It shouldn’t be humanly possible to feel this much, to have emotions run along such boundless depths.
Carmen caught his eyes, and the fluttery sensation exploded, spreading through every part of him until it was filling him up. He was afraid it was going to swallow him whole. It shouldn’t be humanly possible to love this much. It shouldn’t.
And yet Asa’s heart continued to disagree.
It was a while before they finally excused themselves, and Asa was wrapping his fingers around her small wrist, leading her into the privacy of his room.
As soon as he kicked the door shut behind them, he took a hold of the shoulder bag slung on Carmen’s arm and chucked it to the side.
“Hey.” Carmen frowned. “I have things in there! You can’t just throw—”
Asa’s lips found hers in an almost ravenous manner and cut her words off, his hands sliding up her neck until they were cupping the back of her head and his thumbs were caressing the skin underneath her jaw.
He felt the momentary shock dissipate from her body as she began responding to him, one of her hands coming to rest on his waist and the other clenching a fist around the front of his shirt.
Carmen’s words were the only thing resonating in Asa’s head: “I don’t want to give you something that dies. I don’t want to give you something that dies. I don’t want to give you something that dies.”
Those words were fuel to the raging inferno beneath Asa’s ribcage, until the flames were roaring high and loud, pulling the two of them in, encaging the two souls, but not burning them. After all, he loved her and she loved him, and there was no way to burn something that was baptized by fire itself.
Eyes still closed and the kiss still unbroken, his feet began moving forward, directing them away from the door and further into his room, until he felt Carmen come to a stop when the back of her legs hit the frame of the bed.
Asa pulled away from the kiss, his breath coming in gasps as he rested his forehead against hers. “I never get tired of this,” he mumbled against her mouth.
Carmen seemed a little too dizzy to speak and just offered him a dazed nod of her head.
Asa hesitated for a single heartbeat, before he slowly dropped his hand from the side of her face and tugged on the cardigan she was wearing. “Can I take this off?” he asked in a voice so quiet, it might as well have been the wind.
Carmen nodded.
He reached out, about to remove it from around her shoulders, when he stopped. “No,” he murmured, losing himself even more to the flames blazing around them. “I want to watch you take it off.” He dropped his other hand from her face and took a step back, not daring to break eye contact with her. “Take it off, Carmen.”
There was no hesitation on her part, but Carmen still took her own sweet time in slipping the cardigan off her shoulders. Asa’s eyes followed her movements as the fabric fell past her arms, revealing the thin straps of the silky camisole she wore underneath, the dark material contrasting with her pale skin in a painfully sinful manner.
Carmen let the cardigan fall to the floor, and Asa reached out this time, trailing two fingers down the silk, wondering if the skin beneath the fabric was just as smooth in texture. He placed a hand on her waist, right where the hem of the garment she wore met the belt loop of her jeans.
“Is this okay?” he asked, never taking his eyes off hers as he slowly slipped his hand under the camisole and dragged it up her side, stopping only when his palm met the curve of her hip and made itself comfortable there.
Carmen nodded again.
“And this?” He let his other hand graze along the skin on her other side too, the movement causing her camisole to ride up her torso as he dug his fingers into the dip in her waist.
Another nod from her.
“Good,” he said in a husky tone, realising that the silk she wore didn’t even hold a candle to the feel of her skin against his.
Asa took a step closer to her, angling his head and lowering his lips to meet hers again, when she cleared her throat and held up her forefinger.
“Can… can I?” Carmen asked with a slight tremble to her voice, as she hooked her finger around one of the buttons on his shirt and tugged.
Asa smiled, the edges of his lips lifting up with tenderness as he gazed down at her. “Go ahead, mi amor.”
He felt her hands work on the buttons, her fingers popping each one open with shaky hands, while he held her eyes with a heated gaze, not daring to blink, not daring to miss even a second of this.
He felt air hit his naked chest when his shirt came undone, but Carmen’s eyes were still glued to his, and that made his heart race like never before. He felt her hands sweep across his shoulder blades, dragging down the sleeves until his arms were exposed. And then the piece of clothing fell to the floor.
Carmen didn’t make a move to step any closer, but her hands came to rest on his hips, and he felt her palms slide up his chest, her soft fingertips tracing every dip, dent and curve of his muscles.
It was when she dug her nails into his shoulder and raised herself on her toes to kiss his neck that Asa finally
