After

Content advisory, adult themes.

Reader discretion is advised.

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Stars danced before my eyes. I couldn’t breathe.

Blissful sensation flooded through me, pleasure like a tidal wave crashing into my awareness. I pressed closer, body trembling as the breath I didn’t know I was holding escaped in a long, shuddering gasp.

My arms trembled, I felt them bending, slowly buckling under an hour’s nearly constant strain. Expending the last of my strength, one leg disentangled itself and planted just in time to catch me as I fell. Breath still coming in jerking, staccato gasps, I tried to focus, tried to see.

There was something, something that had to happen. Something had happened?

Aches called for attention, my head swam, and my chest was still tight. Slowly, objects swam into view. The TV, glowing blackly on a dead channel, a footstool, the disordered and shoved aside coffee table.

Her.

Laying beneath me, eyes unfocused and bare chest heaving, she was beautiful. The only light apart from the black screen filtered in through gaps in thick curtains. Beams of it fell across her, gleaming in pools of sweat and casting half her face in shadow.

I surged to my feet, suddenly fearful of collapsing atop her and staggered back until I leaned heavily against the wall. She rose on her elbows to watch me, a small smile playing at the corner of her lips. It was a proud smile, no shyness lingered even in traces at its edge.

Proud, and possessive.

“Now that,” I said with the first breath I was able to drag into my starving lungs, “is what people fought wars over.”

Watching that smile was like watching the sun rise over the ocean. A sudden gleam of light and warmth out of the near darkness. My legs trembled again and, taking advantage of the moment, I fell forward onto one knee and reached for her.

Gently, after my hand snapped out to cup the base of her skull, I pulled her lips to mine. “You’re beautiful.”

I could feel her lips curve under the kiss. Could feel her yield backwards, drawing me to follow with fingers in my hair as gentle as mine on her. It was a long kiss, and for the second time that night, time faded away. There was only the moment and the girl in my arms.

But the heat of the room, the closeness of the air and the lingering ache in my muscles could not be ignored. Eventually I rolled off her, laying side by side on the ground where we’d lost patience before finding the bed, and said, “I think,” I weakly grasped her hand and squeezed. “I think I need to find my pants and go outside for a minute.”

“Get me a shirt and I’ll join you.”

“Deal,” rolling over, I kissed her lightly on the nose and groaned as I heaved myself to my feet.

Finding the shirt was easy. I had actually put the right one at the top of its drawer for just this occasion, as for pants I nearly stumbled over them in the semi-darkness. I handed her the shirt and threw my pants on before saying, “I’m sorry but it’s so hot in here,” and stepping around the curtains to open the door.

Rain fell. A gentle, pattering rain that sang on my skin. Drops of liquid starlight, almost sizzling where they landed. Each one a momentary pin prick of blessed coolness after the oppressive heat before.

Wind kissed my cheek, a gentle wind carrying drops of rain with it like the tears of a lover before we march away to war. Soft and gentle tears, those drops against my skin, swung along by the passing wind as it whisked the blazing heat away and filled my lungs with sweet, fresh air.

My eyes closed and head drifted back, revelling in the gentle patter against my face and chest. Water ran in thin currents through the forest of my hair, gathering among the stalks and cascading down my neck as I stood tall and opened my eyes. Just behind me, the glass door was open and there she stood.

A shadow of a woman outlined against the dark curtains. One hand rested lightly on the door frame, her weight cocked to that side as she stared at me. My eyes adjusted to the shadows again, after images of the warm yellow lights on the street below glowing purple around her.

Long hair cascaded around her shoulders, and light reflected off the falling rain shone on her legs and arms, blending the shadows across her face, and making her eyes sparkle out of the darkness. Distant thunder rumbled and she stepped forward, the spell of silent watching broken.

I heard her bare foot splash into the few millimetres of water on the balcony, heard the gentle patter of rain against stone, and the soft tinging of drops striking metal. It was a musical accompaniment to her every movement. Heavier sounds rose as the rain intensified, a rapid, steady drumming of falling water against fabric cushions.

Closing the distance, she tilted her face to mine and rose onto her toes. With tender fingers I cupped her cheek in one hand, slipping the other around her waist. She was warm in my arms, and I soaked it in. Drawing the heat from her, and as the long kiss slowly broke, stealing her breath alongside it.

“Thought you might want this,” she said, holding out one of the glass bottles of water from the fridge.

“You’re an angel,” I took the water, then grinned at her. “How long were you watching?”

“Oh long enough,” wind stirred the ends of her hair, and the slowly strengthening rain pattered against my face. She touched her hand to the spot and kissed me again, a soft and gentle one that did not linger. “You were having a moment.”

Pulling her against my chest, I laughed a soft, contended sort of laugh. “I like this one more.”