So I steer her a little down the hall until we’re in front of the room that says ICE. And she laughs and I say, “C’mon,” because where else do we have to go? And the room isn’t that cold, there’s just the noise of the soda machine to contend with. She says, “You can’t be serious,” and I agree that I can’t be. I’m not. I say, “I’m just really into you,” and then I kiss her and she finds the light switch and turns it off, and then we’re just lit in Pepsi-can colors and it’s like we’ve finally found this other kind of conversation, this conversation in gestures and pulls and pushes and breaths and grasps and teases and glimmers and rubs and expectation. “Are you okay?” I ask, and she says, “Are you?” And I say, “Yes, I am.” I am more than okay. This is a great conversation.
God, I like her so much.
“Let’s get you out of some of those wet clothes,” she says, and she pulls at my shirt and stumbles over some of the buttons and I don’t know what comes over me, but I start tickling her and that really pisses her off, but she’s laughing and then gasps back the laugh, I guess so the guests won’t hear. She finishes the buttons and she takes off the shirt. I take my jacket off her shoulders and she does the strangest thing—she pulls back for a second and folds it neatly, puts it almost reverently on the floor. Then I peel off the wet flannel, peel off the T-shirt underneath. She runs her fingers through the patch of hair on my chest, then follows the trail down to my belt. I have never, ever felt such desire. She takes off the belt, lets it drop to the floor. Then she unbuttons the top button of my jeans—only the top button. And I reach over to her jeans and unbutton the top button—only the top button. And I ask it again—“Are you okay?” And this time she says yes. She says she’s more than okay.
We kiss like it’s a form of clasping. It’s not like it was in the club, when it was like she was proving something. We have nothing to prove now, nothing except that we’re not afraid. That we’re not going to think too much, or stop too much, or go too much. Her hand traces down the zipper line and I say, “Slow.” Because this is not a rush. This is not something insignificant. This is real. This is happening. And this is ours.
I am nervous as f**k, vulnerable as anything. I can feel my chest shaking. She embraces me so her arms are behind my back, then lets her hands wander down, across that line, under my jeans, under my boxers. I wrap my arms around her, raise my hands to her back. To her neck. To her hair. Then one hand glides back, runs over her br**sts, then between them, trailing down and back around. We entangle. The ice machine hums, then comes to life, the cracking crash that makes us laugh, takes us out of the moment for a moment, makes us look at each other in a naked light. That stop. That pause.
“What are we doing?” she says.
“I don’t know?” I reply.
She leans into me again, her wet pants squarely on mine, and says, “Good answer.”
I want to kiss her without counting the seconds. I want to hold her so long that I get to know her skin. I want, I want, I want.
Her hands slide to my hips. Her thumbs hook around my waistband.
Lowering.
Lowering.
I gasp.
18. NORAH
When did my life get so good? Was it when I agreed with a kiss to be Nick’s five-minute girlfriend, or when I realized frigid was a choice rather than a truth?
This ice room is so very cold.
Nick is so very hot.
His heat—my heat—our heat—almost makes me forget I am still wet from the downpour, seeking refuge in the darkened ice room of a f**king Marriott with the Pepsi sign lit up, and I am without a doubt really into Nick because I am a Coke drinker, I mean I can take the Pepsi Challenge and f**king smell the difference without bothering to distinguish the two tastes in my mouth. Mmmmmm, tastes. His lips taste so good, his moist skin tastes so good, everything about him is just delicious. Now that his wet shirt is off and my face presses right here as my hands stray down there, I realize he does not smell like aromatherapy or cologne, it was probably the air freshener Toni sprayed over everyone at the bathroom back at the club. This Nick, the bare-chested one, the heavy breathing one, the kind one, the sexy as hell one, he smells musky and lovely, bathed in night rain. I can’t get enough of him.
I get it—he’s straight. I believe. Hallelujah! And! Amen! J.C., I owe you one!
I feel like I could drown in this, in him. He’s lit by the machine he’s leaning against, but I have fallen into darkness, not the darkness of the deranged or the depressed, but the darkness of the consumed, where all I see, hear, taste, feel, is the probe of our mouths and hands, the warmth of our bodies pressed against each other, the urgency of his wanting, my wanting. It’s like nothing else exists in the world right now except him, me, touching, exploring, longing, needing, sharing, having. So much for my straight-edge vow, because I am drunk on our ing’s. If Nick’s part of ’em, I want ’em, they’re mine.
He pulls me back up so our lips meet again, and I’m lost all over again, lost inside his mouth, feeling his breath, feeling his heartbeat against my hand pressed on his chest. My hands want to wander all over him, but his lips are sliding so sweetly around my own, my hands can’t focus. His hands focus just fine. He’s definitely a breast instead of thigh man. Only his hands go slow, caressing and teasing instead of Talpillaging (good job on the breast tutorial, Tris), and I can feel my chest straining to high attention, wanting, more more more. Then Nick’s hands move away and I want to murmur, No no no, come back, hands, but my mouth is too busy occupying his. As Nick’s hands fumble and smooth over my back, clearly looking for a bra strap to unclasp, my lips can’t bear to pull away from touching him to tell him, Honey, it’s a front-clasp bra.