He stood there, the red shirt hanging off his arms, his fingers hooked in the belt loops of my jeans, and I kissed him. Again. Light. Slowly. Lips soft and warm. At first. Then deeper. Darker. Rougher. Pressing against him. Longing for something a kiss couldn't give. The rise and fall of his stomach quickened. My fingers slid into his hair pulling his face to mine. I felt his breathing in my mouth. He let go of my jeans and the red shirt fell around his feet as his bare arms wrapped tightly around my naked back. He took his lips from my mouth just enough to speak. "You know," he whispered, "I can't wait."

I knew he couldn't wait. I would have known even if he hadn't been standing so close. His breath came short and shallow and his hands trembled. Kicking off our shoes, we lay down across the duvet, a soft white blanket quilted in large diamonds, that sank in under our combined weight.
"You're still wearing your socks," I murmured against his lips.
He pulled himself up and looked down at me, then down on himself and started to laugh. "I'm still wearing most of my clothes. Why're you on about the socks?"
I shrugged. The cool quilt was starting to warm under my back and I could still feel where his warm bodyweight had just pressed me into it. "I like men with bare feet."
Without another word Michael sat up, took off his socks and tossed them after both our shoes, grinning when he lay down with me again.

Kiss and touch were quickly pulling me under, now. His t-shirt was the next to go and the more the skin contact increased, the faster I sank. I had my arms around his head and neck, awash with his hair. One hand travelled along my jeans and lifted my knee to wrap my leg around his hips. I wanted to feel him against me, alluring and unambiguous. And I did. My senses started to cloud. I stripped out of my jeans without quite knowing how it happened. We made a mess of the bed, the quilt, the pillows.

I tried to slip away from under him, but his arm snaked around my waist and he pulled me back. I screamed and he laughed. I made a second attempt and this time his resistance was just playing. His hand glided along my body as I moved, but although his fingers were firm he wasn't really holding on. As I escaped he fell down upon the quilt with a groan.

I lifted the covers and sat on my legs in bed behind them, pulled the sheet under the quilt up to my face so it covered me and delicately took the seam between my teeth to free my hands. Michael had sat up on his heels, watching me with his hands resting on his knees. Behind the screen of the sheet I removed first the top of my lingerie, then got up on my knees and slipped out of my panties, too. I threw both items over the side of the bed and letting the sheet fall down onto my chest eased my legs deep under the covers.

Michael closed his eyes, then nodded to himself. "I have to take off my pants," he said, rubbing a hand over his forehead.
"Too tight?" I asked innocently.
He was already sitting on the edge of the bed and turned back to look at me over his shoulder. Then he turned away again with a bit of a laugh and shook his head. "Yes," he said facing the other way.

I watched him strip out of his pants and undergarments. He threw them over the foot end of the bed but they slipped to the floor. He didn't notice it. Then he lifted the covers and slid into bed.

The sheet under the duvet was white and crisply ironed. Michael lifted it high and it fell and covered half of his face, leaving only his dark eyes and the top of black curls visible. Still, I could tell he was smiling as he looked at me from under the fabric. I moved my hair aside and put my head down comfortably on the pillow, watching him as he lay there, almost completely covered by sheet and blanket.

Unnoticed, a gentle peacefulness had crept into the room. It was a big bed.
"Why don't you come a little closer?" I asked quietly.
He moved, surfacing, first his nose and his smiling mouth, then his throat and bare shoulders, lifting sheet and blanket and coming to lie next me.
I sensed his body's warmth under the covers. I knew, he could feel mine, too, as he leaned down and put his soft mouth on mine. Under the sheet his hand touched me, gently following my shape from my shoulder through the hollow of my waist to my hips.

The strong, slender body lying close to me, undressed. The depth of his mouth. The warm, travelling palm on my skin, hidden by the bedding.

"How close do you want me?" His voice was just as quiet, and his smile had been lost. His breathing was accelerated, and it wasn't from playing. I felt it against my lips.
"Just come. I'll tell you, when you're close enough." Under the covers, I pushed my leg against his.
For a moment, he lay there, his mouth hovering a fraction of an inch over mine, while my toes brushed along his lower legs on the sheet. Then he lifted himself off it, and a moment later his body became hot weight.

His flat chest was hard; muscles and bones. My short fingernails were painted dark red and striking against his now largely pale white skin. His breathing was fast and shallow, his heartbeat heavy as I ran my hands over him.

