Page 62 of The Pairing

“Santiago does this all the time,” she says. “Estoy acostumbrado a eso. Is it bad for you?”

There are about one million reasons why it’s bad for me, but right now, all I can feel is thrumming need, and all I can see is the pitying look Juliette gave me on that beach.

“No,” I say, and I crush my mouth into Caterina’s.

I don’t waste any more time. I press her to the leafy railing and kiss her, my hand slipping under her dress to palm the wet heat between her thighs. She grinds against the heel of my hand.

Someone swears into the night, and I’m pleased with myself until I realize it’s not Caterina but Kit. His is the only voice behind the wafting curtains now, and I can imagine what’s happening. Kit, laid out on his back, lost in Santiago’s mouth.

“Fuck,” I murmur out loud this time, feeling insane. I drop to my knees.

This will work. Going down on an attractive woman always does it for me. Watching the pleasure dawn on her face, feeling her knees start to shake, burying myself in her taste. I shove Caterina’s dress up with one hand and push the other past my waistband.

I narrow my focus to my mouth on her, my own fingers, the hot blood rushing in my ears, her gasps and sighs, the roll of her hips. I give her everything I’ve got until she finishes, hands fisted in my hair, and I start her over again.

I want to—needto get off so fucking badly. Needed it for days,especiallysince last night, but I—can’t.Can’t get close enough. Can’t chase down the mind-numbing, maddening horizon, the touch of someone who’s not here.

I hear Kit again, whining through clenched teeth, and I know, Iknowwhat it fucking means when he sounds like that.

There’s not a sound inside of Kit that I haven’t worked loose. I know the low, imperious tone that means he wants control, the filthy mid-register drawl he uses when he’s feeling indulgent, thehuffy swears when he’s pushed to the brink of his patience. When he sounds raw and wrecked like he does right now, it means he wants totake it.

It’s heartbreaking how gorgeous he is like this. Pliant and glassy-eyed, head thrown back. Spreading himself out, offering himself to be pushed down and swallowed up, teased and twisted until he’s begging, gasping, nearly weeping for it.

A shudder courses through me, and I close my eyes and see Kit’s face, the look when he kissed Paloma on that beach, like he wanted me to watch.

I let myself listen. I open the vault.

There he is. There we are. Light spills across our skin. My hand grasps for his, and everything unfolds at once.

On the next swipe of my tongue, I hear three simultaneous gasps: Caterina with her knee hooked over my shoulder, Kit across the alley being sucked off by another man, and Kit bent over our old kitchen counter with my spit sliding down his thighs.

My hand quickens to match my mouth, to match the rhythm of Kit’s breathing. To match the beat of my heart one summer night on a beach blanket in Santa Barbara when I sank down onto him. The click-click of the hazards while he ate me out in my back seat. The kick drum through the speakers as he snuck his hand down my jeans in the middle of a crowd. Caterina’s pulse on my tongue, Kit’s pulse against mine. I push two fingers into her, and his push into me, and mine push into him.

When Kit comes, I hear him, and I see him in our bed, wrists pinned, bright tears in his eyes. I lean my forehead against Caterina’s hip—against Kit’s shoulder—and finish with a rough, punched-out cry.

In the quiet after, I’m left with the part of the memory that tipped me over. It wasn’t how Kit begged me that night, or how he couldn’t walk straight in the morning.

It was in between, when he told me how much he loved me.

That’s exactly what I was afraid it would be.

I don’t sleep in Caterina’s bed.

It’s not a long walk back to the hostel, but by the time I pass the spires of Cathedral La Seu, I’m running. I sprint all the way up La Rambla, through the huge wheel of Plaça de Catalunya and all its bosomy statues, up four flights of stairs to the room where I woke up tangled in Kit.

When the door is locked behind me, I take out my phone.

I might be falling back in love with kit

Sloane texts back within a minute.

Would that be such a bad thing?

Would that be such a bad thing?

On the highest plateaus of Provence, in the mountainous countryside above Nice, lavender grows like a motherfucker. It’s purple for miles, purple for years. Purple up to my nips. Every breath smells like lavender, and so every breath smells like Kit.

Sault is a scenic detour on the way to Nice, where we’ll spend two nights before beginning the Italy leg. Everyone’s hangover seems cured by the cool mountain air, except for Ginger Calum, who is throwing up behind a goat pen. Even Orla has climbed down from the bus to explore the lavender fields.

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