“Wilder,” I breathe, unable to stay silent any longer.
He spins me again, continuing to dance even when I feel like my legs have turned liquid below me. Then softly, slowly he gives the same treatment to the other side of my neck. And when he reaches that final, sucking kiss he continues down, nudging my scarf aside as far as it will go. I’m trying to stay quiet, but little noises keep escaping with each breath anyway.
“I think I neglected to tell you how beautiful you look tonight. I’m sorry. It should have been the very first thing that left my mouth.”
“I’m glad it wasn’t.”
He pulls back, and I groan at the loss of his mouth. Resting his forehead against mine, he stares in my eyes and asks, “Why?”
I break our gaze, even as I tell myself not to. I don’t know why I’m shy with him, or even if that’s what it is. I’ve never had any issues with confidence, but being with Wilder is different. I never wanted the other men to see anything beneath the surface. Beauty and magic were all I gave them, and I knew the worth of both of those things.
But it’s been a long time since I offered anyone the rest of me, and that’s not a worth I know, especially when it has to be balanced with all the dangers and drawbacks of who I am.
“Kalli,” he whispers, tipping my chin up and forcing me to meet his eyes.
“I like the idea that you might like more about me than the way I look.”
He kisses me then, and even though my nose and my fingers and my limbs are cold, heat flashes through me, quick and potent. I release his hand to wrap mine around his neck and pull him closer. He’s tall enough that I have to be on my tiptoes and he has to bend, but the need to be close to him is so strong that I don’t even notice the burn in my calves. His tongue sweeps against mine, hot and just shy of frenzied.
He breaks the kiss, and I desperately try to follow, but his cheek presses against mine. Against my ear, he rasps, “I do like the way you look. I like it way too much considering we’re in public. But I also like the easy way you smile. The way you listen. I like that you’re a mystery I can’t wait to unravel. I like how good you are with my sister, and that you’re the kind of girl who doesn’t blink an eye when I bring her somewhere like this for a first date or ask her to dance in a cold parking lot. I like the sound of your voice and your dedication to chocolate and your skill in a water fight.”
I descend into laughter, and even as I’m struggling to catch my breath, a part of me notices the way he watches me. The way his eyes light up because of me. It’s my turn to kiss him then. His lips move hard and fast against mine, not quite pushing over that line that would lead to more, but it’s close. His whole body is tense with tight control, holding us both away from that edge.
And on the other side, heat beckons. Heat and relief and the memory of all the other talented things he can do with his mouth.
When I find myself rooting for that control to snap, I know it’s time to pull back. My lips are wet and swollen as I bury my face in the crook of his neck. I place a small kiss there, so he knows that my stopping wasn’t a rejection, and his chest rumbles with a groan against me. I wrap my arms around him, tunneling under his jacket for warmth, and his arms twine around my back, pinning us together.
We’re no longer dancing. Not really. There’s a slight sway to his body that I follow, but our feet don’t move, nor do we make any attempt to leave the cold and get in our vehicles.
I don’t think either of us wants the night to end. I’ve never been this greedy for someone’s time and attention, and I’m baffled at how I waited a few days for this. It won’t be that easy next time. Now that I know what it’s like to be with him, I start imagining the way his presence could alter every other moment in my life. I think of us in class like he said, and going to the grocery store, and the movies, and studying. I imagine all the mundane human tasks that I do to fill the time or keep up appearances, and they’re no longer a hassle in my head, but a new opportunity to spend time with him. A new way to see this world.
I lift my head to look him in the eye and ask, “You need some company while you babysit?”
His smile tightens the thread binding us, reeling us closer together, and I wonder if there will come a point when it’s more than not wanting to leave his side. What if there comes a time when I can’t?
“You just can’t sit still today, can you?”
Jack gives me a laughing look from over the top of his canvas when I shift for what is probably the thousandth time.
“What has you so restless?” he asks.
The fact that I’m having Wilder withdrawals after only a few days without him. That I lied and told him I had work to do this afternoon before I could go out with him and meet his friends tonight for New Year’s Eve. That I’m here with Jack at all.
The whole thing feels wrong.
But this is what I have to do to make it work, so I need to find a way to be okay with it. It’s either this or do without Wilder completely.
As if he can feel me thinking about him, my phone rings and when I shift to answer it, Wilder’s name is on the screen. Feeling queasy, I send the call to voicemail and say, “Sorry Jack.”
I put the phone on silent, and try to be the good little muse, but it’s not easy. I sit for another half hour, my eyes directed off to the wall in an attempt to ignore Jack’s gaze on me. It’s not as if I’m doing anything risqué. I’m fully clothed. I’m in a dress, but it’s not overtly sexual. But still … we’re alone. And there’s a reason why my typical artist/muse relationship has always been romantic in nature. Art is already an intimate thing, and staring at someone long enough to capture her likeness amplifies that. I concentrate on allowing the inspiration to escape my system in small, gradual waves. When I’m nearly empty and have started thinking about ways to extricate myself from Jack’s apartment, his phone rings.
He starts to ignore it, but then he glances over at me where I’m fidgeting once again and answers it with a sigh. “Yep.”
It has always bothered me that he answers his phone that way. No hello, nothing.
“I don’t have much of anything planned. I was hoping to just stay in and get some work done.” He glances at me again. “Let me ask Kalli, she’s here.”
He rests the phone against his shoulder and says, “Lennox traded shifts and is now free tonight. She wants to go out for New Years. You in?”