Page 96 of The Cabin
Nathan.
I feel him reaching climax, and our rhythm goes slow and gentle and delicate and purposeful, and I press up so I can look down at him, and my arms press against my breasts as if offering them to him and he takes the offering, his mouth loving on them, and then his eyes tell me he’s there and his voice goes rough and it’s him, now him in control, lifting me and bringing me down, pushing up, thrusting up as I drive down, and I watch him through it, watch his face lose whatever composure he had left as he fills me, as he detonates and I collapse forward on him, cradle his face to my breasts and let him pump wildly into me through the mad starburst of his orgasm, and there’s more and more and more, until he slows to half thrusts and then to stillness.
I just lie on him, filled with him.
It feels like this was always us, always meant to be.
From the moment I saw him sitting on the porch of his cabin, reading, I think I knew.
My head on his shoulder, his hand on my butt.
“Be right back,” he says, wiggling out from under me.
I watch him go, clean up, watch him return, and I move the covers back and get under them. Lift them up for him. Lift myself as he sidles in beside me, and I resume my place against his side, tucked into him, head on the pillow of his strong arm.
I feel him working up to something. “Don’t say it,” I whisper.
“Okay. But it’s true.”
“I know.”
“Nathan?”
“Yeah.”
“Thank you.”
A wry laugh. “For what? I should be thanking you. I think you just changed my world.”
I snort. “Who changed whose world is up for debate I think, because mine feels pretty damn well rocked.” I lift up to look at his eyes. “Thank you for waiting. Thank you for being patient. Thank you for taking the time to…to know that you love me, before making love to me.”
His arm tightens around me. “I do.”
“I thought you were gonna say it for a second.”
He chuckles. “I would. But for some reason, you told me not to.”
“Because I want to say it first.”
Another laugh. “Okay, honey.”
“Honey?”
“No?”
“No, I like it. Just…seeing how it feels. And I like it. It’s good.”
“You’re sweet as honey, so I figured it fits.”
I laugh, patting his chest. “You’re silly, you big sweet man.”
We float together in a long glowing silence. Doze, maybe.
It emerges from me unbidden, abrupt, a raw whisper into the afterglow silence.
“I love you, Nathan.”
His chest rises and falls, harsh. A ragged breath escapes him. I reach up and brush a droplet of overwhelmed emotion from his cheek.
“Sorry, I just—”
“Try that again,” I interrupt. “This time, no apologizing.”
A not-quite, almost laugh. Another heavy sigh, this one long, an attempt to control.
“Nathan.” I brush my fingers over his cheek again, and again they come away damp. “Feel it. Don’t control it. And most of all, let me see it.”
He swallows hard—I hear it. “I never—” he pauses, clears his throat. “I never thought I’d hear that again. Or feel this way again.”
My eyes begin to sting. “I know. Me either.”
“I thought maybe I was…broken. Like I’d been wrecked beyond repair.” He’s breathing hard. “And then I met you, and…and you fixed me. One day a time.” He clears his throat. “And so I guess, to hear you say that just…I dunno. It’s a lot. Kinda overwhelming. Or, a lot overwhelming. I don’t cry much, and it seems kinda silly to cry after something so amazing.” Another sigh, another clearing of his throat. “I just never thought I’d hear that again.”
I lean up on my elbow, wipe at his cheeks. Kiss them, one and the other. “Thank you for giving me this, Nathan.”
He peers at me with a half-open eye, still embarrassed of his tears in the way men have. “Giving you what?”
“You. Fully, just…you. It’s brave of you.”
I touch my forehead to his. Kiss him. Just to taste him, the salt on his lips. But then something births in the kiss and becomes more.
I find him ready.
“Already?” I ask, surprised and pleased. It hasn’t been very long.
He laughs, nods.
We fall into the new rhythms of us that feel old and perfect as well as new and wild. Sheathed, he rolls over me. This time it’s him, his arms pillars beside my face, his body blocking out all the world, and I lift and lock my legs around him and accept him into me and this time it’s long and slow, even as we find our mutual explosion together, in unison, he loves me slowly and deliberately and drives each thrust with his eyes devouring mine.
In the moment right after we’ve come together, still stroking gently into me, arms braced, panting, sweating, he dips his lips to mine. “I love you, Nadia.”
