Delicate

by K. L. Cottrell

  After I’m buckled in, he touches my rain-splattered arm and tsks.

  “Ah, man,” he says over the noise. “It’s both dumb and fun that neither of us brought an umbrella.”

  I smile. “Mostly fun, if you ask me.”

  He smiles too. “Mmm. You know what? I agree. The way we are right now is perfect.”

  “Very one hundred.”

  “The one hundred-est.”

  Though I love our typical lightheartedness, I also still love the weight that once again fills the look we share.

  New warmth is blooming all throughout me.

  I hold my left hand out to him. He takes it and laces our fingers together, then kisses the back of my hand, then gets the car going.

  And as the minutes pass and bring us closer to my house, I may be growing warmer and more like an earthquake, but the peace I woke up with this morning is still alive and well in me. Nothing shakes it—not the nighttime weather, not being in the car, not the deepening feeling that Beckett and I have another big experience to share today despite that this is technically our first date.

  I’m just ready.

  Like I told him, I’m ready for everything with him. The rest of tonight, tomorrow, each following day. New moments and untread paths as well as familiar and well-worn ones.

  Not a thing about it seems wrong.

  At home, we remember we didn’t only forget an umbrella: we also unthinkingly took his car to dinner instead of taking mine and getting to park under the carport upon coming back. Same as when we left, we have to go through the maximum amount of rain.

  It’s still heavy and I’m still slow, and it cracks us up.

  “You got it?” Beckett laughs out as he reaches for me through the downpour. “Do I need to carry you?”

  “I’m okay!” I hold on to his arm while we make our way away from the car with the help of the porch light.

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I just—oh no, babe!”

  I’m the one awkwardly steadying him before his sudden slip can turn into a fall. As I stumble to keep us both up, my keys tumble out of my hand.

  We laugh more.

  “Are you okay?” I check while we straighten back up.

  He doesn’t answer out loud, just nods and laughingly closes the space between us. His hands go around my head, and his smile bumps mine, and we press into a kiss.

  My heart is full.

  We’re getting more and more soaked by the second, but my arms are winding around his waist because one kiss is turning into another because we really are perfect just like this. We don’t have anywhere to be except with each other, don’t have anything to do but love each other however we want to. And this spontaneous pause is perfect.

  Until it isn’t—until we’re kissing with so much clutching passion that it feels like we should be a tangle of bare bodies right now, not standing outside in a rainstorm.

  The sweet bite of his teeth into my bottom lip has me moaning and finally stumbling out, “I—I want you to come get in bed with me. Do you too? Do you want that?”

  Yes, now our pause is letting annoying precipitation go where more kisses should be, and the feeling of his hands going down my back is muted by how wet my dress has gotten, and it’s simply not—

  One of his hands finds one of mine before he bends away toward the ground. The jingle of keys barely reaches my ears, and then the clump of metal is being handed off to me.

  The way he looks at me through the porch-lit rain is a storm all on its own.

  A most welcome one.

  One that only exists for us—one that we’ll be closed into once we’re indoors, not closed off from.

  It answers my question.

  I don’t want to turn my eyes from it, but I do and start searching through my keys. Then, trying my damnedest not to rush and twist an ankle, I lead the way to the door.

  Things seem to both speed up and slow down after we’re in the front hall.

  The light is suddenly on, the door suddenly shut and locked behind us, my purse and keys on the floor, his and my shoes pulled off. But Beckett’s shuffle up to me is unhurried, and so is my push of his dripping hair away from his forehead, and so is our tilt toward another kiss.

  The cling of it comes and goes.

  His direct answer is unsteady and warm on my mouth, just like his breath. “Yeah, I want that, Noelle. I want it for us more than I can tell you.”

  I nod hard because I completely understand that.

  We’ll just have to show each other.

  He pushes his mouth onto mine, draws me against him by the waist. The moment his lips part, I dive past them and love the low way he groans.

  I nudge him at almost the same time that he starts tugging me.

  We’re down the hall in more of those quick moments I can’t keep up with.

  I turn on the lamp in my room and hasten onto the made-up bed, and he’s right there with me, kneeling between my legs the second I move them apart. I lie back with him closing in over me, the damp fabric of his pants shockingly cool on the bare skin of my inner thighs, which my skirt is only half covering now.

  As we kiss hard, the only sounds around us are those of our traded breaths and the heavy rain on the roof.

  More than ever, I feel at home with him.

  I can’t believe how sharply I feel like that. Can’t believe how open my heart is for him, or how safeguarded I feel beneath the weight of him, rather than stifled.

  And my fingers can’t decide between pulling him even tighter to me and undoing the buttons on the front of his shirt; the way we’re kissing doesn’t do anything to help me.

  But the slip of one of his hands beneath my dress does.

  My legs instinctively lift around him, and I grasp at his back as we gasp out of our kiss. His hand goes around under my ass and urges the center of me against his stiff—

  A breathless moan fires straight out of my lungs.

  My name hits my lips from his like a plea.

  With the rush of a heated chill over my skin, I’m overwhelmed by need for him.

