Missed Connections

Chapter 61 - Just the Thing

My insides feel like a pleasant ooey-gooey mush as Louis and I lie with our limbs intertwined on the bed.  With my head resting on his shoulder, I have a perfect view of his pert nipple that is reflexively hardening under my touch when I playfully trace circles around it.  Louis' free hand is lazily twirling a strand of my hair around his finger.  Every now and then, his digits graze my scalp sending shivers down my spine.  If I close my eyes and concentrate, I can sense every muscle in my body shedding its tension under his ministrations. 

Above us a steady pitter-patter of rain is teaming onto the roof of the cottage, its sound thrumming through our bodies.  We don't talk.  We don't have to.  The sounds of nature are playing a most peaceful tune and we simply fall under the spell of its orchestration.   I take a deep breath and sigh it out, enjoying the expansion and collapse of my lungs.  The rain has suppressed the summer humidity and the cool breeze that is wafting through the open window is chilling my skin delightfully.  Small puckered goose pimples rise across my belly and my own exposed nipples stand to attention.

I close my eyes and focus on the dark behind my eyelids, letting the small chills ride across my skin like small feathery touches on a smooth surface.  The tattoo forged by the rain reverberates in my bones, and in my mind I picture how each drop falls to the ground.  Intimately changing the surface of the earth as the water ebbs and flows, molding it like putty in the hands of Mother Nature.  Each rivulet releasing the tender scent of earth and new life as it rejuvenates.  Sunshine's counterpart that seeps through the core of each plant and organism feeding them full in as they bloom and grow.

A smile crosses my lips, driven to by the restoration this moment brings.  Fierce passion and excitement must be balanced with serious downtime and I often forget that until it is too late.  Louis and I have been locked in a sweet but draining couple of days.  The way I feel about him scares me and I have been acting a little Punch Drunk Love and not enough Love Actually.  Or maybe it's a little to Bridget Jones's Diary and not enough Sleepless in Seattle.  We've got the Dirty Dancing bit down, but I would really like us to settle into something more 10 Things I Hate About You.  Just enough weirdness to keep things interesting, but one hundred percent sweetness to the core.

"Ev, what on earth are you thinking about?" Louis whispers teasingly.  "I can hear your thoughts from here."

A self-concious laugh slips from my lips as I crack open my lids.  "Just a little Eynn special.  Imagining our relationship in movie titles and characters."

"For a bloody fan girl, I never will understand how you'd never heard of One Direction."

"Pop culture junkie," I correct.  "My forte lies in movies and books.  Less music.  And even then I would venture that I am more decade specific.  More '80s and '90s, if you please."

"Ha! Fair enough," says Lou.  "I'll give you that."

"Besides, One Direction or not, you're my Louis."

"Am I, then?" Louis replies with a shit-eating grin.

"Are you not?" I ask, my eyebrows raised. I raise my shoulders deliberately and fan my naked breast against his upper torso as I sweep my hair back.  I settle back on one hand and use my free one to trace a line gently down his treasure trail, stopping just before anything crucial.  I flick my gaze towards his face, noting his sharp intake of breath. 

"That's not playing fair."

"No, it's not.  It's my nearly playing with little Lou," I rib.

"If you keep that up, he won't be nearly so little," Louis replies with a very dark look of wanting in his eye.