Beautiful Stranger

“I’ve a flight to catch.”
    She mumbled, then stretched, and I watched as her eyelids slowly fluttered open.
    “Don’t want you to,” she said, rolling to look up at me. Her voice was thick and raspy with sleep, and I immediately thought of a thousand things I wanted her to say.
    She was too fucking tempting, eyes still tired and pillow creases lining her face, but it was her naked breasts that had my full attention. I braced my hand on either side of her head and hovered above her.
    “You look fucking phenomenal in the morning. Did you know that?” I asked.
    I reached down and ran my thumb across her bare breast, and had to take a shaky breath, overwhelmed by the immediate and almost suffocating closeness of her, how she seemed to fill up every space inside my chest.
    “Yeah?” She smiled, arching a brow and brushing her thumb across my bottom lip. I wanted to suck on it, bite it. Her expression seemed to sober and she blinked up at me, eyes searching mine. “Did last night really happen?”
    “You mean did I fuck you senseless and admit that you basically own me? Yes.”
    “What does ‘I love you’ even mean? It’s weird how different three words can feel. I mean, I’ve said it before but it’s never felt so . . . big, you know? I’m not sure it meant the same thing then. Like, I was too young to get it. Is that insane? You think I’m insane. But I’m not. I’m just . . . new to this, I think. Honestly, I think I’m new to this.”
    “I know you’re saying something profound, but it’s hard to focus when your tits are out.”
    Sara rolled her eyes and tried to push me away, but I wouldn’t have it. Instead, I leaned in and kissed her, swallowing her protest as I tried to shape every wild and unhinged feeling I had and fit it into that kiss.
    I could hear the sound of a summer rainstorm as water began to pelt the windows and thunder bellowed in the distance. Somewhere in the back of my mind I thought briefly of wet roads and everyone hailing a cab at once, and how much more time it would take to get to the airport. But as she wrapped a leg around the back of my thigh and pulled me fully on top of her, talk of the weather evaporated from my mind.
    Her lips moved from my mouth to my ear and I tried to remember why I’d needed to leave in the first place.
    “I’m sore in a really good way,” she said, rocking her hips against mine. “I want more.”
    Any blood left in my brain evacuated and headed straight for my dick. “That is probably the best thing anyone has ever said to me.”
    Sara pushed against my chest and I practically whimpered as she rolled me to my back. “Don’t go,” she said, moving on top of me. The sheet fell away and I gripped her torso, my thumbs brushing the undersides of her breasts. She reached for my camera and held it up, looking down at me through the viewfinder. “I want to take pictures of your pretty face between my legs.”
    “Jesus Christ, Sara,” I said, my head falling back againstthe pillows and my eyes closed tight. “And here I thought you were this little innocent little thing and I was the Great Corruptor.”
    She burst into giggles and I just stared up at her.
    “I love you,” I said, gripping the back of her neck and bringing her mouth to mine. My hand trailed down her side, naked and smooth and covered in goose bumps.
    “We’re really doing this, aren’t we?” she asked, pulling back just enough to meet my eyes.
    “We’re really doing this.”
    “Officially.”
    “A hundred percent. Dinners, dates, introducing you as my girlfriend. The whole thing.”
    “Think I like the sound of that,” she said, her cheeks pink. She dragged her nails across my scalp and I melted, turning in to her touch. Not wanting to be anywhere but right here.
    But . . .
    The time on the clock near the bed reflected back at me. “Fuck. I really do have to go,” I said, closing my eyes.
    “Okay.” I felt the heat of her lips against mine, not moving or doing anything in particular, just there, a chaste kiss made so much hotter by all the decidedly unchaste things we’d done only hours before.
    I groaned, tugging my tie from my collar and tossing it somewhere over my shoulder. Pushing up on my knees, I looked down at her as I began to unbutton my shirt.
    “But your flight,” she said, even as she reached for my belt. An evil grin spread slowly across her face.
    “I’ll take the next one.”

    After a mad dash through JFK—totally worth it—and