  Actual need.

  I feel like I can’t take another minute of us not being one with each other.

  My whole body seems to be blushing at the sudden thought—I’ve never done this while dressed—but my legs still drop from around him so my hands can drop past his shirt and fumble with his belt buckle.

  He sits up to allow me more freedom.

  His voice is husky. “I’m not the only one who’s okay with not taking it slow this time?”

  “No,” I huff out, freeing the leather from its metal loop.

  He presses a fast kiss to my cheek. Under my dress, his fingers seek out the band of my panties. Then he sits back so he can get his other hand there and put it to work too.

  God, the fault lines.

  I can’t control them. I can’t calm them.

  He’s shifting away, slipping the lace-edged cotton down my legs. My feet are freed of it and it gets tossed aside, and in short seconds, he’s dropping his phone and keys over the edge of the bed too. His wallet is next after he takes something out of it: a foil square that lands next to me on the blanket before he comes back up to me.

  His eyes meet mine, and the emotion in them is so vast it makes my heart swell, takes my breath away, puts a tingle in my spine.

  My sincerity is so sharp it hurts my throat. “I love you with everything I’ve got.”

  He takes a quick breath and puffs it back out. It happens again as I reach for the button on his khakis.

  “I feel it,” he whispers. He grabs the condom packet and tears into it.

  Nodding, I deal with his zipper. “Every little piece of me that survived after what happened, and—and every piece I’ve built back up from nothing, and every piece of who I’ll keep growing into.”

  There’s more than just desire in the sound he makes.

  The fast seconds continue.

  His pants and underwear are out of our way. We’re prote
cted. He drops his body over mine, and my hands find purchase on his face and the back of his sodden shirt, and he lowers himself into place with me. His wet hair grazes my forehead, sends a tickling raindrop down my temple. His nose brushes mine.

  “Don’t ever stop loving me like that,” he says in a warm hush.

  It turns into an even warmer kiss, which turns into our soft, shared gasp of a breath. As he slowly comes forward, he drags a hand down and grips my naked hip.

  So slow.

  The press of him into me.

  It’s so much slower than I want it to be.

  Slower than he wants too—it’s clear in the tension of his muscles, the way he breathes.

  But he cares about me, and even though I’m ready for this, he knows it’s been a long time since I…since….

  My old love flickers through my mind.

  Only for a second, though.

  Then I’m back with this love—Beckett and what kind of man he is and his body fitting tightly with mine despite our soaked clothes.

  It’s him and me.

  It’s just us.

  We’re decidedly gasping by the time he fully settles into me. He works his strong, cradling hand back up from my hip and into the hair at the nape of my neck, and my clutching fingertips can’t stay still up his back and down his arms, and I can’t figure out what to say as I gaze up into his storm-blue eyes, but God, there’s so much—this is so fulfilling and significant and I have so much in my chest. Fitting words won’t come to me.

  But he looks at me with the most tender, most burning expression of understanding.

  Almost frowning, he whispers in a tremble, “I know.”

  I only realize in this moment that I’m nearing tears.

  I didn’t say any of that stuff out loud. He just knows me. He feels me.

  “Beck,” barely leaves my tightening throat. My hands grasp at his back again in earnest and try to pull him even closer to me.

  He shifts the way I want him to—deeper—and both of us are left that much more breathless.

  He nods, sweeps his lips just over mine, and whispers again, “I know, Ellie.”

  I believe him. I believe he understands what I feel but can’t say.

  We meet each other in a full, sweet kiss.

  And we give in.

  I give in to him. He’s my ocean and he’s all over me, at my lips and against my chest and beneath my hands. Two overwhelmed teardrops escape me as I wrap my arms around him the best I can and join the unhurried rock of his hips with mine.

  “Noelle,” leaves him in a heavy rumble that tingles in my lips and spikes down through my body. His fingers flex around the back of my neck. “Oh my God, the way you feel with me….”

  It reminds me of something he said months ago. Something that clung to me and that puts a skip in my pulse now.

  “Am I still the—” I stamp two clumsy kisses to his jaw, “—the best thing you’ve ever felt?”

  His hand drags around to cup my chin and angle my face just so. My eyes find his in the lamplight, and he nods.

  “Yes.” His thumb rubs over my bottom lip. “In every way. Baby, it’s not even a question.”

  I don’t know how to not feel proud of that.

  Don’t know how to tell him that in so many ways, he’s the best thing I’ve ever felt too.

  My thighs shift up a little more; my sound of liking is soft, his low. He captures my mouth in another languid kiss, and I give it right back to him.

  It doesn’t stay this way, though. What starts out as a savoring exchange melts into one that’s more pressing, more pleading.

  In turn, the same thing starts becoming true of our lovemaking. We can’t seem to help it.

  It doesn’t matter that it’s been a while for me. Some soreness will probably visit me later, but I’m not uncomfortable right now. There’s nothing I want worse than this. I want him and he wants me back, so both of us give and both of us take, and it just happens as we go—each new thrust further unravels our careful pace, sends fingertips through rain-soaked hair and heightening moans over jawlines.

