Page 43 of Fruit
“Didn’t we just agree that your life doesn’t have to be messy to feel like a mess?”
“Whatever, old man.”
“Okay, kid.”
I stick my tongue out at him. He returns the gesture and then laughs at my surprised expression.
“You’ve got a strange impression of me,” he says.
“You were just so serious when I met you.”
“I’m like an onion, Princess Fiona.”
“I thought we agreed you’re Donkey, not Shrek.”
“I don’t remember agreeing to that.”
“Your participation is not required.”
Sebastián rolls his eyes, smiling. He lifts his glass to his lips. Even in the low light, I can see the tattoos running up his bare forearms. There aren’t much rhyme or reason to them. Instead of a cohesive image, they’re a patchwork of moments, of impulses or commemorations. There’s one, though, which catches my attention. The profile of a tiger’s head and neck, its face creased in a roar. On the other arm, I know, is the echo of the image, a snake rearing up and hissing, caught in battle on Sebastián’s skin until the day he dies.
I don’t know what I’m doing. We’re just joking around. And I could say it’s the drinks I had at the bar or the adrenaline drop after being so worried for Nina or the glow of the lamps around us. But it isn’t. It’s Sebastián with that smile on his face, the little quirk of his lips, the way his eyes slit slightly as he tips his head back to take a drink. The line of his neck, his dark skin—the feeling I get. There, at the pit of my stomach, a clench and a warmth and a flutter.
I raise my hand and trace the lines of the tiger. His skin is smooth, hair sparse. I keep my gaze on the image, but I can feel his eyes on me like a physical touch as he freezes. The touch could pretend to be casual, it’s so simple and light. But it isn’t. It’s as if I’ve poked my fingers through the invisible barrier between us, letting this unbearable warmth through.
My breath is sort of trapped in my chest because everything is suddenly very quiet and still. The only thing moving is my fingertips on his skin, and I’m scared of myself and what might happen, what it means that I just couldn’t help myself but reach out and touch.
I trace the fur on the tiger’s neck and my nails scrape down his skin. Sebastián makes this little noise, not a gasp but a sigh, and I can feel it as if it had been breathed on my neck. I can’t stand it anymore, the weight of his gaze, the way he’s holding himself still for me. I look up. His eyes are dark, a fire trapped behind a closed door. His mouth is parted just slightly, and I look at the hanging ripeness of his lower lip.
The moment becomes unbearable. I dig my nails into his arm, just slightly, and he moves it slowly but suddenly. My fingers fall away as he places his drink on the coffee table. He reaches out, my heart a skipping stone across a pond, and takes mine from me. Our fingers brush. I let the glass go, and it’s placed beside its sister on the table.
He sits back. We’re tilted on the couch, facing each other, and he doesn’t move towards me again. The directness of his gaze, however, the way it only drifts to take in the rest of my face, my lips, is an invitation.
I raise my hand again. This time, I fist it in his shirt, right in the middle of his chest, and push him away slowly but firmly. He goes. I lean on him as I kneel up on the couch for a second before my leg slides over him until I’m straddling him.
I stay on my knees for a moment, looking down at him. My hair has tumbled over my shoulders and for a moment, all I can see is him.
His hands come up to hold my hips, and with that same deliberate slowness, he pulls me down so I’m sitting on his lap, pressed against him. A second. Two. And then I lean down and kiss him.
I’ve had a lot of first kisses. I’ve had my fair share of good first kisses, even. But this—this one is just different. There’s a sort of giddy nervousness at the pit of my stomach, but it’s overshadowed completely by want. It’s almost too much, as if I’m scared of gorging if I have a taste.
And yet, there is no franticness there. The first touch of our lips is soft and slow. A press, a slide. My hand comes up to cup the side of his neck, the other still fisted in his shirt. The contact makes his lips part slightly and I take advantage, my tongue coming out to brush against the gap, opening his lips further.
His hands clench on my hips for a moment, and I would smile, if I wasn’t being completely distracted by the sudden addition of hot breath, of his tongue sliding against mine. The rush of blood in my head suddenly quickens. I lift the hand on his chest to his jaw, pressing lightly with my thumb to tilt his head just where I want it.
I deepen the kiss. My body presses against him, a rolling wave, and he makes a small, delicious noise I want to taste a million more of. His hands slide down to cup my ass, squeezing lightly, and I know he hadn’t planned the move, that it was an impulsive reaction to the kiss, and this time I really can’t help but smile against his lips.
I think he feels the expression, because in an instant, he’s hitching up my short dress slightly and palming my bare ass, exposed by the high cut of my panties. Now it’s my turn to make a noise, a startled moan that gets caught between our mouths. I open my legs a little wider, pressing against where I can feel him getting hard in his jeans.
“Fuck,” he says, but it seems I’ve awakened his competitive spirit.
His hand slips between us so that when I press against him again, I meet his fingers instead of the crotch of his jeans. He rubs me through the thin cotton of my panties, and even that slight sensation on my hypersensitised body has me gasping.
“Jesus, skip right over second base, will you?” I mutter against his mouth.
He pulls away from my face, and all the warning I get is the frankly mischievous twinkle in his eyes before his hands move up, slipping under the loose, fluttering short sleeves of my dress and yanking my bra down by the straps. The next moment he’s dipping his head and catching my nipple in his mouth roughly over my dress. I jerk against him in surprise, letting out a choked moan, because I’ve always been sensitive there, and having the spit-damp material of my dress rub against me when I’m this turned-on sends a shudder down my spine.
I try to catch my breath, but then it’s my panties being dragged down suddenly. I swear I hear them stretching around my thighs as they bite into my skin, but I’m distracted a moment later by his fingers sliding against me. They linger where I’m already damp and slick, dragging them up and down a few times, stopping just shy of my clit. I think he’s just teasing me as he opens my lips and gets them wet, but Sebastián isn’t playing around. He rubs the pad of one of his fingers against my clit; the pad of the other frames the sensitive nub between the two fingers as his thumb caresses it wetly.
