Page 61 of Sunsets & Slow Dances

It was only for a fraction of a second, but I saw that the text made Nadia a little jealous. That shouldn’t make me happy, but it did. Knowing that Nadia still had feelings for me made me; I-won-the-lottery, I-threw-the-winning-touchdown-in-the-Super-Bowl, I-pitched-a-no-hitter-on-the-seventh-game-of-the-World-Series-to-clench-the-championship, happy. It was taking every single molecule of self-control not to show her just how happy I was.

It was wrong that I felt this way. I knew better. This was what we always did. Nadia would get upset and ignore me or pick a fight with me; it would turn me on, and then we’d end up having makeup sex. That wasn’t a totally fair assessment. It didn’t turn me on to get in fights. I was being honest when I saidwedidn’t fight. The problem was Nadia was cute when she got mad. To be fair, she was cute all the time, but her getting worked up about anything was the cherry on top of a cute sundae. Also, she wasreally funny when she got mad. She always had great one-liners, and even though they were at my expense, her sense of humor was extremely hot to me. And we didn’tonlyhave makeup sex, but the fastest way to stop Nadia from being mad at me was to kiss her, and kissing her always led to sex, so it did end up becoming a habit.

The longer we stared at each other in the entryway, the harder it was to turn and leave. Literally. My cock was swelling by the second. I needed to throw some cold water on this situation.

“It was my mom.”

“What?” her brow knitted together.

I pulled my phone back out, unlocked it, and turned it toward her. “The text was from my mom. And the two earlier were from Dawson, Harlan, and Miles, adding me to a group chat and giving me shit about losing at pool and darts.” I scrolled down the page. “See no texts from Leanne, school mom, or Clingy Kendra.” I used the nickname Nadia gave her, which I thought was cruel and I had never used before, even after she started showing up in the boys’ locker room and hanging around outside my house before school and then asking for a ride.

“Nadia pushed the phone away as a smile that was equal parts embarrassed and endearing spread across her face. “You don’t have to show me that. It’s none of my business.”

“Are you sure? You can check my DMs too.” I teased, offering her the phone one more time before putting it back in my pocket. “I didn’t change my passwords.”

“Oh my god, stop,” she demanded playfully, swatting at me as her eyes and smile widened. She covered her face and shook her head back and forth as she curled into herself, basically doing the stop, drop, and roll without the drop or roll. Then nuzzled against my chest. “I know I’m crazy. I don’t know why I’m like this or why you put up with me for so long.”

She was still shaking her head back and forth as I wrapped my arms around her and kissed the top of her head. The entire scene unfolded in a blink of an eye. One second, she was standing a few inches in front of me; the next, I was holding her in my arms and kissing her on the top of her head. It wasn’t planned or premeditated. It was just muscle memory, a knee-jerk reaction.

Whenever Nadia got embarrassed, overwhelmed, scared, or pretty much any time her feelings were ‘too big,’ she would roly-poly hug me. She’d curl inward—head lowered, arms tucked in—which I named the roly-poly, and hide from the world, nuzzled against my chest. I’d wrap my arms around her and kiss her on the top of her head. She called it her safe place.

Over the course of our relationship, I couldn’t count how many roly-poly hugs we’d shared—hundreds, possibly thousands—but none of them felt like this. We both instantly froze. Neither of us said a word or moved a muscle. Having Nadia in my arms again felt so right, so natural, that it scared me because I knew I had to let her go, and this feeling would be gone once again.

After what felt like a few seconds but could have easily been a few minutes, Nadia stepped back out of my arms. Her eyes fell to the ground, and she brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, revealing the gentle slope of her neck as she licked her lip nervously. Her wide blue eyes met mine again. “Sorry, I don’t...I’m not sure why I…I’m sorry.”

I swallowed a male groan of appreciation as my mouth watered. After all these years, she was still totally oblivious to just how sexy she was. It amazed me how she managed to be both innocent and seductive in the same breath.

My body was strung so tight. High-octane arousal coursed through my veins. I knew the right thing to do was to leave, but how was I supposed to walk out that door? I was just a man.

“How are your New Year’s resolutions going?” I managed to ask, even though my throat was clogged with arousal.

New Year’s resolutions weren’t the best scapegoats, but I was grasping at straws here. Anything to stop me from acting on what I was feeling. She’d sworn off drinking, dating, and dick, and the activity I had in mind definitely required one of those elements.

“Fine,” she breathed.

Her chest was rising and falling in labored pants as she stared up into my eyes. I was playing with fire, and there was a very good chance I would get burned. There were conversations that needed to be had. Issues to be discussed. Cards that needed to be placed on the table. Baggage that needed to be unpacked.

But none of that mattered right now. In this moment, the only thing that mattered was Nadia. I had never felt this level of desperation and urgency. I had an uncontrollable, insatiable hunger as if I’d been starved for the past ten years, and she was a five-course meal at a Michelin-star restaurant.

“Have you broken any of them?”

Slowly, her head turned from side to side as a private grin lifted at the corner of her lips. “Nope.”

“Do you want to?” My voice was getting deeper and grittier by the second. The more turned on I got, the raspier I sounded.

“Okay,” she agreed.

The green light she gave me overrode any shred of common sense I had. I took a step closer to her, stopping directly in front of her. I lifted my hand and did what I never thought I’d get the privilege of doing again; I brushed a strand of Nadia’s silky hair behind her ear. She closed her eyes and took in a shaky breath as she leaned her cheek into my palm.

My chest ached as my eyes drank in her beauty, literally in the palm of my hand. A little voice in my head was saying this had to be a dream. This couldn’t be reality. I must have fallenasleep. If that was the case, I didn’t want to wake up. I didn’t even realize that I had moved closer to her when I felt the heat of her breath on my face seconds before my lips touched hers.

The kiss started slow and measured. It was more than a kiss; it was a reintroduction. We explored one another as our lips met in a sensual collision. Within seconds, it changed. My brain shut off, and instinct took over. I cupped the back of her neck and tilted her head, giving me better access. When I did, her lips parted, and my tongue slid into her mouth. The second her velvety tongue touched mine, our souls fused together.

I swallowed her moan into my mouth as our kiss deepened. I flexed my fingers against the base of Nadia's neck as her hands gripped my upper arms. Her nails dug into me, and my entire body surged with passion and reverence. I didn’t want this moment to end. This precious reunion held more meaning to me even than our first kiss.

This was what I’d been missing in my life. This wasn’t just a kiss; it was a mind, body, and soul restoration. Nadia was a part of me. She was infused in my DNA. Losing her meant I had to shut down a part of myself or risk losing all of myself. It was like when someone has to cut off an arm that is infected or else it can kill you. I had to cut off the part of me that felt, or it would have eaten away at me and destroyed me. But being with her again—touching her, kissing her—brought those parts of me back to life. Everything in my world righted itself.

When I felt my shirt being tugged at, I knew that the PG portion of our foreplay had come to an end. Nadia had always been bold. She knew exactly what she wanted, how she wanted it, and when she wanted it. Since she was the only girl I was with until I was twenty-two, I took for granted that all women were like her. It wasn’t until we broke up, the final time, that I had experiences with females who were not as comfortable expressing themselves the way she was, and I knew she was rare.

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