Hold Me Close

so close, so connected

This time, kissing Alexia is different.

There is a tenderness to the way our lips meet, though the feeling is electrifying nonetheless. The walls that we rebuilt during our argument have now crumbled, and it is raw and passionate and so charged with emotion that it feels like every inch of my body has ignited.

Alexia responds with fervour, tangling her fingers in my hair as she deepens the kiss, our mouths moving in a dance of increasing need and desperation. My craving has not been sated, but, rather, worsened.

She tastes like salt and desire as we explore each other's mouths, our bodies pressed tightly together as if to remind one another that we are here and we are doing this. I slide my hands down her back, pulling her impossibly closer, heart thumping in my chest so much so that she is certain to feel it too.

Our hands roam, a blend of urgency and curiosity, clothes very much an afterthought. She moves ravenously, her fingers tracing a trail of fire along my skin. My breaths come in ragged gasps against her lips as I give in to being completely overwhelmed by her, each kiss pushing me further into a realm of total ecstasy.

"Ale, what is taking you so–"

We break apart, the outside world rushing into our senses once more.

Mapi stands behind Alexia as she turns with a guilty expression, but then she is glancing at my lips and pulling me inside her apartment, barreling past our friend. "Get out, María," she husks as Mapi gapes at us, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. At her failure to move, Alexia grows impatient. "Va, va."

"Madre mía, te dije que–" But we don't hear the end of her sentence, because the minute she is out of the way, Alexia slams her door shut and presses me against the nearest wall.

She pauses, hands resting either side of me, our breaths mingling in the little distance between us. "You..."

"I feel the same," I tell her, nodding.

She grins.

I kiss it off her face.

Her hands go back to being everywhere, mine mapping out her own body with equal lust. To think there are only four between us makes no sense, as her hands are on my waist and my neck and finally in my hair once more. I have never felt so desperate as her tongue presses into my open mouth, swallowing the moan she elicits from me.

"You are packed for tomorrow?" she pants, pulling away by a centimetre to ask. I nod — I am impatient — and pull her back to me, my hands finding their way up her t-shirt again, nails scraping against her tensed abs, following the divots and bumps as they lead me towards the curve of her breasts. She's not wearing a bra. It's a gateway into something more. Her breath hitches as my thumbs brush her hardened nipples. Raspy. In need. When I cup her flesh, her breath comes back and she moans. I want to chase that sound to the ends of the Earth.

"I'm so sorry," I whisper in her ear as she buries her face in my neck, her lips kissing every inch of exposed skin she can find. "I was scared and stupid and I... need you." It's more than that, and let her work it out of me as she sucks at my collarbone, pulling the collar of my t-shirt down so insistently that it is sure to be permanently stretched.

"Show me," she murmurs, taking my hand, leading me to her bedroom.

The air is thick with tension as we move through her hallway, our fingers intertwined. Each step brings us closer to a moment I have yearned for – have dreamt about for so long.

Her gaze fixes on me, as if committing every detail of my face to memory, and I smile, freed by how she does this so confidently. I turn the door handle as she cups my cheek, pulling me into a lingering kiss.