Page 98 of If We Were Young

“Oh.” That blue gaze of heaven and slate landed on mine and his expression of sheer awe thrown with careless abandon took me over the edge. I scrunched my eyes, clinging on to a life raft as he pumped into me and then shuddered, his own arms finding purchase and clutching me tight.

My head rolled back, my eyes unfocused.

I couldn’t even.

My legs didn’t belong to me. The ceiling span and I still pulsed around him like a disco ball.

He lifted his head from my shoulder and dropped his forehead onto mine, nose to nose, his gaze intense. “And the theory?” I bloomed with pride as he panted as breathless as me. “I mean, obviously I’ve got more foreplay in my repertoire, but it felt kind of urgent.”

“Matthew.” I pushed my hands against his face, breathing in his air like a precious life force. For a moment I couldn’t talk. My brain reeled too fast. My body still hummed from being connected to his. “Perfect.”

He sighed and pulled out, lying down next to me on the mattress and wrapping me up tight in his arms. “It’s as I’ve always thought.”

An aching echo of sadness washed over me. What did I do to us by not saying yes that day? What did he do to us by being angry about something I hadn’t done?

“I think we need to do it again to make sure.” I lifted my head and arched an eyebrow. I think my eyebrow might be the only part of me working.

He kissed the top of my head. “Possibly. I need to sleep for ten minutes though.”

“Are you that tired?” Surprised, I glanced at him. His muscles were immense and that was no exaggeration.

“Yes. I watched you sleep all night.”

I melted to goo, warm and oozing.

Leaning over, I kissed his jaw. “Now it’s my turn to watch you.”

Tea

His nose curved a perfect slope with the slightest little upturn at the end. Above, his brows were dark and powerful. Was there such a thing as powerful brows? I realised as I stared at every pore on his face I might be drunk on lust and desire.

As I watched his chest rise up and down, my head resting and listening to the deep beat of his heart, life started to make more sense.

What was once nice had become something so intense, so achingly real, that it hurt to think about it.

Sex. Matthew and me. I’d never experienced anything like it. It seemed like we’d been carved from the same felled tree and now we were together the essence of that timeless substance could rekindle and reconnect.

With Paul… I clutched Matthew a little tighter and nibbled on my lip as I contemplated it. It was never like that. He never shook me down to my bones, rinsing himself into my blood until we were nothing but a simple moment together.

The weight of guilt that tightened my chest when I thought about it hurt enough that I didn’t want to breathe.

It was me.

Holding back, never giving and now that I was here, I knew why. Even when I didn’t know Matthew like this, skin on skin, body to body, I still knew him.

I’d never not known the theory.

Turning a fraction, I lifted my hand and stared at my wedding ring.

I’d been wearing it for so damn long, never realising that it’d never served a purpose.

The harsh and soul-destroying fact ate away at me.

My heart had never been mine to give. I should never have sat in that pub that day and told Paul about Matthew. I should’ve fought harder, should have found him, battled to the death to call him mine. Instead I’d sulked and licked my wounds.

I stared at Matthew again, my heart quickening in my chest. With a quick press of my lips to his jaw I untangled myself, leaving him to snooze. Silently, I pulled on my jumper and then grabbed a pair of soft grey tracksuit bottoms from a chair by the wall. I had to bend and roll up three times at the ankle to make them fit. Softly I left the room and pulled the door shut behind me.

My feet sank into the deep carpet as I padded along. The other bedroom doors I hadn’t even noticed as we swept up the stairs like a tornado earlier were ajar. I popped my head in and found a colourful boy’s room. The older room had been toned down, the green and brown of camouflage. The smaller one sang with bright blues and reds. Apparently, they were the only rooms not flavoured with the subtle tone of lavender.