"Nash." It was song, sweeter than Coltrane, hurt worse too, my name, the hidden tone of promises and pleasure I stopped telling myself I didn't want.
Four seasons laid out before me. Willow's wild hair fanned against my pillow and her waiting body-pale skin and a trail of freckles that crossed her chest and dipped with the curves along her stomach.
"Nash," she said again, reaching for me when I came to my knees, looking down at her, wanting her with an ache nothing had ever worked up in me.
There were two small lines along her hips, lightning on her skin and the round bends of her breast, the sweet arches along her hips, down her thighs when I touched her there. That look though, went deeper, settled closer than the scent of her skin or rise in my body when I watched her shimmy out of her clothes and crawl on my bed, waiting, ready for me to react.
Now I was and I had to breathe deep, separate the want someone else held in my dream and the urge to take what was mine and mine alone; what I wanted for myself because of the sensation only Willow moved in me.
"Take off your shirt," she said and I did, working one shoulder at a time out of that cotton, discarding it because it kept me from her. She touched me, nails against the lines and letters over my body, her mouth, her tongue warm and soft on my neck, over my chest, traveling like a wanderer, searching, seeking.
We came together like colors, moving into a gradient of light, of motion that reminded me of the sea, waves and water, sand and shore. We were sweeter than those Coltrane chords, went deeper than each note.
"You taste like honey," I told her, moving closer, lips and tongue on her flesh, in the dips of her body. The invitation open, ready as she pulled me close. I took another bite, moving her apart with my knee, holding her tight until there were small marks from my fingers against her pale skin and she shuddered, gripping, clawing at me like she couldn't get close enough.
"Nash … " and that melody spurred me on, had me forgetting control and patience and all the swagger I thought made me smooth. I was nothing but feeling, touch and taste and desperate, desperate want with her under me, with me slipping inside, deep, sweet.
Free.
Later, when my body cried out, when I thought I couldn't move enough to even leave her body, Willow cuddled next to me, fit like a puzzle piece against me. We didn't sleep. There was only the sound of our breaths and the slowing race of my own heartbeat pulsing in my ear.
Her skin was the softest I'd ever touched, sweeter than the honey I swore I tasted from her neck when I kissed her and it reminded me of things I thought I'd figured out when I was a punk kid.
"You're smiling. I can feel your lips stretching against my forehead."
"I am. Sated. High as hell off you." I moved back to catch her gaze, smiling when she looked half buzzed as me. "You remind me … " I touched her arm, let my fingers move over her elbow, to her wrist. "You remind me of what I always thought I knew about women when I was a kid."
"What was that?"
It was probably stupid, but it was real. Everything I felt with her, right in that moment, everything I said, it was the realest I've ever been. Willow wouldn't let me hide, so I decided not to try.
"The way a woman looks, the secrets she keeps, that mesmerize a punk kid with no clue what happens behind those doors, behind those pink curtains. It got me wondering, all those years, when the girls in gym class disappeared before me and my boys had finished our game on the court. Why'd they leave so soon? What did they do in that locker room that took up so much damn time?"
"Did you ever figure it out?"
She liked my smile. She'd said that a half a dozen times. I saw what Will thought of me, how she went all still, all quiet when I threw a smile her way. There was something in the press of her lips, how the smallest tip of her tongue wetted that full bottom lip in the middle, like she wanted to taste me on her mouth, like my smile reminded her how much she wanted me right there.
I didn't answer her, just flashed that smile slow, subtle like I knew she wanted it. Just the right side twitching up, my lips protruding like they waited for her to take up what I offered. Willow's gaze shifted, moved over my face like there was something she looked for, maybe something she wanted to find that I wouldn't give up easily. And when that glance stayed too still, too focused on my mouth, I relaxed the muscles around my lips just enough to slip my tongue along my bottom lip. Her focused shifted, followed the change of movement and gave away what I knew she wanted.