Page 41 of Finding Mr. July

J onathan sets me down at the foot of his bed, and I reluctantly release my grip around his neck. I barely noticed him picking me up and carrying me past his bookish sitting area and through the hallway. I was too busy holding on to pay attention. Too busy not letting go.

He’s breathing hard, his bare chest heaving beneath my palms. Still backlit, now by the nightstand lamp, his contour glows warm orange, though his skin is still cool from the night air.

“Holly, I…” he starts, but I silence him with a look and a soft caress along his obliques that makes his abs ripple.

I know there are words to be said; they stir inside me, too. But next to them is an even greater urge to delay and treasure. “I want to touch you for a bit,” I say. It’s purely selfish—a chance to commit more of him to memory than the camera would allow. “Is that okay?”

He watches as I trace the outline of his pecs with my forefinger, his chin lowering in a slow nod.

I press a soft kiss to his shoulder as I begin my lap around him.

Standing at his side, I run my right hand from his chest down, while my left mimics the movement from his shoulder blades to the small of his back.

He doesn’t move a muscle, allowing me this odd embrace—at least for the time being.

The smattering of hair down his belly offers a different textural experience than the smooth skin on his back.

I note the difference, catalogue it, and then move on, my fingers inching lower but stopping short of his growing erection, veering instead right, past his small appendicitis scar and to his hip bone.

I let my thumb caress the rounded ridge as I take another small step sideways.

From there, I bridge the gap to his arm, which hangs loosely at his side.

A swollen vein adorns his forearm, up and across his bicep, and I follow it like it’s a river on a map guiding me home.

He has a birthmark near his armpit in the shape of a crescent moon and a vaccination scar a few inches from that.

Two new entries in my Jonathan inventory.

I’m happy to add them, and at the same time, I wish I’d found them sooner.

After what he did for me tonight, I don’t know if I’ll have enough time to remember everything.

I force down the sudden knot forming in my throat and continue on. His shoulders, his neck, his hair. Then I run my hands down his spine and wrap my arms around him. That’s better. I relax against him, and he sighs contentedly.

With my chest and cheek pressed to his back, I skim my nails down his torso and smile as the hairs on his arms rise.

“You’re teasing me,” he mumbles.

I press my lips to his right shoulder blade. Then I retreat a few inches. “A little. Do you mind?”

“Hell no.” He shifts his stance slightly.

I let my hands linger on his hips. “Your skin is warming up. It was cold before from being outside.”

“Both thanks to you, I believe.” Voice cashmere soft.

I start moving again, this time to chart the hilly rises of his muscular ass. Each round handful gets a cheeky squeeze that makes him start.

“Hey,” he says.

I step up to his left side. “Hey yourself.”

His hooded eyes glimmer at me when I encircle his bicep with both hands, his muscles flexing beneath my grip.

I let my hands slide downward, and when I get below his elbow, I turn his arm to expose the wrist. The gleam of the light against the thin skin there reveals a steady pulse beneath the surface.

I touch it with my fingertip, fascinated by how its discreet tap tap tap transfers to my skin.

Without thinking, I bring it to my lips to let them feel it, too, but as I do, he cradles my face in his hand and twists to bring me in front of him again.

“Enough,” he whispers, voice strained. “My turn.”

He tilts my face back and kisses me without urgency.

You took your time. Now I’ll take mine , his mouth seems to say.

Soft lips press against mine, brushing over first the top and then the bottom.

I invite him in and gasp open-mouthed against him when his palms find my breasts.

They only linger a split second, though. He has a plan.

“On the bed,” he says, nudging my hip. Then he adds, “If you don’t mind.”

I get on it as fast as I can in response and lie down on my back propped up on my elbows.

I wish I had the camera, I think, as Jonathan stalks toward me.

The light renders his body in gold and shadows—a mouthwatering mix of splendor and secrets—but it’s his expression that has me take a mental snapshot for my records.

His gaze caresses me in a way that mimics what I just did to him.

Memorizing. I’m convinced my heartbeats must be visible through my rib cage as he straddles my legs and starts unbuttoning my jeans.

My eyes flutter closed when his knuckles skim the sensitive skin beneath my waistband, and my arms give out as he scoots back and yanks the rough fabric past my hips, pulling my panties along with it.

