Page 42 of Finding Mr. July

Finally, he extends his body on top of mine, runs his hands up my arms, and plants his lips against my neck.

His hard length lodges flat against my sex, making me writhe beneath him.

I can’t move much, though, not with his bigger frame bracketing me, but I’ll take it.

For once, my brain can’t focus on anything but where he’ll touch me next and when that will happen.

I’m aching for him, and so ready that when he rolls off me, an involuntary “no” bursts through my lips. I want him closer, inside, not away, damn it.

“Hold on,” he grunts. “I need to get a condom before I completely lose control.”

Oh. I roll onto my back and wait, as patiently as I can, while he rummages through his nightstand even though my whole body is thrumming, the rhythm wild and unstoppable. Thankfully, he’s quick and back on top of me before I can do something silly like get myself off.

Finally face-to-face, I wrap my arms and legs around him, pulling his mouth to mine as he shifts his hips upward, closer.

Yes, almost there. Our kiss is frantic at first, greedy and sloppy, matched by sweaty skin and wandering hands, but it’s not long before something changes.

Hurried becomes gentle, urgent becomes sultry.

He stills first, I think, and when he reaches up to cradle my face, I open my eyes to find him looking down at me. Intent, querying. Solemn.

“You okay?” I ask, relaxing my grip on him.

“Yes,” he says. “Of course.” He brushes a strand of hair off my cheek and kisses me again, softer this time and with a reverence that reaches deeper somehow.

“Good,” I murmur.

“Good,” he whispers back.

I relax my arms above my head again to allow him purchase against the mattress for a final adjustment between my legs, and then he slides one hand under my side and pauses there for a beat.

I don’t know if it’s his loud heart or mine that prologues our union, but I do know that, when he finally pushes into me, we both let out vowels encompassing more than the moment, more than our short history.

I resist the urge to close my eyes, instead holding his gaze as he retreats, then slides forward again, fitting us perfectly together.

As a rhythm takes hold and pressure starts building, the lump in my throat returns.

Moored to him, beneath him, the juxtaposition of awe and impending loss is overwhelming.

Here, in this moment, he is everything. My buoy to cling to, the reader of my soul, a fortune teller promising the kind of life only victors earn in fairy tales.

But my subconscious refuses to completely let go of the real world where the two of us have no obvious future. I squeeze my eyes shut and tip my head back. Try to focus only on now.

He slows and reaches for one of my hands, bringing it to his lips.

“Don’t think,” he whispers, soul-reader that he is.

“Come here.” He gets up on his knees and pulls me into his lap so I’m straddling him.

A teasing gyration with his hips and he hits places inside me that effectively demand all my attention.

I gasp and cling to his arms to adjust. Then I try a tentative move. Another. Being in control works to home my focus, as do Jonathan’s fingers digging into my hips. He’s so smart, distracting me with a mission.

“You’re so amazing,” he says, hands roaming up and down my sides as I start moving in earnest. The veins on his neck and shoulders are outlined in relief beneath my palms. His temples are beading with sweat.

I’m past the ability to form words, so I kiss him instead, imbuing it with all the things I cannot say. He’s fast to match, and soon our lips and tongues urge an accelerating tempo. This is not a time for savoring anymore. Now it’s a binge.

We hurtle toward climax entwined and gasping, free-falling over the edge as one, with our bodies rocking, shivering, and clinging.

The heat radiating from my core in violent bursts knocks the air out of my lungs and restraint from my brain, and before I can stop it, that knot in my throat becomes a sob tearing out of me.

It’s too intense, I tell myself. That’s why.

I don’t think Jonathan heard it, but in case he did, I bury my face in the crook of his neck to prevent any more such outbursts.

For a long moment, we merely hold each other, easing the other down from the high. Our breathing quiets, our heartbeats settle, and our skin cools, but neither of us moves. He’s still inside me, and I have no idea how we’re going to be able to separate and let go. Because this feels so right.

“It will be okay,” he whispers in my ear, strong arms clutching me to him.

Maybe he did hear me after all. Or is he reassuring himself?

I nod against him, afraid my voice won’t carry. He kisses my temple.

“Come on,” he says, helping me off him. The sudden emptiness is startling, but I forget about it when he settles us in a spooning position and pulls the blanket from the foot of the bed over our wrung-out bodies.

With one arm wrapped across my stomach and the other under my neck, he’s got my whole backside covered, gradually quelling the storm inside me. Sex has never been like that for me, and I want to tell him, but how do you tell someone they’re rocking your very existence and then leave the country?

We lie like that for a while, thoughts drifting but not far enough out to sea for sleep to roll in. Occasionally, his grip on me tightens, as if he’s reassuring himself that I’m still there. I clutch his embracing arm in response and tuck my toes between his calves.

