Blurred | Lines

Twenty-Nine

I roll onto my back as Eric lays next to me, his breath swirling across my shoulder. I sigh, smiling tiredly, kissing his nose. He rubs my stomach, his fingers tracing my bare skin.

"Why is it when you finally have something, you want more of it?" He asks, and I turn on my side, my short hair spilling and trying to cling to his skin. I feel a smile spread wide onto my cheeks, and I trace his chest with a fingernail.

"Because you know it's yours and yours alone."  I murmured.

He rubs my back, his free hand sliding to my waist. "You know, we make too much sense to be drunk." He chuckles and I feel his contagious smile in my hair, lips curling into a wider smile.

A peaceful silence settles over us, and I feel deliciously at ease. It's a jubilant peace that consumes me whole, until I am reminded of what comes to me in the morning.

But I want to lay with him until dawn settles over the both of us like ghosts, kissed by the dusts of daylight. I stiffen, and I know he feels it.

I tilt my head up to look at him, eyes twinkling.  "You know I've got to go." A turn of my finger, a glide of my nail across his chest, a flutter of his lashes, and a rise of his chest.  Then the fall of his chest, but the steady thump of his heartbeat flows through me. I close my eyes and inhale the air surrounding us, and some form of post-ecstasy sweeps over me, dragging me down like weights attached to my ankles.

"I know..." He goes quiet, and for a moment, I consider that he might have fallen asleep, but his voice echoes in the dark, shadows dancing on the walls of his room. "But you can come back."

A smile creeps onto my lips, filling my eyes, and my body with elation. He wants me to come back?  I wipe at my eyes, before looking up at him, watching him close his eyes, as he rests his forearm across his forehead.

"How'd I do for my first time?" I ask, as he breathes in and out, quietly, to the point where I can hear him chuckle. It surprises me, so, I sit up, alarmed, and narrow my eyes at him.

"No, don't get offended," He laughs. "I wasn't expecting that question from you." He rubs my back, and I rub my temple, sighing. "Okay. Well, you tensed a lot, but I was impressed. How was your  first time?"

I blush sheepishly, and I rub my cheek. "It was... well, horrifying. But then it changed and it was bliss."

He kisses my lips, as he raises up, sitting up with me. "That's what I like to hear."

"I'm sure," I tease, speaking dryly, before he swats my behind, and I give a punch to his chest. "Hands off, you horndog. I've got to go clean myself up so I can sneak into the dorm. It's late, as is."

He huffs like a child and falls back, frowning deeply. I exhale a giggle, slipping from under the sheets and slowly making my way to the shower. A dull throb manages to make itself known from in-between my legs, but it feels like I just stretched a muscle more than anything. I close the bathroom door behind me, and grab a clean towel and washcloth from the hamper behind me.

Showering comes too easily, and I almost regret it, washing away the smell of his skin and the traces of his sweat, mingled with my own. I feel like as I erase those little things, I am erasing the memories of his touch, of his calloused fingers gliding over my skin, the memories of his scars.

And as I wash my face, I get the clearest memory of my fingers gliding and tracing the curve of his chest, the indents of his muscles, his marble-esque  physique, and my breath hitches all over in my throat and in my lungs, nearly suffocating me.

Part of me hates feeling this way, so drawn and clueless, so enamored and distracted, but the larger portion of me, clings to the ideal, to every fiber and string attached, and wants to pull further and harder to get even more. That part of me is greedy, selfish, and longing for self-indulgence.