AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It’s all I can feel.
His thigh too, pressed against mine.
We’re so close, I can even see dots on his fingertips that are a reminder of ones I got while threading prickly flowers through an arch and around a chapel doorway. He must have found some gorse while on the moors, and a teenage part of me wonders if he thought of me when he saw it. I don’t have to wonder for long—I must cradle his phone tight enough that it locks and I’m faced with…
That’s me.
I’m on his lock screen, only this version of me is bigger. I’d need to be a giant to roll a hay bale uphill like he’s drawn. My arms are braced, and he’s found a way to convey effort. I can almost feel this strain, this exertion, this sweat beading under a circlet of the same flowers that had to have prickled his fingers while he was camping.
He touches my face on his phone screen before cupping my jaw for real. “I’ll have to redraw you,” he murmurs as I shift in my seat to face him. “Without the beard.” His smile flickers like the last of the light does through the trees that shield us, and I need to close my eyes as well, because each time he shows me how he sees me?
It does a number on my self-perception.
I open them again to see him looking down at the phone I still hold. This time he traces the strain in my arms and shoulders, in my hands too, as if this shaking he’s drawn is a signal of strength, not of?—
“I liked your beard,” he murmurs. “Like you this way too. Kinda want to see if you grow it again.”
He’s moved on to touch my face again, only on that screen instead of for real, and I know which I prefer him touching, so I let his phone drop to my lap, and I catch hold of his hand to put it back where it feels so much better. I also tell him what I’ve had weeks to turn over. What I’ve kept kicking away but someone keeps kicking back to me to deal with, and Dad used to do that, didn’t he? He’d shoot balls at me in our back garden and cheer whenever I reached far enough to stop them.
Turns out that when someone I’m invested in asks me to stretch even further, I can. That’s got to be why this comes out way lower than I expected. My voice rumbles, and I’ve never sounded more like the man who taught me to throw my whole self into everything I take on. “I want you to stick around to see that.”
“Yeah?” There’s another flicker that I can’t blame on the last of the light filtering through leaves. He isn’t as certain as me, and when he swallows, I hear that dry click over the tick of the cooling engine. Over a sudden drumming in my chest too when he adds, “Some people say I can be a bit full on,” as if that’s a bad thing.
I stretch for the right words. Reach like Dad taught me, and right now, I’m glad I haven’t had more practice—that this first time is for someone who has drawn me like I’m a hero. “Some people should have told you that being full on makes you fucking amazing.”
When Dad used to cheer at me going all out, my stepmum used to knock on the window, eyes dancing with laughter all while warning Dad to keep the noise down. Rae’s eyes dance the same way now, warm and happy, and just like that, we’re kissing.
I love this. How our noses nudge. How his camping stubble rasps against my new smoothness until we get situated. And so what if that involves me fighting with my seat belt, the steeringwheel, and the gearstick? I’m all arms and legs and not enough space to get him where I want him, which is straddling my lap. But that weight, once I make it happen, is so much more than grounding, although that’s what I need when his mouth opens for me. My tongue slides against his, electricity surges, and it’s explosive.
Land Rovers are built to withstand bumps and crashes. I have no idea how the windows of this vehicle don’t shatter or how the tools secured behind us don’t roar to life due to this pulsing current.
Energy soars.
Roars.
My chainsaw isn’t responsible for it, or for my hands shaking as I fumble to shove his T-shirt higher. My touch stutters over bare skin all while I almost vibrate with how much I want him—with how much I need to pull him even closer—only he pushes me away like I’ve jumped the gun.
That’s a no?
I freeze for a single, soul-crushing, second-guessing moment.
Rae melts me just as quickly.
He pulls his T-shirt over his head, knuckles banging the Land Rover roof in the process, before he gets to work on my shirt buttons, and I’m no artist but I know determination when I see it, so I guess that push back was a yes, only on his terms, and I’m more than okay with that.
Have someone else make decisions that mean we’re bare from the chest up, pressed together again like I’ve spent weeks remembering, and kissing again?
Yes, please.
It’s so much better than thinking I’ve misread the situation. We’re on the same page right now. He grinds against me as I push up to meet his movements, and that’s another reminder of a night I’d half put down to a fugue caused by wedding-inducedexhaustion. The rest was down to magic, and so is this. It’s also real and raw and needy. At least that’s how my groans sound as he rocks against me.
I try to claw back those needy noises.
Each grind feels so fucking perfect that I can’t do it.
The wordperfectmust slip out with his next slow grind. “Yeah?” Rae pulls back just enough for me to see my own inky reflection in his pupils, and yeah, needy does describe me. So does perfect for him because I focus on what else he shows me. Rae flushes—blushes—and gets a hand between us. He wrenches at my belt, at my buckle, at my fly, and there isn’t room in here with me sprawled across the bench seat for him to kneel and blow me. He tries to regardless, and I don’t think I’ve ever been harder than when he slaps one of my thighs and says, “Up.”
I do what he orders, but I’ve been well-trained at following instruction, haven’t I?
