Random (Going the Distance) by Lark O'Neal Page A

not going at all like I thought it might. It feels like there’s a balloon of awkwardness between us now, and I don’t know how to get around it. I wrap the stupid toe in a big bandage, wash my hands and dry them, and head back into the kitchen, two feet away. Tyler is standing in the doorway to the living room, his gaze fixed on the floor. He looks sad.
    “Are you okay?” I ask.
    He lifts his face. “I don’t know.”
    I frown, cocking my head quizzically, and in two seconds he’s crossed the small space between us. He cups my face in his hands. “That,” he says. “That expression, that way you tilt your head. It haunts me.”
    My heart shivers with anticipation and I raise my hands to his wrists, spreading my fingers over the light hair on his forearms, feeling the sinewy tension in the backs of his hands. I lift my eyes to meet his intense gaze and find it boring into me, peeling away all my defenses like he can see all the way into the very center of me.
    His fingers move on my face, delicately touching my cheekbones, the line of my jaw. “Your face is like something painted by one of the Pre-Raphaelites, like you walked out of the 19th century with those crazy eyes.” He shakes his head faintly. “I could look at you for days, never blinking. It’s giving me this restlessness…”
    It’s kind of wild, the intensity in his voice, but no one has ever said anything like this to me. I like the way it burns across my skin. I can’t think of anything to say that would match his words, so I just drink in the lines of his face, looking at his mouth as if there’s never been another mouth in the world. The lower lip is full, the upper cut into a perfect bow. Above it, whiskers glisten softly, and I want to touch my tongue to the prickles, trace that line of lip and taste the texture. When he speaks, I can see his tongue moving.
    “Jesus, you are beyond beautiful,” he says, and leans in, very slowly, to kiss me. He has to bend, and I lift my chin at his urging, but just when I think he’s going to kiss my mouth, his lips land instead on my cheeks and my nose and my chin. I close my eyes as the butterfly kisses move over every inch of my face, tracing lines one way, then another, fluttering over my eyelids and the edges of my brows and the perimeter of my lips. The only parts of me connected to the world are the places his mouth touches me, where his hands curl around my neck, where my hands clasp his wrists. The rest of me is floating in the air, shimmering like dust motes.
    At last he kisses the corners of my mouth and finally, finally, finally, leans into me, pressing my back against the wall, his mouth into mine. I make a sound, and his tongue slips between my lips, coaxing mine into his mouth. We fit ourselves more closely together, tongues curling, darting, sliding. Slowly, slowly, he caresses my tongue, and, encouraged, I taste his in return. I flick my tongue over his mouth, gauging the tenderness of that lower lip and letting myself suck on it a little. He makes a quiet sound.
    That’s all it is for a long time. Kissing. Kissing. Kissing. Tongues, lips, breath. I’ve never kissed anyone for so long in my life, and I like it.
    But it’s creating a painful heat in my groin that’s hard to ignore. My body is beginning to throb with the need to be touched, end to end, every inch, and my fingers crave the feel of his skin, not just his shirt. Against my belly, I can feel the fiery press of his arousal.
    I push my hands against him, and instantly he lifts his head, looking down at me. I can’t come up with anything sensible, and the word that lurches out is “Tea.”
    He laughs softly, straightening. “Good idea. Let’s have tea.”
    * * *
    The action of filling the kettle, a blue enameled number I found at Goodwill for $1.60, and then setting out the cups and sugar and milk, takes some of the tension out of the moment. Tyler busies himself in the living room, looking at pictures and plants, and I