Isla and the Happily Ever After(42)

“No,” he says. “I want to draw on you.”

The air is charged. I swallow. Josh notices the movement and kisses my throat. My eyes close. He trails faint kisses around my neck, over my jawline. Onto my lips. I respond with a deeper kiss, harder, starved for his taste. A hand slides across my bare legs, touching the line where my skirt meets my thighs. The other hand tugs on the bottom of my sweater. A question.

Our eyes open. His pupils are dark and dilated.

I don’t drop his gaze as I pull off the sweater. Underneath, I’m wearing a silk camisole. I reach down to take it off, too, but he places a hand on my arm to stop me.

“I want to start here,” he says.

Josh pulls me to my feet. His head tilts as he studies his canvas – my milky white skin. I don’t blush. He moves in. The tip of his brush touches my shoulder first. His strokes are long and careful, delicate and swift. My eyes close. The ink sweeps smoothly across my skin. The brush tickles the top of my chest, my neck, my arms, my hands. My feet, my calves, and the back of my knees. My thighs.

My breath catches.

“There,” he whispers.

I open my eyes before a full-length mirror. I’m covered in garden roses, spinning compasses, falling leaves, desert islands, Joshua trees, and intricate geometric patterns. It’s beautiful. I’m beautiful. I turn to him in wonder, and he holds out the pen.

“Your turn,” he says.

My stomach clenches. “You know I can’t draw.”

“That’s not true. Everyone can draw.”

I shake my head, gesturing down my body. “Not like this.”

Josh removes his shirt. Heavenly gods. He’s so gorgeous I could weep.

“I don’t know where to begin,” I say.

He clasps my hand around his pen, and he kisses one side of my mouth. And then the other. “I’ll get you started.” Together, we draw a simple heart over his real heart. I laugh, which makes him laugh. “See?” he says. “It’s easy.”

So…I draw.

My lines are not as confident, and my illustrations are not as recognizable. I decide to stick with circles and swirls. Josh watches me work. I cover his chest, his neck, his back, his arms, his fingers. His abdomen.

“There,” I say. “I’m out of skin.”

He stares into the mirror for a long time. I sit on the edge of the bed. At last, he turns to me. “Thank you.”

For some reason, now is the moment I blush. “You like?”

“I love.”

His words hang in the air. The atmosphere begins to shake. Does he mean…?

Josh sits beside me. He touches his forehead to mine. He closes his eyes and says, “Isla Martin. I’m in love with you.”

My universe explodes.

“I love you, too. Josh. I love you so much.”

Our bodies press against each other, and the ink on his chest stamps a reverse image onto my camisole. His heart over mine. I fall backwards and pull him down with me. His hips arch away as he tries to hide what this is doing to him, but that only makes me press against him harder. We kiss with abandon. Together, we remove my camisole. The ink smears. It spreads from his chest onto mine. It spreads across our bodies in handprints, across my blankets in smeared limbs. I undo his belt buckle and unzip his jeans, and we roll into the cake, and there’s hazelnut glaze and chocolate mousse and black ink—

The fluorescent light is blinding. “You really should fix—”

“Jesus, Kurt!” I say.

Josh blocks my body with his. “Shut the fucking door!”

But Kurt is frozen.

“Shut the door!” we shout.

He does. The stairwell beside my door clangs open, and his feet race upward. My heart slams against my chest. I throw Josh’s shirt at him. “Nate will have heard that.”

Josh yanks it on. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit.”

“I’m sorry. He didn’t mean it. Kurt.”

My boyfriend kisses me, quick as a dart, and he’s gone. Another clang and Nate’s door fwoomps open as the stairwell door clangs shut again. Maybe Nate didn’t see Josh. Maybe he doesn’t know the shouting came from my room. Maybe.

There’s a sharp rap on my door.

“Hnngh?” I say in my best I-was-asleep voice.

“That was the second time,” Nate says from the hall. “If it happens again, I have to report you to the head of school, and she will suspend you both.” He waits. “Just say ‘okay’, Isla.”

“Okay.” It barely leaves my throat. I’m dying. The junior in the room beside mine shifts around in her bed. I pray that she’s still asleep.

“What was that?” Nate calls out.

“OKAY.”

“Thank you. Goodnight.” Nate pads away, his door fwoomps, and the world is silent. I exhale. I’m shaking. And then I’m crying, but it’s not because I’m scared or humiliated. It’s because the most amazing moment of my entire life has just happened.