Breaking Skin Read Free

heated, but his touch is reverent. When the lips I’ve been watching all night finally meet mine, the kiss we share is charged by the natural electricity between us. I’ve just decided he’s going to be a tender lover when he fists his hand in my hair and tugs to get a better angle on my mouth, making my knees go weak.
    Despite the need I sense building in him, Cole stays in control, taking his time to undress me as he drops tender kisses on my newly exposed skin. He told me I was beautiful in the bar, but now he makes me feel beautiful, like I’m special and not some stranger he just met. He looks into my eyes with such intensity, I think hesees me , the real me, a person I haven’t let anyone see in a very long time.
    At some point, I make the decision to pretend Cole isn’t a stranger. He’s my partner, my best friend, the person I come home to each night. I run my fingers through his hair and imagine that we belong to each other, relishing the moment he lifts me in his arms and lays me across the bed. We touch each other, breathe each other in, and I let myself fall into the fantasy.
    When he braces himself above me, I admire his muscular chest, sighing at the delicious friction of skin on skin. The low groan that vibrates through him as he slowly enters me sets my body on fire. As I watch him move rhythmically, I’m completely captivated by the mask of ecstasy on his face.
    I’m close to the edge when I arch my back and wrap my arms around his neck, anchoring myself to Cole, preparing for the climax bearing down on me. My muscles tense, and then I’m convulsing around him as I shatter to pieces in his arms.
    Those arms are still around me when my breathing returns to normal and the world coalesces back into the familiar shape of my bedroom. Cole’s rough cheek scratches mine as he drowsily whispers one word in my ear.
    Perfect.
     

     
    When I gradually come awake the next morning, blinking against the sunlight, my head pounds and I can smell his aftershave on my sheets. After drinking so much last night, my thoughts are strangely clear. There’s no fuzzy hangover muddling my mind. I know exactly where I am and precisely what I did. I also know I’m alone. I can feel it in the quiet, in the stillness of the air.
    He’s gone.
    As images from last night flood my memory, I wait for regret but it doesn’t come. There is no What have I done? moment of shame. My only regret is that I don’t remember the entire evening as sharply as I’d like. But if I hadn’t been drinking, it wouldn’t have happened, and that would have been the real shame.
    I pull the sheet up to my nose to breathe him in, and his lingering scent makes my skin flush with heat. I close my eyes, recalling the feel of his hands on me as they skimmed down my sides and smoothed over my hips before gripping them firmly. I imagine him here and think about him touching me.
    My memory is good enough to cause a steady pulse between my legs. I had sex with a stranger last night, but I’m not ashamed of myself. I can’t be. I enjoyed it too much, even though it was reckless and dumb. I got lucky. Cole turned out to be a nice guy, more than a nice guy. So much more.
    I don’t recall him leaving, and it’s just as well. My impression of our night together and of Cole might not stand up to the scrutiny of daylight and sober thinking. I fantasized all kinds of things about him when we were together. Thank goodness he couldn’t read my mind, because he probably would have knocked the door off its hinges trying to get out. I turned him into my dream man, a dream I didn’t even realize I had, and I know that’s all he’ll ever be. A fantasy. A myth. An unrealistic hope.
    As I sit up and place my feet on the cool hardwood floor, I wonder what Cole’s impression of me was. My skin heats again, this time with embarrassment. What do men usually think of drunk women who sleep with them the same night they meet them? They don’t respect them or take them