  It feels like letting go of a held breath.

  I love it.

  I love him.

  I love the way he moves with me, the way he kisses me, the way he sounds because of me. It’s intoxicating to see this hot and heartfelt side of him, to know he feels these minutes as enormously as I do.

  He has just dragged a hand down over my chest when he moves it away again—he wedges it around between my shoulders and the blanket. His fingers grasp for the zipper of my dress.

  Realizing he wants to feel even more of me has me noticing how badly I want to do that with him.

  Our hips go still as I start helping him. It’s a little tricky to free me even of just the top half of my dress, but we manage without anyone getting elbowed. The fabric gets left in a crumple around my waist, and his fingers go under one bra strap and urge it off my shoulder, and his lips trail down and over the exposed swell of that breast, and I burn because, God, I didn’t think our first time could feel better, but it does. It does.

  His deep groan tells me he agrees.

  “You’re so damn beautiful,” caresses my skin before his mouth does.

  Our pace is stuttering back up.

  I run my palms over his clothed muscles, then dig my stunned fingertips into them because one of his hands is in the cup of my bra now, touching my breast outright, cradling it skin-to-skin. With my breathing going sharp around his name, I can’t help the more desperate roll of my hips against his.

  His instant match of it slams me with the knowledge that I won’t be able to handle this for long.

  If I weren’t so ready to share this most personal sense of completeness with him, I would be disappointed it’s going so fast. But we’ll go slow next time; there is no room for disappointment now.

  At long last, I find some words to relieve the golden pressure in my chest.

  “I’m so glad it’s you.” My voice wavers between a whimper and a moan. “I’m so glad it’s you with me, Beckett. I love us and, no, I’ll never stop loving you with…everything I….”

  Distraction barrels in because my fingers have remembered they want to unbutton his shirt.

  He rushes out, “God, me too,” and, “Neither will I,” and, “Please touch me.”

  I nod eagerly. I miss his bold hand in my bra when he resituates so I can work the buttons, both of his arms bracing by my head, but his lips stumble up my neck and spill a wave of new delight along my skin.

  I don’t bother taking his shirt off. I just get it open and get my hands on his chest. His groan reverberates all through me, and the drape of rain-darkened fabric makes me feel even more surrounded by him. He’s cool and warm at the same time. He’s—

  “You’re beautiful,” I moan outright.

  His mumble is almost too breathy to catch, but I swear he’s said, “I believe you.”

  As I pull a kiss from the thumping pulse on his neck, I hope with all my heart that he does.

  Beneath my ear, his tongue touches my skin before the rest of his kiss does.

  The way that feels along with his words and the mounting confidence of our thrusts….

  My senses are fast becoming a tangle.

  The way he feels in and around and on top of me, the sound of the rain, how his skin tastes, the light but pleasant scent about him, his lips dragging away from my ear to give me a hazy view of the scar on his cheek and the honesty in his eyes.

  He is perfection.

  He’s about to send me over the edge.

  My hands don’t know where they want to go—they clamber over him until my left grasps at his wrist by my head and the other ends up splayed on his back beneath his shirt.

  “I’m….” I cling to him, breathing quickly and shallowly, unable to loosen the tension taking over me. “You’re gonna make me c….”

  His lips are just above mine, in place for a kiss that he doesn’t yet give me. His fingers flex throu
gh my hair.

  “Please do it.” Low and shaky is the hum of his voice. “I love you. Please give it to me and let me feel you like this.”

  I nod, nod, nod as the deep burn builds and builds, because I can’t find the air for more words, only for a breathless sound of—

  Now is when he fits his mouth to mine.

  I’m not holding his wrist anymore—he’s turning my hand over under his, pressing it to the damp pillow above my head, lacing our fingers together.

  The pleasure that surges through me is a glorious shock.

  Even as I gasp into our kiss, gasp for air, gasp his name, I feel like I can’t breathe.

  I don’t mind because it means I have this with him.

  My fingers grip his as hard as they can while the others clutch at his lower back while he stays steady between my thighs so I can fall apart. Bliss ripples down my spine and through all the rest of me again, again, again.

  But as incredible as this feels, it hits me just as hard when I notice the new tension in his muscles and the new chaos of his breathing.

  I don’t want anything more right now than I want him to give his pleasure back to me.

  “Ellie….” His voice is tight and vulnerable and adoring all at once.

  A nod and another kiss are the only answers I can manage. Our fingers stay locked together, but I get my other arm hooked around his neck, and his snakes down beneath my dress-tangled waist. He fixes me more securely against himself, giving a sharp gasp of his own.

  The moments slow along with our thrusts.

  The sound of the rain melds with the sounds of us.

  We hold each other, moan through weak breaths together as he comes too—as he lets go for me the way I let go for him.

  I can’t express what it does to me.

  I can’t wrap my mind around what Beckett and I are to each other, or the boundless devotion we share no matter what we’re facing together.

  Our mouths crash into a warm kiss that grips us tight. When it ends, I finally get out the reminder that I love him too. A shudder rolls through his body. My mouth is under his again.