Being Kalli(71)

“’Kay.”

My hands resting on his body, I feel the bed creak and his waist disappear from my fingers as he lies back. I untangle and separate the ear buds while I gather my thoughts, and say, “Rather than mess up everything I feel about you, here.” I put each ear bud in his palms. “Listen to this.”

I scroll through files on my phone and find the recording for him. I press play, and Nate’s fingers grip onto me and pull me to his side. The sound of my first bow plays as I curl up next to him. It’s so quiet, but I hear a whisper of the music too. I find his waist and drape my arm over it. My legs start snaking around and up and down his, and as the introduction starts, slow and building, we settle with my knee bent across his thighs.

For the few minutes of my composition, we lie together. I try to stay still because I don’t want to distract him, but I know he loves it. Nate can’t help but squeeze my shoulder or massage a hand over my belly as the song builds to the climax, and my chest clenches and unclenches with the tension of the melody.

When the song ends, I stretch out, only for my thigh to graze the hardness from under his pants.

He pulls me away from him to prevent me realising what his body has done, but it’s too late, whether he knows it or not.

“You played that on your violin?”

I nod into his chest.

“Hey.”

Embracing me to him, I give in to the want inside and climb on top of him, straddling him above his hips and lying down on his chest. We lie like that for a bit, me feeling his chest expand and sink. Nate draws circles at my hips, my back.

Before I know it his fingers have slipped under the material, and I’ve slipped down to cup his bulge between my legs. Our tongues in each other’s mouths, I deepen the kiss and go with it.

We have started making out without me hungry for a thrill, and for once it feels like what nature intended between a guy and a girl. Perfect and real. And connected.

Nate flips me under him. His arms are rigid, framing his chest like a square as he leans down further over me. I crawl back onto the bed with my heels and my elbows as he lowers himself onto me. He’s agonisingly slow, when my heart and mind are racing at breakneck speed. His bulge comes down on me and like a spring-loaded trigger, my legs spread, lift and latch behind his ass and wrap around his thighs. The warmth already feels like it’s made just for me.

The feeling is wonderful, and it’s not the excitement for undressing toward sex. It’s knowing that I want to lie here, close my eyes, and feel him over me. That I want to do this right to make him feel good, and my pleasure is an added bonus. I want everything for Nate, and now I can’t imagine living without him.

“You distracted me.”

I lift to meet his lips then lie back down. “I didn’t mean to.”

“Seriously, Kall, everything about you takes me away. That song … I didn’t want to drift off but it was like it took me to a different place. I imagined it was just you and me. Just us and nothing else, somewhere. And I just let go of everything. Totally relaxed. Well, except for one part that was so relaxed it turned stiff. I’m sorry, but your thigh was pressed up onto it and with you curling up to me …”

He leans down to meet my lips, tugging on the lower one with his teeth, and I widen my lips for better access but he holds me back, letting go. “I loved it. You know it actually felt like flipping through the photo book, from kids to friends, to flirting to this.” His fingers skate down my arm, past my fingers and rest on my waist.

“That’s what I felt, too.”

For a moment he pulls back and I don’t recognise him. At the same time I recognise this other side of Nate that’s mirrored in me. It’s a deep urgency to make love body-to-body.

I want to own every part of him I can. His eyes hold mine with a fierce gaze that could eat me alive with passion. His teeth bite his bottom lip.

He blinks and snaps back into it, lifting my top over my breasts, and I shimmy my arms up so he can take it off. In my peripheral I see it sailing toward the carpet somewhere, and in a second, he’s flinging my bra off, too. He pulls my bottoms off as well. Instantly, his head plunges in my cleavage and his tongue is licking a path, finding its way to my nipples. Just the thought of his tongue on my breasts, searching, makes me want to yelp out Yes! so I throw my wrist over my bared teeth and clamp.

Tristan sleeps lightly and Mum probably isn’t asleep yet. We do not need an interruption.

It hits me: I’m here alone with Nate in a dark room and it’s pure pleasure. Once this fear went hand-in-hand with being in love, but now, I have to take a moment to remember that old me as it’s now gone.