Page 33 of Rainshadow

“It’s terribly hard for me to admit that.”

She walked over to him then and put her trembling hands against his chest, then looked up into his eyes.

“Ethan,” she said. “I think about you. I think about you all the time…”

She kissed him then, a soft kiss, their lips barely touching. His breath was cool, almost cold, and she felt him shudder, as though with need.

“Flora,” he said, and his voice was husky. “Flora, I can’t. It would be so wrong. For so many reasons. You… you’re so beautiful and sweet and kind. I don’t deserve you…”

“How can you say that?” she asked him. “Everyone deserves real love!”

She kissed him again, pressing herself against him. He kissed her back then, his strong hands on her shoulders. She felt an overwhelming deliriousness, like she might laugh or cry. She had never gotten anything she wanted, and now everything she wanted felt so appealingly, tantalizingly close. His hands moved down her back, encircled her waist, tightened. He was strong,she could feel it in his grip, in the rippling tight perfection under the soft, tissue-thin shirt.

“Come to my room,” Flora said, feeling bold and brave. She felt an intense warmth in her belly, a rising need deep inside of her. She would, she knew, do anything to satisfy it.

“If I do,” Ethan said, “she can’t know. You can’t…”

“I won’t,” she promised, kissing him again, feeling his hands rising to scoop her breasts.

“Alright,” he said, nipping her ear. “Let’s go.”

16

In the dark of the bedroom, Ethan’s pale skin had a luminous glow, and his eyes were incandescent. She knew from the first moment she saw him that he was the most beautiful man she had ever seen, but now, as she unbuttoned his shirt one little pearl button at a time, she was gasping for need of him, like if she didn’t have him, she would die of something like thirst. It wasn’t thirst, of course, but something just as insistent, urgent. He peeled the white shirt off and revealed a pale chest with a smattering of blond hair, masculine, inviting her touch. She pressed her hand to him, feeling the smoothness of his flesh, the wiry hair, the muscles working beneath. She sought a heartbeat, but could not find it before he took her hand and trailed it down his stone-hard belly.

He leaned in and kissed her again, pressing her into the bed, as she unzipped his wool trousers and helped him out of them. She gripped his cock, biting her own lip to keep from gasping. He was so thick, so hard. She had never wanted anything so much. She had been with a boy before, a boy who had a girlfriend and met up with her at his house after school some days, tearing at her clothes and rutting against her as she rocked against him, both of them meeting a basic need.

This, Flora knew, was different. Ethan’s body was not like the soft, over-warm, sweaty body she had known. He was strong, intensely muscular, cool, steady, confident. He slipped her sweater over her head, shimmied her out of her riding pants. She felt, for a moment, badly dressed and unsophisticated. Sylvia, she imagined, had drawers full of silk and satin and lace, while Flora wore cotton panties and a too-snug sports bra.

“Sorry,” she whispered, “I?—”

“Your body is perfect,” Ethan growled, his lips running over her flesh. He took her by the wrists and pinned her to the bed, and she felt his teeth scrape ever so softly against her breast, her nipple. She whimpered and arched her back in reply. Her body was pulsing with need, and she wrapped her legs around Ethan, inviting him into her, begging for him. He pressed himself against her and when he found that she was so, so ready for him, he shuddered.

“We could stop,” he said, as the head of his perfect cock teased her, pressed against her. “It’s not too late.”

“Oh my god, Ethan,” Flora whimpered, and rocked her hips so that he entered her.

He thrust against her then, groaning, his husky voice making the room vibrate.

“Shhhh!” Flora half whispered, half giggled.

“She won’t wake,” Ethan said, pressing his lips her temple and rocking against her. She rolled her hips, urgent against him, gasping and digging the tips of her fingers into the ropey movement of his smooth, muscular back.

He pressed his mouth to her neck, and she felt the pin-prick sharpness of teeth against her throat. It gave her a light-headed, buzzy, otherworldly sensation, like something was trying to click, a thought, an image, a word shimmering like a lightening bug at the edge of her vision.

“I-I’m going to—” she stuttered and rocked her hips, and all of the tension, all of the frustration, all of the desire from the past few months washed away like a wave swelling and crashing. A surge of pleasure so consuming, starting in her lower belly and rippling out, powerful, but deep, like a bass note being played inside of her.

“Yes,” Ethan growled, and his thrusts became urgent, seeking his own relief.

Flora held him close and pressed her needy, open mouth to his neck, her tongue to a taut tendon. He seized, his firm body becoming rigid, and groaned like a beast. She loved it, loved that she could turn him into an animal. She smiled up at the ceiling in the dark.

They lay beside one another not speaking for a long time after. Ethan’s breath was so slow that Flora wondered if he might be sleeping. Finally, though, he sat up.

“I have to go,” he said. “I can’t be here when she?—”

“Go, it’s fine,” Flora said, propping herself up to look at him, as much as she could, in the dark.

He looked at her for a moment, reaching out to sweep a stray tendril of hair from her face.

---