Page 29 of Leveling

Chapter 19

Luna carefully wrappedthe paper around the end of the chocolate bar and put it to the side. Then she rose up on her knees and leaned forward to Beckett’s face. She kissed him, deep, her tongue flitting and playing in his lips. She stopped kissing him and groped for the bottom of his t-shirt, pulling it up, passing it over his arms and head, and tossing it away.

It landed in a bucket of water with a splash. “Oh! I’m sorry.” Luna giggled as she climbed his body until she was straddling his lap.

He said, “No worries, needed washing anyway.”

She kissed his neck and up to his ear. “But it’s in the dirty sink water.”

He rubbed his hands down her back. “Sink water? What are we even talking about, sink water? Shirt? I’m having trouble concentrating.” They chuckled with their lips pressed together.

She wrapped her arms around the back of his head. “Are you now? Because I feel like you’re intensely focused.” She wiggled on his lap. He groaned and tugged fruitlessly at the bottom of her tank top. He pulled at it but it was tight and wouldn’t budge. “I can’t…”

She grinned, leaned away, and pulled her shirt up and over on her own, flinging it across the rooftop toward the garden.

“Now your shirt is off I definitely can’t think. Where are we even?” Beckett curled around her chest, holding her tight, nestled in her breasts, suckling and kissing. Her breath quickened. He pulled her down, heavier on his lap. Urgently.

“We’re in the middle of the ocean, just me and you, and you want me desperately.” Her voice was a whisper in his ear, then she kissed down the side of his cheek to his lips.

“I do, Anna, I really do.”

She clamped her eyes shut and took a deep breath. “Beckett, I …”

“Yeah?” His hands caressed down her back, pulling her closer.

She closed her eyes tight, gulped a deep breath, “Never-mind,” and pressed her lips to his mouth until she forgot what she wanted to say. She pushed him back to the pillows and bedding, shimmied down to his pants, unbuttoned them, and pulled them to his knees. He rose up on his elbows and kicked them off.

She peeled her yoga pants down, kicked them away, and sat down, a knee on both sides at his waist, hovering over him, rocked forward on her arms, head bowed. She kissed the corner of his lips, and then deeply with her tongue in his mouth. His hands gripped through the back of her hair, rubbing down her back, rocking closer and closer, until it wasn’t close enough. He firmly pulled her hips down and on and himself inside.

A moan escaped him. Her breath caught in her throat. She pressed the side of her forehead into his cheek and found a rhythm as she moved her body up and down on his—his breath close to her ear as she rocked. His hands moving—rubbing along her back and her hips and her thighs. Her small moans coming faster and deeper.

She took his hands in hers, pushed them over his head, and held them there, panting into his ear, pressed long on his body — stopped, deep, stilled, stretched, the pause long, her panting in his ear, his heartbeat pounding in his chest, then a gasp as waves rolled through her body. He pulled his hands from hers, held her hips and thrust again and again, until he climaxed, with her moans hot in his ear.

He slowly released his hands down her thighs and collapsed away.

Her head down beside his, he said up to the universe, “I’m sorry. I should have asked first, about protection. Was that okay?”

In answer, she whispered a non-answering, “Yes,” into the side of his neck, near the place where his heart beat loudest. His arms went around her back, hugging her tight.

Soon she pulled up and off him and slid to his side, head on his bicep. Beckett smiled. A full dimple-cheeked smile. He stroked the side of her face and kissed her on the tip of her nose.

“That was awesome.”

“Yes, indeed.”

Beckett sighed and after a minute staring at the night sky, gestured with his free hand, “Do you know anything about these stars?”

“I do, I’m a navigator.”

“Really? Cool. Can you teach me something?”

“Never. Great-great-great-grandmother Jane would never forgive me if I did. No, my friend, these water stars are not for you. At your mountain house you can look up and learn the land stars. Then my conscience will remain clear.”

“Great-great-great-grandmother Jane is a formidable presence in my life.” Beckett grabbed an edge of the quilt and pulled it to their waists.

Luna said, “I wonder if she would like me?” Then she giggled so much she hid her face in Beckett’s side.

“Probably not, but come to find out, I share a lot of similarities with her lost-at-sea husband, George, so I doubt she would have liked me much either.”

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