Page 35 of Love at First Sighting

Carter

El wastes no time getting her hands on me when we return to my apartment.

The second my door shuts and I’m able to rest the camera that costs more than my life on my dresser, she shoves me against it hard enough for it to rattle on the hinges.

All night, the only thing running through my head has been how I have never been so goddamn enamored and obsessed with someone the way I am with her.

El could burrow herself deep within my chest, nestle herself right beside my heart, and it still wouldn’t be close enough.

I need to know every inch of her and take my time. The prior two times we’ve had sex, it was quick, rushed, but I had no complaints. The desk was impulsive, as was what happened in the back of my car when I dropped her off at the Nest the following morning. This…

I have all the time in the world and I’m going to use it generously.

El brings her hands to the sides of my face, tilting my chin down so her tongue can slip inside my mouth.

She still tastes like the vodka soda with cranberry she had at dinner and the fruity tang of her lip gloss, but nothing tastes as sweet as the bite she gives my bottom lip as she winds her fingers in my hair and grinds her hips into mine.

I work my hands into her back pockets, curving them around her ass.

She lets out a heated moan along my jaw as I hold her tighter and tilt my head back.

El takes that as an invitation to paint all over the extra canvas I’ve given her.

Tongue and moans and mauve-pink lipstick marking me left and right.

“Shit,” she mutters, yanking herself away from my throat. The loss of her touch is like a branding iron. “Leonard.”

“Don’t worry,” I sigh, guiding her lips back to mine. “He won’t hear us.”

“How do you know?”

“Listen.”

El shuts her eyes and listens closely. The walls in my apartment are thin, so I can actually hear more of Leonard’s late-night Zoom D&D sessions than he will probably hear of me getting laid.

Judging by the neon lights coming from beneath his bedroom door when we entered and the shouts of “LEEROY JENKINS” and “let me get out of your AoE,” I was led to the apt conclusion that he was already busy.

“He’s raiding a dungeon or something. And he is not going to hear all the ways I’m going to make you come tonight. And even if he does…”

I trace my thumb down the slant of El’s jaw. Her mouth is pink and swollen from kissing me and her eyes are the deepest, darkest brown and it makes me want to melt. I’ve never met a woman as intoxicating and indomitable as El, and she’ll always feel like far more than any human deserves.

“Besides, short of you telling me to stop, there’s nothing that could keep me from touching you.”

“An alien invasion?” She laughs, stroking my cheek.

“Eh, with the bureaucracy, it would take a while to get down to my level. We’d have a few minutes, at least.”

This makes El dial up the intensity. She drowns me in another kiss, and I cradle her in my arms because she’s the most precious thing I’ve ever held.

She knows all the angles to hit, what she’s searching for, and I’m struggling to keep in control.

She has me so enraptured, I can’t even think about how I want to take her, so long as I get to have her at all.

I want her spread out, my tongue swirling around her clit, her crying my name, her bundled in my arms as I drive her to a climax. El is someone I am never going to get sick of making love to.

She breaks away for a split second to pull her T-shirt over her head.

Fuck, I am so in love with every curve of her body, the swell of her breasts over the cups of her bra.

I want to put my mouth on all of her—tasting the ever-soft dip of her sternum, the firm muscles of her stomach, following a trail from her belly button down.

“Fuck, you are so beautiful,” I gasp between kisses.

“I’d say the same, but I might need to strip you down more to confirm.”

God, this woman. “Have your way with me, Agent Ariel.”

“Great.” She laughs. It’s so intoxicating, joyful, and sweet. “I’m going to begin with a strip search.”

“My queen of escalation.”

El smothers a laugh in the crook of my neck. It makes my heart grow catastrophically large and there’s never been anyone I’ve wanted to care for the way I want to care for her. “Stop making me laugh. Let me get you naked.”

“Sorry. If you’ve got to punish me, I suppose I understand.”

