SUNGLASSES AT NIGHT
by perletwo
Eyes closed in the darkness, Randy counted off the seconds between Joan's breaths and matched his own unnecessary inhalations to hers.
2...3...4...
When his count reached six seconds between breaths, he cautiously slipped open his eyes. Then blinked quickly twice before letting his vision settle.
The girl nestled at his feet was luminous, bathed in blue moonlight. Her sun-kissed skin and golden hair seemed to catch the faint rays struggling past the curtains, amplify them and radiate them back at him, adding her own heat and light and fragrant scent to the glow.
He watched Joan's eyes move gently under their thin lids, lips smacking lightly together as she shifted delicately.
Assured of her sleep, Randy let the warmth of her nearness wash over him. It felt strongest at its source, his left hand dangling off the sofa, which still held her right nestled loosely in his long fingers; spread up his forearm, simmering in his bloodstream and making his heart increase the pace of its unnatural pumping, carrying it clear through him to pool low where he needed it most.
As had happened the night before, dossed down with her and Dawn at the magic shop, he felt a sting of guilt at the modest deception he was practicing on her.
He didn't need to sleep at night, of course, and had fought the powerful impulse to drop off to sleep throughout the long day. The nap he'd caught at sunset in the Crawford Street mansion took care of the dozies, and waking up to find the girl of his dreams pinning him firmly to the mattress had recharged his batteries.
But last night, as now, he'd wanted so desperately to be near her it didn't seem to matter much to him that he was stealing the sight of her in sleep. He'd feigned sleep then, too, until she'd relaxed against him completely; and even muffled by leather, heavy tweeds and blankets, the feel of her so close was...indescribably, scaldingly intense.
Better, on the whole, to keep this foot-and-a-half of vertical distance between them, unless he wanted to risk disgracing himself completely. And being banned from the sight of her sleeping form for good.
Joan shifted positions, stretching sensuously like a cat. The thin bedsheet clung to her curves and flowed like water with the movement. Her muscles held the tension of the stretch for the barest second, then released into bonelessness once more.
The sight set up a pulsing heat in Randy's groin, imagining her muscles in a much more powerful release of tension...
His eyes roamed over the planes of her face, vampiric senses honing in on each detail in painfully sharp focus. The curve of her cheek...the ripeness of her lips, still the tiniest bit swollen from their earlier kiss, undetectable without his hyper-awareness of the presence of excess blood...the sharp point of her chin, shadowing her smooth gold-skinned throat alive with her heavy pulse...the scent of her that flowed up strongest through the heat of that pounding artery.
One shoulder dropped and the wide satin strap of her gown slipped down her forearm. Every muscle in Randy's body twitched as if from an electric shock. More skin, more scent and heat and light...he felt like he should be wearing dark glasses, she scalded him like the sun.
And he never, ever wanted it to stop.