Dark Tide

Chapter 4

Standing by her bed, he bends her against him, tilting her face upwards, and then he presses his lips to her cheek, then her neck and then behind her ear, his breath fast and warm.

"You still smell like the sea," he murmurs to her. And then his lips search out hers again, and as she kisses him, all the desire she has locked away overflows from her soul and sweeps them away in its storm waves.

As his tongue snakes into her mouth, his lips bruising hers with a fierceness that is almost unhinged, his fingers grip her waist, pull at the zip on her dress and then slip it down off her shoulders until it falls to the floor. Their hands tangle together clumsily as she pulls at his t-shirt and he fumbles with the tiny buttons on her blouse, and they both giggle breathlessly against each other's faces and struggle out of their layers. She strips off her bralette, and he pulls her to him, their skin warm and flushed and pressed together, and she sighs into his mouth as his fingernails graze her back.

She kisses across his cheek and jawline and down his neck, as her fingers, shaky with nerves and lust for him, undo his black biker pants and sneak under the waistband of his Calvins. Her lips on his chest, she momentarily, peeps downwards at the beautiful vision of his abs and the line of his underwear. Something about seeing him like this all over billboards since they were last together, has seemed so surreal, as if her memories of him naked had been someone else entirely. She suppresses a nervous giggle and closes her eyes, as he pulls her face up towards his lips, and their fingers make mutually short work of each other's underwear.

He sits down on the edge of her bed and pulls her against him, his mouth tracing a path between her breasts, and she hears his breathing, shallow and fast, echoing hers.

In a moment of sudden panic, she is acutely aware of the string of photocards hanging on her bedframe, and her left hand darts to pull them down in her embarrassment.

He turns, looks and then pulls her hand away, reaching up to her face and locking his dark gaze on her eyes.

"Leave it," he tells her, "It's who you are; and it's who I am. And I want you exactly as you are."

"I don't understand... why you want this... why me..." her voice trails off.

"I told you," he replies, brushing his thumb across her lips, "I felt so safe with you last year. Everything felt uncomplicated."

"And now?" she breathes, searching his eyes for the elusive answer and tracing her fingertips across his forehead, down over the scar on his cheek and then into his hair, "What's possibly safe about us both on the roof just now? Both flirting with the idea of falling?" And even as she says it, twisted though it all sounds, he pulls her closer again. His lips and tongue find her neck and then his breath is warm by her ear.

"I don't know," he whispers between kisses, "I feel like I want to destroy everything good recently. As if don't deserve it. That makes no sense, right?"

"I think I feel the same..." she sighs, knowing that he is her safety and her ruin; her happiness and her destruction; that he is forbidden to her yet irresistible, and she would not change a single thing about this, even if she could.

And as he kisses her throat, his lips and tongue so fierce that she thinks he will bruise her, and across her shoulders, he whispers, "...Maybe that's why I want you so much..."

Any anxiety she was holding onto seems to evaporate from her, and she sighs as his mouth finds her right nipple and his teeth graze against her teasingly. His fingers snake down between her legs, and probe knowingly until they find the exact point that makes her whimper and push against him. Sucking hard on her other nipple, he rubs his fingertip, and she arches her back, her fingernails digging into his shoulder and steadying herself against his chest. In that instant, with her head dropped backwards and his hand at her back, she remembers the way the breeze caught her hair and the way he felt between her legs as he tipped her backwards from the roof. Something of the darkness and fear in them both, in that moment, twists inside her as he touches her, and turns her on so intensely. She wonders what the hell happened to them both to make this sense of danger so thrilling. She is so damp for him, and the intensity is so beautiful that she feels her knees will give way. She gasps, "Oh fuck," her own voice surprising her, she is so lost in the glowing sensation between her legs. When he hears her response, he bites his teeth down on her nipple and his other hand edges down her back and between her legs, his fingers pushing inside her, and her whole body shivers as she whimpers again.