His sheets are cool against my backside, soft in my eager grip.

He’s gentler pulling the garments over my feet, one leg at a time, and then he discards them on the floor next to the bed.

He lies down on his side next to me and runs a finger from my belly button up between my breasts and down one collarbone. “Did you ever think that day when you were stuck in the pantry closet that this would happen?”

“Ha.” I tip my head left so I can see him. “Not in a million years. You?”

“No. Though that lacy tank top thing you were wearing featured prominently in my thoughts in the days following.”

“Really?”

He starts drawing patterns across my forehead, prompting my eyelids closed. “Mm-hmm.” Temples, cheekbones, nose, chin. “It was unexpected. Like… a sign of life. In me, I mean,” he clarifies. “It had been so long since anything surprised me. Everything was a rut.”

“It was a basic cami.”

He traces my jawline, the shell of my ear. “Not to me. That whole morning threw me off, and at first, it annoyed me, but now I see how badly I needed it. Needed to be unsettled.”

I smile. “I’m glad my top and I could be of service.”

Without warning, warm heat engulfs my left nipple, making me arch off the bed.

Jonathan’s tongue dances over the tight bud in slow twirls while his nails draw circles around the other one.

When he releases me, he keeps his left palm resting on my abdomen.

“Sorry, I had to.” He smiles, and then he nudges his nose along my upper arm until his chin comes to rest against my shoulder.

I push a strand of his hair away from his forehead. “Did you hear me complaining?”

“So I should do it again?” His resting hand inches closer to the rounded swell of my breast, pausing there.

I watch it, my skin aflame with anticipation. “If you want.” The wobble in my voice gives me away, and he smiles.

He flips his hand to cup me. “How is this?” His thumb rests against my hard tip, gently stroking.

“Uh-huh,” I manage on an exhale.

“Or like this?”

The pinch that follows brings my shoulders off the bed again. “Are you… getting back at me for the teasing earlier?” I ask when he releases me.

He withdraws his hands completely and kisses my neck before pushing himself up to sitting.

“Maybe.” His eyes linger on mine for a moment before wandering down my body, and I swear I feel it no less than I did his fingertips earlier.

His gaze darkens as it caresses my chest, mimicking his physical attention moments ago.

Then lower it goes, traversing my belly in a zigzag pattern, roaming the curves of my hips, pausing at the triangular summit of my thighs.

His lips part slightly, and then he can’t help himself.

He bends over and places a kiss halfway below my belly button and follows it with a gentle stroke from hip to hip that sends a luscious ripple through my core.

I clench my already closed legs together tighter, and like before, he notices.

“Not yet,” he says. “Soon.”

I stretch my arms above my head and squirm against the soft comforter. “So mean.”

He chuckles, but at least he starts touching me again, a firm stroke down my legs—to keep them still no doubt—and then he grips my ankles and urges me to flip over.

My backside isn’t used to the ambient air, and that along with another caress in reverse up the back of my thighs makes my skin prickle all over.

“You’re not cold, are you?” he asks.

I try to look at him over my shoulder. “No, I’m hot. You’re a worse tease than I am.”

“Mission accomplished, then. You’re very…

mm.” He drags the back of his hand up my spine, one vertebra at a time.

Pushes my hair out of the way so he can follow it all the way to the base of my skull before retracing his steps.

“If I photographed you like this, in black and white, it would look like an exotic landscape.” He nuzzles his stubbled cheek into the arched slope of my back, a warm exhale against my skin making my stomach clench tighter.

“A valley to rest in.” His hand returns to my ass, rounds each cheek, once, twice.

“A drift of desert sand reflecting the sunlight.” Then, along the back of my thighs and up between them, the briefest touch. “A hidden canyon perhaps.”

A low moan escapes me.

“Photos like that would win awards…” The bed shifts as he straddles my legs. “Except there’s no way I’d let anyone else see them. They’d be for me only.”

I can’t see what he’s doing anymore, but I feel the weight of his gaze on my naked body all the same.

It makes me attempt to lift my hips—an urge to get closer.

Immediately, he pins them back down, but his urgency is building, too.

Through the rush of blood in my ears, I hear it in his labored breathing, and I feel it in his increasingly eager touch.

If he asked me now, I’d pose however he wanted.