Summer's Last Breath

Part 28

"Are you sure, Jamie? I've never done this before." Jamie was sitting on a stool and I stood behind him, armed with a pair of clippers. The brick under my feet was already sprinkled with dark slivers of his hair.

I'd come over to his house to hang out for a while and found him on the patio in the process of cutting his hair. Like all of his kind, his hair grew exceedingly fast, but he preferred to keep his short.

"Yes. It's driving me crazy," he said to me over his shoulder.

"It's barely touching your ears."

"Exactly."

Once he assured me there was no way I could accidentally cut him, I set about the task with unreserved eagerness. I was eager for anything that involved touching him, being this close to him.

"How often do you have to do this?" I slowly ran the clippers over his head, following the contours of his skull. Who knew shaving his head would be such a turn on? And I was pretty sure he felt the same way. I kept having to force him to keep his head still as his eyes followed my every movement. His pulse thrummed in his throat, its cadence a perfect match to mine.

"Couple of times a week," he said, voice pitched low and slightly strained.

I took a deep breath to steady my hand. The blades edged closer to the ridge behind his ear and the fine, translucent membrane of his gills. They were ultra-sensitive, and I took extra care not to nip them. Even with his hair short, his gills weren't that noticeable, unless you were looking for them.

Once I made sure the edges of his hair were even, I turned off the clippers, almost sorry I was done. His scent filled my nose. I was now intimately familiar with the back of his head and neck, and how soft his skin was there, the short hairs like silk as I ran my hand over them.

"So where's your mom and Noah?" I rested my hand over the curve of his shoulder. His skin felt too warm under my touch.

"My mom went to a movie with Maggie," he said cautiously, as though he knew he was walking into a trap. "I don't know where Noah is. Probably with Jeb."

"So we're alone?" I leaned close, blowing a light breath over his gills, and was rewarded by the visible tremor that skated down his spine. The muscles under my hand tensed.

Jamie turned his face into mine and my mouth found the curve of his jaw and moved up to the slope of his cheek, and then he was kissing me, scooting around on the stool so he faced me. His hands gripped my hips and he pulled me onto his lap.

"Well," I said, drawing back so I could look him directly in the eyes, too afraid to look, too afraid not to. Too afraid to voice what I wanted for fear of rejection, but he knew. How could he not? I'd been throwing myself at him for two weeks. I waited endless, breathless seconds for his answer.

"Where?" His voice cracked slightly.

My heart thumped wildly. I had expected him to be harder to persuade.

"I don't care." My lids fell to half-mast. Suddenly nervous, I wondered if, like everything else, he'd prefer to do it on the beach. Every time I'd imagined us together, we'd been in a bed.

"My room then."

He picked me up and carried me into the house, holding me in place with one hand, opening the back door with the other. The living room was dark, the light from the kitchen glowing faintly. The hallway leading to his room was darker. I held to him, heart beating so fast it nearly stole my breath. This was happening. This was really happening.

"No light," I said when he fumbled for the switch. He shut his bedroom door.

I felt the smile on his lips as he walked me over to the edge of the bed and set me down. He then padded over to the bathroom, flicked on the light inside, then pulled the door almost shut.