Page 86 of One-Star Romance

“What are you doing?”

“Taking you upstairs.”

Those lean, sneaky muscles of his, stronger than they looked, made her feel weightless as he walked them over to the stairs. Or maybe the reason he could pick her up like she was nothing was that he was running on adrenaline. Nothing got one’s strength going like the prospect of finally getting to take someone’s clothes off after nearly a decade of waiting. She couldn’t stop laughing a giddy laugh, shaking in his arms, and he glanced at her as he took the first step up. “You moving around like that makes this seem dangerous and inefficient.”

“I’m sorry. Put me down, and we’ll get to a bed much faster.”

He smiled at her and placed her on the second step. She started kissing him again right there, then forced herself to pull back, and they raced up the remainder of the staircase. Natalie’s room was closer, so they ran in there, breathless. She shut the door, then turned to find him right behind her. He backed her up against the wood, his hands in her hair, and kissed her again, then lifted her shirt over her head, staring at her breasts in the light filtering in from the streetlamp outside with an expression of awe on his face.

“No fair,” she said, and he blinked as if coming back from some faraway place.

“What?”

“That you get to see me when I don’t get to see you.” She unbuttoned his shirt with shaking fingers, easing it off his shoulders, revealing his bare chest. The sight of it made her head spin with desire, but it wasn’t enough. She needed more, so she reached out again for his belt buckle, tugging his jeans and boxers down.

“Who’s being unfair now?” he asked with an almost competitive glint in his eyes, and reached for the button on her pants. In contrast to her impatience, he moved slowly—How did he have such restraint in a time like this?—his hands skimming her hips, her thighs, as he stripped off all her remaining clothes too.

When they were both completely naked, they stood in silence, trying to catch their breath.

There he was, all of him, the parts she had already known and the parts that people didn’t get to see, looking right back at the tender, precious parts of her. She traced the ridges of muscle in his arms, the soft trail of hair on his stomach, everything new and unfamiliar yet also making complete and total sense.

He made a sound as she touched him, a low rumble in the back of his throat. Her blood whooshed in her veins, a whole symphony happening inside her. How was it that she walked through the world every day barely aware of what her body was doing when it was capable of all this feeling?

She was supposed to have a way with words. If he didn’t make her feel so giddy and off-balance, she could pen odes to Rob’s body, to the electric current running between them. But in this moment, all she could manage to whisper was “Holy shit.”

“I know,” Rob said, a shaky smile breaking over his face. “How are you even better than I imagined?”

“Oh, you’ve imagined this?” she asked, raising her eyebrows innocently.

“You know I have,” he replied. He backed her against the wall again and kissed the tender skin of her neck. “And I know you have too.” Moving to her earlobe, he bit down gently and said, in a low voice that wasn’t gentle at all, “So go lie down.”

Unsteady with anticipation, she walked to the futon and did as he’d told her. Rob began kissing his way down her stomach. The press of his mouth on her bare skin made her shiver. He studied her as if she was the most fascinating rare text he’d ever seen, then bent his head to the tops of her thighs. “Is this okay?” he asked.

“Yes,” she breathed.

“And this?” he asked again, making his way up, his mouth more insistent.

“More than okay. It’s perfect.”

And then he stopped asking her. But that was fine, because she stopped being able to articulate words anyway.

It took her a while to catch her breath after falling apart. “Robert Kapinsky,” she said when she finally managed to speak again, her voice full of wonder, her limbs full of warmth. “How are you so good at that?”

He lifted his head from between her legs, a sheepish grin on his face. “I am in my thirties, so I’d better be by now,” he said. “Also, the sounds you were making were not subtle, and I’m a quick study.”

She grinned back at him. “Academia, I guess.”

He propped himself up on his elbow. “Oh, I didn’t tell you. I quit the university.”

“You did?” she asked, sitting bolt upright. “I’m so excited for you! How has it been? What are you doing now?”

“I want to tell you the details,” he said, his face turning serious. “But first I’d really like to have sex with you.”

“Oh, yes,” she said, pulling him into her. “Yes, we’ll come back to all that.”

•••

Afterward, Natalie rested her head on Rob’s chest, his heart thumping under her ear. She ran her hand up and down his stomach, tangled her fingers lazily in his chest hair, both of them spent, content. Credit where credit was due, Angus’s futon had proved remarkably sturdy. Whenever it had gotten a little awkward, as first times always did, Rob had simply laughed. She’d never seen him laugh so readily, so happily.

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