El finds the hem of my T-shirt. Her fingers curl around the bottom, tugging it slowly up my body and over my shoulders.

We’ve never stripped each other and there’s a sense of intimacy that feels like baring our souls.

When she pulls away and tosses the shirt on the floor, she eyes me like I’m a sculpture.

Something worth studying instead of using.

El’s manicured fingers—a pale pink that’s nearly invisible—wander down my chest, exploring my low-budget muscles and drawing her thumb down the trail of hair leading into my jeans.

She runs her tongue along the inside of her bottom lip.

Her eyes settle on the scars on my arm—a jagged one on the inside of my elbow.

She follows the long-healed markings to my shoulder.

“Don’t worry,” I whisper. “I’m not fragile. You don’t have to be gentle with me.”

El digs her hands into my hair, kissing along the shell of my ear and laughing. “Good. I wasn’t planning on it.”

I bring my hands to El’s thighs, hook my grip around her, and hoist her into my arms. She mutters “well, shit” as we stumble toward my bed. I hope if I can leave her gasping my name and begging for more, it’ll excuse the fact that this mattress came in a box.

I rest El on the bed, one hand behind her head, and look her over.

Her dark hair spreads out in a halo on my sheets, and I know the smell of her cool cucumber shampoo will bleed into my bedding.

I’m imagining waking up to the sound of her breathing and falling in love with the sweet sounds she makes as she’s sleeping.

I’ve never thought about anyone that way.

No one has ever felt like home the way El does.

“Fuck,” I mutter. “There are so many things I want to do to you.”

Her teeth sink into her supple bottom lip. “Good. Do them all.”

I’m on her quickly. Everything is furious, desperate, and passionate.

Hands, legs, lips. There’s no part of her I don’t want to ravish.

El reaches between us and unbuttons her jeans with a sly smile.

Her hips are hypnotic as she drags the pants over her lush frame.

It’s a herculean effort to not go too hard too fast.

I help El work her jeans down her hips, leaving her in a pale bra and underwear.

They don’t match—baby pink and lime green.

It feels antithetical to her and her perfect image, where everything matches and fits a mold.

I like it, but what I want is underneath—the bronze, even color of her skin, naked.

El unbuttons my pants and works them down my hips. I slide my hands between her legs and dip my fingers beneath the satin of her underwear and pull them down her legs.

“Wait,” El interjects. She clutches one of my hands and drags it to the center of her back. I draw the curve of her spine as she guides me to the hooks of her bra. I don’t need further instruction. El moans as I unhook her bra without looking, and she wiggles it off her shoulders.

I’ve never had her fully naked before, and I think maybe it’s for my own survival.

She’s so stunning—from the heavy swell of her breasts to the generous curves of her hips.

I don’t know what to put my mouth on first. El leans back and her legs fall open in front of me. It makes a hard choice too easy.

I plant my lips at the center of her stomach, painting a hot trail until I reach her waist. The hollows of her hips taste treacherously clean, sweet, as I bring my tongue between her legs.

El is wet and warm, and the moan she gasps out is desperate—pained, even.

But the way she begs “Don’t stop there!” lets me know I can proceed. I can undo her as I badly want to.

El tilts her head back, repeating my name over and over again. She tastes like all mine.

“ Fuck ,” she gasps. At this point, she’s tugging at my hair, clenching her legs around my head. I clamp a hand over El’s body, a thumb curving around her breast as she quivers underneath me.

“Carter, oh…my god,” she sighs, voice cracking, skin flushing. “I need you to make me come.”

“How?” I demand against her inner thigh. “Tell me what’ll get you there.”

“Harder,” she says.

So, I dig my fingernails into her thighs and study, memorize her deeper.

She arches her back, clutches the wooden bed frame behind her, crying my name in broken syllables but touching me with a sure hand.

El sighs my name one final time as she comes on my tongue.

It sounds like she’s pleading for mercy she doesn’t even want.