Eventually, I have to get up, though, or I’ll regret it later, so I start the extraction process—legs first and then a scoot forward of the hips, lifting his arm.

“No,” he murmurs. “Stay.”

“Girl necessities,” I tell him over my shoulder. Then I have a brilliant idea. “Shower with me?”

His face lights up. “As in…?”

“Water, soap, lather, rinse.”

“Oh.”

I yank the comforter off him and start walking away, swinging my hips. “And probably a lot more sex if you’re interested.”

He beats me to the bathroom.

In the past, I’ve never been able to sleep soundly wrapped in someone else’s limbs, but when the sun comes up the next morning, it does so without my knowledge.

I’m gone to the world, spent through and through, muscles and heart equally aching and needing respite.

I’m vaguely aware of Jonathan occasionally getting out of bed, but he always returns, and the next time I resurface, his arm will be slung across my shoulders or I’ll be using his chest as a pillow like our very first morning together eons ago.

In those hazy moments of consciousness, there are still gentle caresses, mildly suggestive embraces, and lips brushing against sleep-warm skin, but neither one of us takes it any further.

Either the needs that propelled us earlier are finally satiated or, more likely, one of us simply falls back asleep before something can happen.

But at some point, I stir to find Jonathan awake, a small smile playing on his lips right in front of me.

“Pretty creepy to be watching me sleep,” I mumble, turning my face into the pillow in a stretch before facing him again.

The light in the room suggests it’s later in the day, but I’m in for a shock when I glimpse the alarm clock on his nightstand.

“Holy shit.” I push up to sitting. “It’s almost four o’clock. You should have woken me up.”

“I just woke up myself.” He wraps his arms around my waist and kisses my shoulder. “Besides, it’s Sunday, and we were up all night.”

His scratchy chin tickles the crook of my neck, and I laugh. “We were, weren’t we?”

“Mm-hmm.” He wrestles me back into the mattress and hovers over me, his gray eyes soft and attentive. “I want to stay in bed until next Sunday and then some,” he says. “What do you think?”

“I wish.” I reach up to touch his jaw, but my stomach chooses that moment to rumble impolitely, ruining a tender moment. “Unfortunately, I also have other human needs.…”

He grins. “I can order pizza.”

“Are you trying to turn me on again?”

“Is it working?”

I push at his shoulders and flip him onto his back. “Always. But without sustenance I might be forced to just lie here while you take your pleasure. No energy, you know.”

“And we can’t have that.” He crushes me down onto his chest, hugs me close, and then whispers in my ear, “I much prefer you perky and spry.”

Despite my exhaustion, his words make my body attempt to ignite dormant spots throughout, small thrills of electricity sparking before fizzling. No, I really do need food.

We eat on his couch wrapped in towels after another, quicker shower.

Poor, neglected Sir Leonard zooms like a puppy around us, overjoyed at finally having company, and I feel obliged to sneak him the occasional small piece of pizza so he won’t hate me for monopolizing Jonathan’s time.

The old boy did get fed and taken outside while I slept.

It turns out that’s where Jonathan had disappeared to.

The clock ticks on, the sun begins to set, and I know I need to get going to get things in order for the week. Not to mention that Jonathan has work to do on our chosen photo from last night. I wouldn’t have the past twenty-four hours undone, though. Not for anything.

I’m putting my shoes on in the foyer when Jonathan rests his hands behind his head and sighs. “Ugh, I don’t want you to go.”

I still with my hands on my shoelace. He’s just promised me he’ll get the edits to the printer before he goes to bed tonight, definitely before tomorrow morning’s deadline, and with that topic still at the forefront of my mind, my first thought is that he means Scotland.

He doesn’t want me to go to Glasgow. The sentiment hits me square in the chest because he’s not allowed to feel that way any more than I’m allowed to want him to come with me.

“There will be way too much space in my bed,” he complains, and I draw a shaky inhale that I willfully attribute to relief.

He means tonight.

I finish tying my boot and go to him. “Sir Leonard can hold my spot until next time.” I grab hold of the front of the robe he’s put on and pull myself up to kiss him. A quick peck.

His dark lashes dip against his cheeks before he looks up. “And there will be a next time?”

Complicated, complicated, complicated , echoes in my head. I clutch the terry fabric tighter to make it stop. “I promise.”

“Okay.” He rubs my shoulders. “Then you can go.”

I smile. “So generous of you.”

He leads me by the hand to the door. “That’s me. Mr. Generous.”

I open it. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He lets go. “Tomorrow.”

“Don’t forget…”

“The printer. I won’t. And I’ll send you the image for approval first.”

Finally, it will be done. No more last-minute photo shoots, or bad dates, or fights about missing forms. Only him and me, for the time we have left.

He’s still in the doorway when I pull into the street and speed off. And he’s still in my thoughts when I fall asleep in my own bed hours later.