Page 167 of Nothing More

He’d never had anyone before, he’d told her. Only a mentor/big brother figure who was even now trying to manipulate him…

And her. His billboard girl in the flesh. Whom he loved.

Her body hummed with electric sensation, and her eyes burned with fresh, unshed tears.

“Come here, darling,” she murmured, and reached up for him.

He lowered down over her, breathing out with something like relief, and welcomed her hands in his hair again; sank down into the kiss with a surprising softness, as his hips started a slow, close, grinding rhythm. Not the intense pounding they’d both been rushing toward, but just rocking together, nearly gentle. Letting it all sink in.

Still fully-dressed, bathed in moonlight on the floor of a treehouse, he made love to her properly for the first time. Snatches of laughter floated through the trees, and it was a sound echoed by all the tender, thrumming brightness in Raven’s chest.

~*~

Afterward, he stretched out on his back and pulled her up onto his chest, where it was comfier than the floor. Entangled, stroking at one another, sated for the moment and drugged-feeling from this new, doubly intense pleasure. Basking in the weight of it, not a burden, but one as comforting and cherished as an heirloom quilt.

The chill set in quick and hard, though, as the sweat dried beneath their clothes.

“We have to move,” he said, finally, on a blown-out breath laced with regret.

Raven winced as she sat up. “Unfortunately.”

Down the ladder, Raven attempted to smooth her hair and dress without the aid of a mirror. Dabbed at the corners of her mouth in case of smudged lipstick, belted her coat tight around her waist. “What do you think? Will I pass muster?”

He caught her lightly at the neck and pulled her into a kiss; she could feel the shape of his small, wry smile against her lips. “No.”

She snorted. “This is what I get for being so bloody put-together all the time. It’s noticeable when I’m not.”

He kissed her again. “I like you put together.”

“Really?” She feigned innocent. “You don’t think I should aim for a little more casual? Maybe I could pull off your style. Very Goth meets Don’t Give a Damn.”

“No,” he said, emphatically.

She made a show of sighing. “Oh, well. Put-together it is, then.”

His lips skimmed up her cheek and settled against her ear. “Good. And then I get to mess you up.”

Oh. If her knees weren’t already watery, they would have gone so then. “Ooh. Wicked man,” she murmured, without the teasing bite she’d intended.

“Hm.” He kissed her again, with intent this time–

Hoooo-hooo-hoo-hoooOOOOO.

“Christ!” she yelped. “What the bloody hell was that?”

He laughed. “An owl. Come on.” He smoothed her hair back with one hand – lovingly, she could thinklovinglybecause itwas– and took her hand with the other. “You’re not built for the forest.”

“Decidedly not.”

By unspoken agreement, they skirted the edge of the party, neither in the mood to be dragged into conversation in their current state. Raven didn’t know how disheveled she looked, but she wanted to be the first to find out, when she looked in the mirror.

A row of plastic folding tables had been set up at the edges of the fairy lights’ reach to serve as buffet and drinks station. They swung wide around it, and then it was a short distance to the side steps up onto the porch. Nearly home free – until someone stepped neatly in front of them.

“Fuck,” Toly muttered, unhappily.

But it was only Reese.

He stood with a beer in his hand, expression unbothered as it swapped between them, traveling all the way down to their boots and back up. “Good,” was all he said.