In what feels like a singular moment, but could have been an eternity later, she laughs. “God. You…you are crushing field training.”

As we meet face-to-face again, she kisses me without hesitation, tasting herself on me. She wipes my bottom lip with her thumb. El and I drown each other beneath my sheets as she works my boxer briefs off.

She drags her hands down my stomach, then curls her fingers around me. She’s warm and gentle in all the ways I don’t deserve. Yet, as she kisses me, I believe I’m things I’ve never thought possible.

Smart. Brave. Loved .

Her thumb brushes over the head, and my back arches under her touch. I’m trying my best to not finish in her hands. No, I need to be inside her. I need to have her ride me, come undone on my cock.

“El…” I breathe. “My god, Ariel. You’re driving me mad. Like…problematically so.”

She laughs and kisses along my throat. “Oh, I think you have more self-control than that.”

The teasing…it’s so uncalled for. “I don’t really want to test the theory right now,” I pant.

But instead of rushing into it, when she looks at me with so much love in her sweet brown eyes, it’s the first time I understand what all of this is supposed to be—her, reaching down to kiss my lips, slowly, passionately, like I’m somebody who means something. Our hands lost in each other’s hair.

I love her, I love her, I love her.

I’m in love in the way that has me wanting to spend my whole life making her happy, making her laugh, being the last voice to wish her good night.

El makes me think I’m worthwhile. She makes me want to strive for the most unbelievable happiness.

She makes me brave enough to try. Brave enough to be who I am and to be loved for who I am.

I’m not brave enough to say it yet, but I want to show her in every way I can.

“Condoms?” she pleads.

I reach into the nightstand beside me and pull out the first foil packet I find.

“Carter.” She frowns. “That is a pack of gum.”

“Fuck.” I grab inside the drawer again. My broken phone charger. Tissues. Chapstick. Then, finally: gold.

Well, a gold-foiled condom, at least.

El snatches it from me, tearing the packet open carefully. She slowly rolls the condom onto me. Her touch is gentle but destructive. She secures it responsibly and I’m ready to die at her hands, her hips, her mouth.

El clutches my hands, places them on her waist, and lets me feign some sense of control as she sinks onto me. Her body tenses and then relaxes, a quiet gasp escaping her lips. Her head tilts to the side as she savors the moment.

She finds a rhythm that pleases us both—slow ebbs and flows of her body and desperate moans.

All the force, the teasing, goes away and fades to a total intimacy I’ve never felt before.

I’m looking up at her, with beads of sweat running down her chest, and every now and then she opens her eyes to look down at me and smile.

She’s happy to be here. With me. Nothing has ever brought me as much joy as making her happy does.

“You’re so perfect,” I groan.

“Oh please. Far from it,” she scoffs. I dig my nails into her thighs and her voice cracks into a quiet whimper. “You feel so good.”

I’m so lost in my desperate hunger for her, all I can think to say is “Thank you?”

El bursts into quiet laughter and leans over me, kissing my forehead, my cheeks, my nose. It’s nice, delightful, and feels like a hug, but it’s also an opportunity to get her even closer to me. I secure my grip on her waist, and she sighs in approval before I turn her onto her back.

I maneuver between her legs, sliding back into her with painful slowness. She grasps my hair and kisses around the shell of my ear, whispering my name over and over and over again. She makes it sound like music.

She tightens around me, her moans growing more desperate. El white-knuckles my bedsheets as she hits another peak with a quiet cry in the crook of my neck. I dive over the edge with her moments later.

We lie there, exhausted and euphoric, toying with each other’s hair, staying wrapped up in each other like we don’t want the moment to end. For a split second, I debate spitting it out—telling her just how much I love her, but the silence is so tauntingly perfect, I can’t imagine breaking it.

My camera is across the room, so I take a picture in my mind with a silent click , and I know I’ll keep the image of her sleepy, exhilarated smile in my head for as long as I live.