He came to me with a single smooth but forceful movement and I gasped. For a moment, I felt nothing but him. His hot, soft skin. His hard body under it. Then surprise was drowned out by pleasure and my muscles relaxed. Michael was looking down at me, all his muscles still tight as springs. Carefully he lowered himself onto my chest until his mouth was close to my ear. I wrapped my arms around him. His breath was moist against my neck. "Is this close enough?"
His presence was consuming my brain. "Could you come any closer?"
He shook his head and swallowed. "No – I don't think so." His whisper was breathless and his voice sounded raw.
"Then you're good," I breathed, stroking his head and shoulders. "You're good."

And those were the last sensible words I said before my senses were washed away. His mouth was at my throat. Flexing muscles under my hands. The strong body between my thighs. Loose hair between my fingers. But all that was secondary. I had him. All of him. His skin moving on mine. And I was still longing for him. Insanity between pleasure and lust. I whispered his name over and over between the moving sheets. Caressing him. Wanting him. Listening to his breathing and to how his force extended to the bed until the world dissolved and his name in my mouth dissolved with it.

It didn't last long – for neither of us. There was too much excitement, too much desire, too much lust. But it didn't have to. In Hong Kong, the law requires that the foundations of all building touch the rock of the island. It's an old law. Not only has the way to build changed since, but an enormous amount of land has been claimed from the bay of Hong Kong where the rock of the island is over 1,000 feet below the bottom of the sea. So they drive one pillar down, all the way, until it hits the rock. Every skyscraper, no matter how fancy, has one such pillar. It does nothing for the structural statics of the buildings – the foundations are successfully build on sand – it just makes it legal. It makes it right. We were like that. Driving a pillar down all the way. We were touching rock. It changed nothing, but it still made it right.

Our legs were still touching in places as we lay face to face. I had my head propped up on an elbow while his lay heavy on the pillow and a soft smile played around his lips. Small curls had formed in the moisture on his forehead, and my fingers were gently playing with them. He didn't take his eyes off me. I pulled the damp sheet that covered us up to his face to dab his hairline dry.
He was exhausted but he laughed, bringing out a hand from under the covers and running it over his brow. "It's true," he said, "I'm sweat-bathed."
"I still have to take that shower," I said softly.
"I know." He sighed. "Just let me rest for a moment, okay? Can you do that?"
"Yes, of course."
He pulled me down to him and wrapped his arms around me. His skin felt hot. "Promise you won't leave me. If I fall asleep, don't get up and leave me here. I don't want to wake up alone."
"I won't." I felt him nod and heard his breathing deepen.

When I opened my eyes again, the light had changed and the sky now seemed to be overcast. Under the covers I felt Michael's warm skin against the length of my body. He had one arm draped over me, the other lying under my neck. His chest rose and fell against my back with the slow, deep breathing of sleep. I watched his open hand resting on my pillow, the shadows his slim fingers cast on the cloth of the pillowcase, when suddenly it occurred to me that it was morning and that we had fallen asleep and slept through the night. The feeling was odd. The previous day had slipped away from me without proper notice.

It was very early – the room was filled with deep shadows and the light was exceptionally pale – but because I was jetlagged and because of the completely missing evening I had lost all sense of time. Carefully, I moved away from under Michael's arm. His hair was tied and braided at the nape of his neck, now, so he must have been up at some point during the night, but he hadn't woken me. I lightly kissed his hair and he slept on unaffected.

I slipped out of bed. Our clothes lay strewn across the floor - a reminder of the previous evening - and for a moment I thought about putting on his shirt but decided against it. In the nude I went over to the windows.

Leaning against the curtains I scanned the grounds for anyone who might see me naked behind Michael's bedroom windows, but there was no hint of the slightest movements whatsoever. Outside, the trees and the garden surrounding the house were quiet and still – their dark green deep and shadowy. Dawn was only just breaking on the world, drawing a picture that had something heavenly about it, like a glimpse of paradise. I turned and looked back at the man sleeping in the bed. I could see his bare shoulders and make out the shape of his body under the quilt. There was no innocence in the crushed sheets he was lying between. The prickling sense of something secret and forbidden passed through me. If this were paradise, we would be turned out. But it wasn't. The exuberant green outside was nature and we were a part of it.

