Page 136 of Lotus

Ever since, we haven’t been able to keep our hands off each other. It’s always a desperate, primal sort of lovemaking, a frenzy of heartbeats and breaths and touches and warm flesh. It feels like life or death every single time, and I wonder how long it will be like this—this voracious need to crawl inside the other’s bones and cling to the marrow, to the evidence of our living, breathing bodies.

It’s beyond sexual.

It’sprimitive.

“I need you,” Sydney tells me in a heated whisper, rolling around to face me.

We’re always face-to-face, eye-to-eye, replacing that harrowing moment in her burning bedroom with something sweeter.

I move down her body, pulling her underwear with me and trailing my open mouth along her skin. And then my face is buried between her thighs, and she’s gripping my hair, arching her spine, moaning, writhing, as I hungrily feast on her. Both of my hands glide up her body to palm her breasts, my eyes raised, watching every erotic quake and tremor that carries her toward ecstasy. I lower one hand to pump my fingers into her, curling them just the way she likes as I tease and torment her.

Sydney gasps. “Oh, God… Oliver…”

I know when she’s close to climaxing by the way her thighs clamp around my face and her hands tug my hair, her noises temporarily ceasing like a dramatic prelude to her crescendo.

She breaks against my tongue, our mutual groans aligning, and I linger between her legs, savoring her release. I’ve realized we both reach orgasm rather quickly lately—almost as if we’re in a reckless hurry tofeel.To feel things we never expected to feel again.

Sydney comes down slowly, her tears beckoning me to crawl up her body and kiss them clean. “It’s all right. I’m here, Syd.” I pepper words of love across her face, chasing away the memories that are trying to steal her from me.

“Make love to me. Please.”

I don’t hesitate, pulling myself free from my boxers and pushing inside. Foreheads pressed together and eyes locked, I move with hard, deliberate strokes, needing to feel the deepest parts of her. “Are you with me?”

She nods, cupping my cheeks. “I’m with you.”

It’s imperative I know she’s here and not…there.

Kissing her with starved lips, our tongues duel and dance as our bodies move together in perfect rhythm, our intimacy unmatched. I crave these moments when we’re so expertly entwined and lost in one another, nothing else seems to exist.

It doesn’t take long before pleasure overtakes me and I groan into her mouth, releasing inside of her, then collapse atop her and sprinkle kisses along her Milky Way freckles. I nibble her lobe, whispering softly, “I loved you then, I love you now, and I’ll love you until my dying day.”

I roll beside her, pulling her to me as the hurried beats of our hearts settle into something more content. Sydney falls asleep instantly, tangled up in me, and I place a final kiss to the freckled curve of her neck, making my wish.

She is every wish.

Today is the day Gabe returns home from his treatment at a burn unit in the city. My brother suffered more extensive trauma than me and Sydney, and just the thought of him running into a burning bedroomtwicewith little thought to his own safety, to save two people he cares about, inundates me with awe.

We have made regular trips to visit him over the last few weeks as he received a skin graft for a particularly ugly third-degree burn along his upper right arm. He’s been in good spirits because that’s just Gabe.

The betrayal from his father is the true trauma that wreaks havoc through his heart.

The firefighters managed to pull Travis out of the bedroom in time to spare his life, as Gabe hadn’t even seen him through the thick veil of smoke, but Travis did suffer severe burns and is still in intensive care. If he makes it through, he’ll be going to prison for a very long time.

A fitting end for him, indeed.

“He’s here!”

Sydney skips down the hallway with an extra bounce in her step today. Her hair is now shoulder-length, styled into an adorable bob after the flames seared a noticeable chunk out of her light tresses. She obtained fairly extensive burns on both arms and the left side of her face, but they were only second-degree, thank goodness, and are healing nicely.

As for myself, I came out of the ordeal with burns along both thighs, as well as my left hand and arm. But I consider them nothing more than a pesky scratch, considering the dreadful alternative.

“You look lovely,” I say to Sydney as an authentic smile lights up her face. Her glasses are perched upon her nose, a nose that wrinkles with playful animation when she saunters over to me in an oversized charcoal sweater and tight leggings. She’s perky today. Lively.

She’s Sydney again.

“You’re sweet.” Sydney props herself up on her tiptoes to gift me with a tender kiss. “I look like Freddie Krueger.”

I blink. “I am not familiar, but I can only assume he’s delightful. Especially if he looks this good in stretchy pants.”

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