Page 145 of Love, Nemesis
“What was that?” he asked, straightening.
Ana bit the end of her thumb and chuckled. “Nothing. I’m going to blindfold you. Go back to your house.”
Lethe raised his eyebrows slightly.
“Stop it,” Ana said. “You know what I meant.”
“You don’t have to be embarrassed,” he poked.
She rolled her eyes, still staring at the wall beside him. “I’m not embarrassed, I just want some privacy!”
“Why?”
She groaned.
Lethe laughed. “All right, all right, I get it. I’ll get some more Snake Bite from Manaj tomorrow.”
As he relented, Ana looked back at him and he saw, for the briefest moment, a lingering memory. It was from their kiss in the mountains. It seemed as if she’d successfully shuffled thememory away, but as soon as she looked back at him, it popped up again.
“Ha!” he exclaimed.
Frustrated, she leaned forward and slammed her hand over his eyes. “Ouch,” he mumbled. “I’m not sure what this says about you, but in the past year, you’ve beaten me up quite a bit.”
“That says more about you than it does about me, I think,” she said.
“So, is this it? Are you really going to wrap something around my face? I don’t like closed spaces. If you put a pillowcase over my head, I will run.”
Ana laughed but said nothing. He could almost hear her thinking, though he wasn’t sure about what.
As he looked into the darkness, he felt the pressure on her hands lighten and slowly felt her lips on his. He leaned forward to kiss her, but she kept her hand firm over his eyes as she pulled away.
“Close your eyes,” she said, and he hesitated.
“The moment you open them, I stop,” she added.
He closed his eyes as she kissed him again, removing her hand before he felt her fingers along the collar of his shirt, and then under it along his collarbone and chest.
Her touch was curious, lightly tracing lines over his palms, arms, and neck. Slowly, he felt her weight settle against him as she rested her body on his legs.
His hands moved to her face and then her shoulders, slipping the straps of her dress just off her shoulders but no further as he felt along the lines of her collarbone.
The pressure of her thighs felt warm against his legs, and his hands eventually moved along the edge of her dress, guiding it up along her thighs as she kissed him more passionately.
He kept his eyes closed as they embraced and explored the barriers between them until they didn’t exist anymore. As the minutes passed, he felt her closeness in the darkness of his own senses. He looked again only as he picked her up and laid her back against the table, seeing in her eyes the gasp of shared sensations that expressed the unity of their spirits.
Chapter 37: The End of Time
TIME DID NOT exist here.
The morning was miraculous in that way.
Ana watched the light filter in from the sunrise as she rested in Lethe’s arms. Curled in the cover of their room, she listened to his breathing as she traced circles on his hand.
After a few minutes, Lethe shifted, leaning forward to kiss her before he rested his head over her shoulder.
“Good morning,” he whispered, and she turned in his arms and smiled.
“Morning,” she said as she moved her hand across his bare chest. They kissed a moment longer in the quiet of the early morning, and eventually, she asked an unavoidable question.
