She kisses him, because she can't wait anymore; she kisses him, because everything in her is yearning for him; she kisses him, because she wants to taste him with love in her mouth.
The first time she kissed him, with the pent-up frustrations, emotions, longing of two years behind it, had been intense, thrilling, an awakening of feelings and sensations she didn't know she had inside her. Now, flooded with love, that first kiss might as well have been a casual peck between friends.
Now, she feels it, right through her body to the ends of her fingers and toes. Everything in her lights up like a candle, a low-burning flame; she goes hot and soft and pliable all at once, like she could melt right into him where their bodies touch. His arms are strong around her, and one of his hands comes up to tangle in her hair.
He's trembling, she thinks, lost in a haze of wonder.
She can feel his heart pounding against hers, thinks she might even be able to feel the blood rushing through his veins. She's so dizzy with it, she feels almost ethereal — she's never come anywhere close to this deep, not lost in love, but found.
He sighs into her, clinging to her; whispers her name into her mouth again and again. "Lizzie, love, my love, oh Lizzie…"
"Ray," she murmurs, drawing back a hair, just a hair, just enough to speak (and it's still too much), "Come to bed."
He had thought, after nearly three weeks, that he knew her — they have kept nothing back from each other as they came together, over and over. He had thought he knew her touch, her body, as well as his own — better, even.
Now he knows — he knew nothing, nothing at all of the real Lizzie. This woman, this living flame in his arms, is all new to him. He has loved her, thought he was already full of feeling, as full as he could get — she already overwhelmed his view and made up his world. But this, this — the feel of her, the taste, God, it's all new again. It makes him feel new, too, pulls at him, opens places inside him he'd forgotten were there.
This, he thinks dizzily, blood humming, this is what love does, what love is — it remakes you, remakes you both into something beautiful.
"Come to bed," she says, so he just stands up, his arms wrapped around her, her wrapped around him.
He feels her hook her heels together around him, as she presses her mouth back to his, slides her tongue in. He stumbles into the hall — she's not heavy, and he feels so amazing that he thinks he could run a marathon, but he's also shaking like a boy and dizzy with love and lust. They bump up against the wall, so he presses her briefly into it, kissing her, sucking, devouring, until he has to breathe. She laughs softly into the air between them, and the sound is something precious.
He rolls away and manages to make it a few more feet before he's distracted by her hands, which have found their way under his shirt to scratch at his back, to trace over the contours of his body. He falls back, this time, to let her explore him anew, her touch igniting him within until he thinks he might actually burst into flame.
He groans, struggles up and along. She's everywhere around him, her touch, her scent, she's all he can see or feel or taste — a universe of Liz. He finally makes it to their bed and backs her down onto it, gently disengaging her arms and legs so that he can draw back enough to look at her.
"You," he says softly, "Make the most exquisitely beautiful picture. And mine, Lizzie, mine now."
"Yes," she says, confident in love and strong with it. "Yours, now, always."
He strips off his shirt and leans down to peel hers away from her. Hovers, just looking at her, his piercing eyes soft now, soft with love and longing, and everything in her trembles in response — oh, how she loves him, and she reaches out. He lets out his breath slowly, and then his hands and his mouth are everywhere, hot and silky and smooth, covering her so that all her senses, too, are full, full of Red.
She can't think, can barely breathe — it's so much, so much, and her back arches into him as he finds all her most sensitive points, all the places on her body he has discovered over their time together. She's overwhelmed with love, a quivering mass of heat and need; he's slowly destroying her with touch.
She manages to bring her arms around him to cling, dig into his back, into his scalp. Their legs tangle together as he moves against her, making her his, his touch starting to leave trails of sensation, like he's painting her in soft little strokes, inside and out.
She wants to talk to him, tell him these amazing things that are happening to her, tell him again how she loves him. But she can't, she can't, all that comes out of her are sobbing little moans of pleasure and want, but maybe that will be good enough.
His hands are very busy now, stripping her out of the rest of her clothes, tearing away his own, murmuring love into her skin. He cups her gently, but she doesn't need or want anything but him; he shudders at the feel of her slick and ready under his hand.
He slides into her like a dream of something she can't quite remember, and nothing has ever felt, ever been so perfectly right. She wraps herself around him, holds him to her in the cradle of her body as they start to move together.
It's familiar and new all at once, and as they tide rises within her, she thinks, dreamily, that they must be glowing — she is molten, made of gold. As his movements become less controlled, faster and rougher, clutching her close, tilting her hips; as she feels herself start to tip over the edge and take him along with her, she finds her voice again and the words are so beautiful and warm in her mouth she says them out loud.
"I love you, Ray," on a sigh of completion. "Ray, I love you."