Page 25 of ClickBack

Giselle

Jarrett’s hand moves across my stomach, and for a moment I am awake without remembering where I am. Then I feel his calf beneath mine, the shirt twisted around my waist, and the tenderness between my thighs that reminds me exactly where I spent the night.

After all that time celibate, apparently once would have been enough to remember him by. We had fallen asleep, then woken tangled together and started kissing again. I had been very clear about wanting more. This morning, I am equally clear about wanting to lie still.

I stop moving. Beside me, he laughs into the pillow.

“Don’t,” I tell him.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were about to enjoy something at my expense.”

He turns his face toward me. “You up?”

Sunday has found a narrow opening between the curtains. In the light, he looks less composed than he did yesterday, a crease from the pillow beneath his eye, his goatee flattened on one side. I want to put my fingers there. I do, and he catches my hand against his face without seeming surprised that I would.

“I was considering going back to sleep,” I say.

“You had the same bed I did.”

“You took most of it.”

“You were on me half the night.”

“A complaint you might have filed at the time.”

“I was busy.”

He kisses the inside of my wrist. I remember exactly how busy, which makes it difficult to object to the smile on his face.

He shifts over me, and I welcome the kiss, then the next one. His hand slips beneath the shirt and moves lower. I reach for him, still interested, but when he touches me between my thighs, the tenderness makes me flinch. He stops.

“Sore?” he asks.

“A little.”

He waits.

“More than a little.”

Jarrett brings his hand back to my stomach. I expect him to roll away. Instead, he settles onto his back and draws me against his chest. I can feel that he still wants me. He kisses my temple and lets me get comfortable anyway.

“There?”

“That’s good.”

His palm rests between my shoulder blades. Nothing follows. I lie there listening to his breathing, my cheek against skin I have learned to recognize in the dark, and try to remember the last time I woke without mentally leaving the bed ahead of myself. Usually I am checking a clock, assembling a list, working out what everybody needs before they begin asking. My bag is a few feet away. I leave it there.

Then I remember my breath.

“I need to brush my teeth.”

“Right now?”

“Especially right now.”

“We did a lot worse than morning breath.”