Page 94 of A Novel Love Story

I nodded, feeling the butterflies in my chest grow wilder. “More than anything.”

His expression turned serious. “Good,” he rumbled. With his free hand, he slid his finger from my neck, down between my breasts. He tilted his head to the side, as if debating something in his head. “But how badly … ?” His fingers slipped down beneath my underwear, and he stroked me gently with one finger, then two.

I stifled a gasp.Oh.

“I didn’t hear you. I guess not badly enough …”

He began to pull away, when I grabbed his hand and forced it to stay still. “Don’t you dare stop.”

His eyebrows jerked up. “Is that a request?”

“A demand.”

“Bossy little thing,” he murmured, and obliged. He stroked me with his long fingers, working me agonizingly slowly.

“Faster,” I said.

So obviously he didn’t.

“It isn’t a race, sweetheart,” he admonished with a tsk, and then that awful mouth of his twisted into a smirk, and he lowered it onto my skin, and kissed the place between my breasts. “Because I want to know how long you’ll last.”

The realization dawned on me with a rush as he moved against my clit still so slowly. “You are theworst—”

“Am I?” He went even slower.

“Anders—”

“I can do worse,” he said, and as he stroked me, it felt like my entire body was inching closer and closer to bursting into flames. “I can make you come undone piece by piece. I can fuck you until you can only see stars and me. Now be quiet,” he said, and sank himself lower against me, his lips trailing down my stomach, “and let me make use of this mouth of mine.”

I curled my hands around the flowers, and felt the earth shiver as he spoke in the language of pleasure with his tongue. I died a little in those wildflowers, surrounded by the rush of water and damp moss and sunlight, and felt for the first time in my life—

That I didn’t want to skip to the end, I didn’t want to reach for the past. Now was enough.

And when we were done, and spent, and he lay on the heather beside me and traced the freckles from my shoulders to my collarbones, I said, “I thought it’d be bigger.”

He raised an inquiring eyebrow.

“The waterfall,” I clarified, motioning back to the titular Quixotic Falls. “I thought it’d be bigger.”

He laughed, and pulled me close, the smell of wildflowers heady and sweet, and kissed me again.

29

Plumb Luck

EVENTUALLY, WE DRIED OFFand put on our clothes, and made our way down from the waterfall.

And eventually, we returned to the bookstore. We ate dinner in his apartment, and shared a bottle of wine, and when he walked me back to the loft that evening, we somehow found our way into bed together, too. The sex was even better a second time—though maybe that was because we were in abedrather than on some weeds in nature, or maybe it was because we were finding a rhythm with each other, exploring each other’s bodies, noting what made the other gasp, what made us groan.

And, after, like a romance novel, I fell asleep in his arms, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d ever felt so alive.

Sadly, the starlings were loud the next morning, singing that almost-familiar song. I think I would’ve recognized it then, if I’d given it any more thought, but the sunlight was too bright, and it was warm, and the hour was much,muchtoo early. Anders had fallen asleep with his arms around me,and now he groaned with his face burrowed into my hair, my back against his chest.

“I forgot about thebirds,” he bemoaned, and pushed his face into my shoulder.

I yawned. “We can eat them later.”

He snorted, and with a sigh uncurled his arms from my middle. I turned over to look at him. His hair was a mess, his eyes sleepy. I could stare at him for hours. I might have, honestly, if he hadn’t been staring at me, too.

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