She is talking to Cat now, ordering our drinks I imagine, and I can see the bartender throw back her head and laugh at something Ashley said. Ash is shaking her head now and laughing herself, and she has her hands out, palms up, as if to say “Who, me?”, her way of inviting you in on the joke. I love watching her in moments like this, when she is unaware, when she is having fun.

I love watching her.

She lifts her hand now and pulls her hair from her back to fall across her shoulder and leans in to hear something Cat says, her head leaning forward, neck exposed. My thighs clench at the sudden ache between them.

I had found her laying on her stomach on her bed, writing in her journal, neck exposed like that, bottom lip caught between her teeth, unaware that I had returned from the bathroom. I had walked over quietly then, from behind, and laid myself over her, pinned her down with the weight of me. She didn’t start, she didn’t say a thing, no smart-ass comment about me being on top, she just put the pen down and rested her forehead on her journal, an invitation.

And I took it, laid my lips on that fragrant, soft spot behind her ear, pressed a clumsy kiss there. She sighed. I moved my lips lower then, moved my arms higher until I covered her hands with mine, and kissed her again, tasted the skin of her neck. Her fingers twitched under mine at that, but she didn’t move or say anything and I breathed out a shaky sigh and kissed her again. Soft hairs at the base of her neck tickled my nose, the scent of her as familiar and as exhilarating as a sudden summer storm, and I grew ravenous with such speed and force that my mind, the sensible part of me, had no time to react, to pull back.

My knee slid behind hers and pushed out, opening her up to me, pressing her down, and my lips skimmed the column of her neck and latched on, her pulse point thrumming and tripping under my tongue. I bit down. I sucked her in. She bucked. She moaned – a sound so low and so full it exploded in the pit of my stomach like and underwater earthquake and –