Cravings Read Online Free PDF Page A

against one another. His face was painfully close to mine. His
mouth so close it seemed a shame not to lay a kiss upon those lips.
    His eyes were half-startled, as if I'd grabbed him, and I had, but I hadn't
meant to. Then he swayed to one side and took me with him. And just like that we
were dancing, but it was different from any dancing I'd ever done. I didn't
follow his movements with my eyes, I followed them with my body. He moved, and I
moved with him, not because I was supposed to, but for the same reason a tree
bends in the wind, because you must.
    I moved because he moved. I moved because I finally understood what they'd
all been talking about; rhythm, beat, but it wasn't the beat of the music I was
hearing, it was the rythymn of Nathaniel's body, pressed so close that all I
could feel was him. His body, his hands, his face. His mouth was temptingly
close, but I did not close that distance. I gave myself over to his body, the
warm strength in his hands, but I did not take the kiss he offered. For he was
offering, he was offering himself in the way that Nathaniel had, no demand, just
the open-ended offer of his flesh for the taking. I ignored that kiss the way
I'd ignored so many others.
    He leaned into me, and I had a moment, just a moment, before his lips touched
mine, to say, No, stop. But I didn't say it. I wanted that kiss. That much I
could admit to myself.
    His lips brushed mine, gentle, then the kiss became part of the swaying of
our bodies, so that as our bodies rocked, so the kiss moved with us. He kissed
me as his body moved, and I turned my face up to him, and gave myself to the
movement of his mouth as I'd given myself to the movement of his body. The brush
of lips became a fullblown kiss, and it was his tongue that pierced my lips,
that filled my mouth, his mouth that filled mine. But it was my hand that left
his back and traced his face, cupped his cheek, pressed my body deeper against
his, so that I felt him stretched tight and firm under his clothes. The feel of
him pressed so tight against my clothes and my body, brought a small sound from
my mouth, and the knowledge that the ardeur had risen early. Hours early. A
distant part of me thought, Fuck. The rest of me agreed, but not in the way I
meant it.
    I drew back from his mouth, tried to breathe, tried to think. His hand came
up to cup the back of my head, to press my mouth back to his, so that I drowned
in his kiss. Drowned in the pulse and beat of his body. Drowned on the rhythms
and tide of his desire. The ardeur allowed, sometimes, a glimpse into another's
heart, or at least their libido. I'd learned to control that part, but tonight
it was as if my fragile control had been ripped away, and I stood pressed into
the curves and firmness of Nathaniel's body with nothing to protect me from him.
Always before he'd been safe. He'd never pushed an advantage, never gone over a
line that I drew, not by word or deed; now suddenly, he was ignoring all my
signals, all my silent walls. No, not ignoring them, smashing through them.
Smashing them down with his hands on my body, his mouth on mine, his body
pushing against mine. I could not fight the ardeur and Nathaniel, not at the
same time.
    I saw what he wanted. I felt it. Felt his frustration. Months of being good.
Of behaving himself, of not pushing his advantage. I felt all those months of
good behavior shatter around us, and leave us stripped and suffocating in a
desire that seemed to fill the world. Until that moment I hadn't understood how
very good he'd been. I hadn't understood what I'd been turning down. I hadn't
understood what he was offering. I hadn't understood… anything.
    I pulled back from him, put a hand on his chest to keep him from closing that
distance again.
    "Please, Anita, please, please," his voice was low and urgent, but it was as
if he couldn't bring himself to put it into words. But the ardeur didn't need
words. I suddenly felt his