughed when I smacked him on the arm.
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I’m crazy about you,” he told me simply, tucking a wayward strand of hair behind my ear.
“Yeah?” I asked, eyebrows raised.
“Yeah,” he echoed, leaning in to kiss me lightly.
What began as an innocent kiss quickly morphed into something more. We’d been taking things slowly — getting to know one another before rushing into the physical aspects of our relationship. And I wasn’t sure how Bash felt, but the crawling pace had been killing me. The careful, chaste kisses and soft, stolen touches might have been enough at the beginning, but for weeks now a storm of sexual tension had been brewing in the air between us, apparent in each charged interaction and heated glance we exchanged.
If you walk outside before a heavy rainfall or at the start of a particularly strong lightning storm, there’s a feeling in the air — a crackling intensity, like standing by a live wire letting off sparks. There’s a smell — the sharp, pungent scent of ozone, as a current fills the air. The atmosphere is electrified, humming with energy and, at any moment, ready to unleash a monstrous storm on the earth below. Being near Sebastian felt that way — and I was standing in the center of a treeless field holding a metal rod up to the sky with both hands.
It was only a matter of time before lightning struck me.
The more time we spent together, the longer the charge had to build; and as that sensation got stronger, I was near ready to explode in sheer anticipation every time we were alone together.
So once our lips brushed…once his hands began to slide around my waist to the small of my back…once my arms twined up around his neck…
The storm finally broke. And there was no turning back.
Restraint wholly abandoned, we lost ourselves in the moment. Drugging kisses stole our breath and hurried touches made the rest of the world disappear. We tumbled down onto the blanket, the light filtering through the new spring leaves overheard casting our tangled limbs in a calico pattern of light and shadow. Sebastian braced himself over me with one hand, the other running through the long strands of my hair that fanned across the blanket. I craned my neck to meet his lips with my own.
I didn’t allow myself to feel inexperienced or unsure — we were long past that now. Instead, for the first time in my life, I felt wanton. Passionate.
I wasn’t a young girl in his arms — I was a woman, standing on the precipice of adulthood.
Emboldened, I tugged on Sebastian’s lower lip with my teeth and his answering growl was more than enough to urge me on. I giggled breathlessly when he rolled and took me with him, so I landed sprawled across his chest with my legs straddling his waist. My hair fell down around us in a honey-colored curtain, and Bash’s eyes roamed my face hungrily even as his fingers played with the hanging locks.
“This wasn’t my intention, you know,” he whispered. “I didn’t set this up to get you in bed with me.”
“I know,” I said, brushing a kiss across his lips.
“And I don’t want you to think that I don’t respect you, becau—”
I silenced him with my lips, deepening our kiss and tracing my palms over the planes of his chest. His hands gripped my waist, pulling me tighter against him as his fingertips skimmed along the exposed skin between my jeans and the drapey white peasant top I was wearing. My hands trembled as I fumbled with the top button on his shirt, but it was with excitement rather than fear.
There was no one in the world I felt safer with.
We shed our clothes along with our inhibitions as we laughed and loved beneath the oak tree, a spot I knew from this moment on would be branded forever in my memories as ours. Hands and lips explored unfamiliar places. Passion mounted until I felt combustible, as though the superheated air we’d made with our bodies might reach a flashpoint and simply ignite, turning oxygen to flame. Maybe we’d burn up with the heat of it, so lost in each other we’d let the fire eat us alive rather than stop. And maybe someday, a man out walking in the woods might stumble across two charred skeletons, locked together in an eternal lovers’ embrace beneath a tall oak tree, and our story would fade into folklore — the urban legend of a couple with a passion so intense it burned them alive.