Randomly Ever After by Julia Kent Page B

animal masks. Then I watched people wearing animal costumes having sex—in public, and in character. I’d finished a year of grueling grad school. We’d watched Trevor rescue a live chicken from being eaten by a snake on stage, and saw Liam’s sex doll get ravaged by a horny snake. If we could get through all that, surely we were meant to be together, right?  
    But in many ways, this moment—this very second, as I saw Sam’s pupils dilate, watched the skin around his eyes move with mirth and appreciation, felt his fingers possess me without hurry, without rush, with a steady certainty that said we were together— was a watershed . Forever. This was it.
    As I experienced that deep sense of calm, of a world tilted on its axis and made right again, centered and balanced, I reached for him through that sense of ageless knowing and said the only words that ever mattered.
    “I love you so much.”
    He stepped into me again, eyes combing over me, studying me. A flush began right over my heart, warming my chest, my breasts, spreading down like wildfire.  
    “Now I have something in common with Darla,” he whispered, his fingers tracing lines along my lips.
    “Darla?” I laughed, the sound like a happy sigh.
    His arms snaked around my waist and he pulled me in, hard. O ur hearts slammed against each other, separated by bone and skin, but only divided by the laws of biology, for otherwise they, too would have embraced.
    “We’re both sleeping with future lawyers,” he said against my earlobe, his warm mouth sucking on my soft skin, making me forget what we were talking about.
    “ And I have something in common with her, too,” I gasped as his mouth continued working wonders.  
    “Mmmm?”
    “We’re both fucking rock stars.”
    “No, you’re not,” he whispered.
    “We’re not?”
    He took my hand and walked toward our bedroom. “Not yet .” And with an evil grin, he pulled me onto the bed.
    “You have a concert in an hour!” I squealed as he pulled at my belt.
    “An hour is more than enough time.” He stopped, face serious suddenly. Bending down to kiss me, he touched his front pants pocket, furrowed his brow, then gave a slight shake of his head.
    “What?”
    “Nothing.” He gave me a nervous smile.
    “ What? ”
    “It’s just...I was wrong. An hour isn’t enough time.”
    I laughed, pulling on his belt now. “How much time do you need?”
    “A lifetime.”
    “ Well,” I said, gasping as his mouth found my neck, sucking a path to my ear, “we have twenty minutes.”  
    “That will have to do.” His hands reached under the thin fabric of my shirt and under the thick silk-wrapped wire of my bra, palms filling with my abundance, thumbs on nipples that—
    “Take it off,” I begged, already wet and eager, so excited by my triumph that making love with Sam felt like a victory lap.
    W ith whip-fast reflexes, he unhooked my bra and slipped it, and my shirt, off over my head, the quick chill of the room making me flush with need. I was cold, I was hot, I was rippled with desire, I was everything I wanted to be in this singular moment with him.
    I was me .
    Sam’s pants made an audible thunk as they hit the floor.
    “I see you’ve been commando,” I noted, emitting a low whistle he cut off with a fevered kiss that made me arch against him. As his lips slanted against mine, tongue exploring with a connective urgency, my mind grasped at its final moments of clarity to take a moment to pause, to admire, to cherish what we’d created together. From awkward, tentative desire eighteen months ago and miscommunication and misunderstanding we’d deepened our souls, together.  
    The sex was an afterthought.
    An i ntimate, toe-curling, pulse-pounding, smile-inducing, sweaty afterthought, to be sure, my mind slippery and wet (along with the rest of my body), his hands sliding my pants off and magically conjuring our mutual nakedness, his eyes dark and smoky, so verdant.
    This—the joining of