How to Bake a Perfect Life - Barbara O'Neal [112]
“I used to imagine a little more than that.”
I take off his shirt and lean in to kiss the hair across his chest, inhaling the scent of him, so concentrated here. His skin is warm. His hands skim down my hair. His mouth presses into my temple, and it feels holy and quiet and perfect. He pushes down my panties until I can kick them off. Last is my bra, and he’s slow with it, his hands grazing my breasts, but then it, too, is gone, and I’m standing naked before him, clad only in my hair.
His eyes glitter as he pulls it around, great swaths of hair that fall over my shoulders and arms, breasts peeking out. “You look like a painting, a pre-Raphaelite woman.”
And in that moment I see myself through his eyes, and it’s much sweeter than the reality. I hold out an arm. “Come to me, Jonah,” I say, and he comes, tumbling me backward to the bed, where we start to laugh and kiss and kiss and laugh, tangling limbs, naked chests pressed together. I wrap my legs around his jeaned hips and push him up to look in his eyes. “There’s something wrong with this picture.”
He goes to his knees and gestures. “A little help, maybe?”
Laughing, I reach for the buttons and skim him out of his jeans and underwear, inclining my head as his flesh leaps out. “Nice,” I say, and circle it with one hand. He allows it briefly, then he’s covering me with his long elegant body and our mouths join, and the mood shifts. I feel it, as if there is light edging around the bed, soaking into us, almost a sound. He touches my face, whispers my name, kisses my neck, and I kiss his chin and his neck, thinking of the self I was at fifteen, wanting him so much it practically flattened me every time I saw him.
And it has not changed. I’m breathless with wanting him, craving the union that comes at last when he pulls me closer and touches me with his fingers to smooth the way. Then he bends over me, bracing himself on his elbows so I can look up at him.
Jonah.
“Keep your eyes open,” he says, and slides into me. It’s the most intense moment of connection I have ever had with another person. It feels as if our bodies blur, that I am him and he is me, and our skin is melting into each other’s. Still I keep my gaze on his deep-gold eyes, until he leans down and kisses me and seals us together, moving us so tightly into a unit that I know it cannot ever come apart. “Jonah!” I cry, and then I’m tumbling into the union, and from here it feels we are eternal, that we have been together in some way for all of time, traveling as a pair.
When we are finished, I keep my arms tight around his neck, panting. Our skin is slick with sweat and I can feel his heart pounding against me, mine practically shattering my ribs. Suddenly I’m shaking head to toe, and he simply gathers me up, enfolds us within the blanket, and caresses my back. “Shh. Shhh. Shhh.”
Finally my body seems to absorb the shock of it. “Jonah! Oh, my God!” I put my hands in his hair, on his face. “I can’t believe it.”
He smooths hair away from my face. “I know.”
I lift up on one elbow, touch his mouth, his chin, his throat. His eyes are calm and deep. Tender. “That was so much … it was …” I shake my head. “Maybe it was just me,” I finally manage. “But I’ve never felt anything even remotely like that in my life.”
“It wasn’t just you. I’ve been waiting for that for a very, very long time.”
I fall against his chest, nestling my head into the hollow of his shoulder. “Me, too.” I close my eyes, breathe in. “Me, too.”
Katie
Katie awakens in the dark with a deep, throbbing pain in her low abdomen. It’s just her period, she knows that—she’s heard her mom complain about cramps often enough—and she takes it as a badge of honor.
But she didn’t expect them to be like this, as if there is a fist with giant knuckles in her belly,