I turned back to the window and the sleeping gardens. While the leaves moved dreamily, between the branches the clouds could be seen racing overhead, grey and foaming like a sea upside-down, building up waves only to swallow them up again.

I heard the rustling of sheets and Michael getting up, but I didn't turn around, just listened to his feet as he picked his way between our shed clothes, felt his hands as he touched my back and wrapped his arms around my waist until his body, warm and bare, rested against mine like it had before in bed. He kissed my shoulder. "Why did you get up?"
I looked at the still ranch beyond.  "It's morning," I said not so much as an answer but as a statement. "I fell asleep and slept all night without waking once."
"You were tired."
"We didn't eat dinner."
"Are you hungry?" Another kiss, closer to my neck.
I leaned back against him and put my hands and arms over his on my stomach. "No, I'm fine. I had a sandwich on the flight from New York. But what about you? Did you have dinner?"
"No."
"Oh, why not?"
He shrugged. I could feel the movement. "You were asleep and I didn't want to leave you. I didn't want you to wake up and find yourself in my bed alone. Especially not after I asked you not to leave me."
"Oh, you should have gone and eaten something!"
"I wasn't hungry."
"I don't like it when you're skipping meals..."
"I'm not skipping meals! I missed a meal; I'm not starving myself!" He turned me around to face him. "I'm not starving myself," he repeated in a softer tone.
"It worries me when you're not eating right." I could feel his rips under my hands, but I could have counted them without touching him.
"I know," he said, pulling me a little tighter to him. "You're sweet. I'm eating. I'll eat breakfast. But it's 5 in the morning and I don't have your jetlag. Girl, come back to bed and let me sleep!"
I stroked his face and his five o'clock shadow bristled against my palm. "Of course," I said in a low voice. "Of course!"

I turned towards his bed when I felt his eyes on my back. He was still standing by the window looking at me. "What?" I asked giving him a coquettish look over my shoulder.
"You know," he said without any sense of mocking, "the female body is like artwork."
The line itself and the sincerity with which he said it took me by surprise. For a moment I could do nothing but stare at him.
"Just the shape of it; the proportions. God is an artist, you know? He must be. I'm absolutely sure of that."
"You're a man, Michael. You're probably bias."
He closed the distance between us and rested a hand on my hip. I felt the touch of his individual fingertips. His other hand cupped my jaw. "I'm your man," he said softly. "I'm probably bias twice over. But I didn't mean that."
"You know, I've been told I have a poster figure," I said with a smile. Michael let his hand sink away from my face and raised his eyebrows. "Oh, it's really true! You don't believe me?"
"No, I do believe you. I'm just wondering if I should be jealous."
"Are you?"
He grazed his teeth over his lower lip. "A bit," he said with a low voice and a sigh. "I'm worried because I can't be there. That's impossible for me."
"Well, he's a sculptor and professor of fine arts," I said gently running my hands over his chest. "And 84. I'm mighty proud of it, though – Can't you tell? – because it means I have the right curves in the right places and he didn't just say it trying to chat me up."
Michael's eyes were black in the shadowy light of the early morning. He looked from my face to the hands on his chest and back again. "Come to bed!" he whispered.

We slid back between the sheets and I rested my forehead against his throat. "That's good," he sighed as his chin settled on my head and his arm around me tightened.
We lay like for what seemed a long time. I drifted in and out of a light sleep, but even though Michael didn't move, he didn't seem to find sleep again.

~~~~~
Hey, lovelies! :D

Gosh, did I ever tell you that I hate writing about s*ex? XD I really do! Normally it's the parts that are still blank when the whole story has been written already. I don't have any moral problems with it, it's just that it becomes so cheesy so quickly! :P I absolutely don't want to win the 'Bad S*ex in Fiction - Award!' Gosh...

But there's something I'd like to talk to you about. damnjackson asked me in the comments of the last chapter what I imagine Anna to look like. I think in three years she's actually been the first to ask. :") I never describe Anna apart from her having long hair (Carousel, Chapter 1). That's a choice. Because I want you all to imagine her! So before you scroll down and read what others might have imagined, please take a moment and think about what you imagined throughout the last 13 chapters! And then please leave me a comment and tell me about it! :")

And of course, please vote! <3

And if you really want to make my day, please do both! :")

Much Love and until next time, Birdie <33