No, You Gotta

NOT ONE SINGLE DAY

Stone held her gently by the wrists and used the heel of his boot to shut the apartment door behind him.  A stunned Nora marveled at the softness of his lips as they moved in an effortless rhythm against hers.  Before she knew that she had been moved so far, she felt her back press up against the edge of something, and Stone continued to kiss her, curving her back slightly over the surface of the kitchen counter.  He released her arms and brought his palms to cushion the small of her back so that the hard granite edge wouldn’t hurt her, and then he slowly began sliding one of his hands up her side beneath her loose shirt.  Nora felt light headed, so much so that she suddenly took in a gasping breath and jerked her head back from Stone.

“Stone,” she breathed, trying to concentrate on ridding her vision of the stars that swam around there.  “Stone, I’m dizzy…”

“Look at me, Nori,” Stone murmured, backing off of her just enough so that she wasn’t compressed at all and tilting her chin up so that she’d have to look at him.  Nora focused on the peaceful green stare of her best friend and took a few deep breaths.  She started to feel better immediately.

“I’m sorry, Stone—I don’t know what happened. You just show up out of nowhere and then—and then what am I supposed to… I mean you never,” Nora sputtered, embarrassed and trying to compensate, albeit clumsily, with words.  When she started gesturing with her hands, as she was prone to do from time to time, she accidently knocked over a vase that sat empty on the counter, which then crashed into a stack of bowls, hurtling them towards the floor.  In a chain reaction of klutz, Nora sent some silverware flying in her attempt to salvage the remaining bowl that teetered on the edge.  Stone interrupted her ridiculousness with a chuckle, gathering her hands up and holding them still.

“Hey.  Hey,” he repeated, trying not to laugh, “slow down, flowerchild.  It’s only me.”  He offered her a sweet smile and pressed her fingers to his chest. Nora nearly burst at the feel of him, and the familiarity and comfort in his soft features.  “You feel that?”  Nora could perceive the steady beating of his heart probably going at about half the pace of her own.

“Mm-hm,” she answered him, nodding slowly and hopelessly locked into his emerald gaze.  The contact with his body wasn’t helping her racing, runaway heart rate in the least.

“Feel it for a minute.  Close your eyes and just breathe with me,” he told her, and she shut her eyes as he suggested.  The reliability of Stone’s heartbeat, like a metaphor for everything she had ever known or loved about him, crept through her hands and up her arms, spreading like warm water over her chest and eventually her whole body. It was a feeling of tranquility like Nora had never experienced before, and she felt Stone start to trace his thumbs back and forth over the backs of her hands.  

Then the realization came like an electric shock to her brain that this was everything she had ever wanted.  This was what she needed, and this was her opportunity to let Stone know exactly how she’d felt about him for so long.  She opened her eyes and met Stone’s more confidently, and his face became deadly serious when he felt Nora’s piercing, pale blue determination upon him.  Leaving her hands on his chest, Stone pushed a few strands of Nora’s bed-messy hair from the edges of her face and buried his fingers in it, just behind her ears, his hands cradling her jaw on both sides.  The feeling in Nora’s chest was all at once as heavy as a ton of bricks and as light as a cool spring breeze, and she imagined she was propelled by some outside force now.  It was clear as day: Stone and her.

“It’s you, Stone,” she sighed, feeling the rush of energy between them intensify as a tear slid down her cheek. Stone brushed it away with his thumb, but the sight of this single tear of joy brought a hint of moisture to his own eyes in spite of himself.  Nora saw this and pulled him close to her by handfuls of his shirt.  Their kiss connected, this time open-mouthed and breathy, the aching in both of their bodies emerging in the form of impassioned hums and moans.  Nora felt one of Stone’s hands wander beneath her shirt and up her side again, the other never abandoning her face and neck.  When she reached up to gather his face in her own hands, she felt from the peaks and valleys of his cheeks that he was smiling.  Just as Stone’s hand reached the edge of her chest, her shirt pushed up far enough to expose her stomach, he pulled back, his breathing hot and impatient.