The Kiss

He stood a little less than a foot taller than her. She never thought about things like height as impacting how she felt about someone. But in this case, the height difference meant that their eyes were able to meet only with her head tilted up at such an angle that left her neck exposed. More so than usual. At least that’s how she felt. Exposed.

This always put her on a slight edge. Because when she looked at him, even under normal circumstances, she was always felt like he put her under a bit of a spell.

Some eyes have that certain something that seem to pull a person into them, and his eyes managed to do that to her. They seemed to look deep within her. Past the mask of professionalism she wore so well for work every day (and sometimes forgot to put away). His eyes seemed to know when she was feeling carefree or when thoughts about other parts of her day were consuming her. They knew the degree to which she was feeling each mood, how deeply she was feeling everything at that moment. They knew just how to respond to either match the feeling or to pull her back to the present — depending on the circumstance. So much talent and effortless knowing in that set of deep brown eyes of his.

So when she tilted her head up to look at him, she did so knowing he would be watching her in that all-knowing way. The combination of her exposed neck, his piercing eyes, the heat from his body, and his sweet scent, made for such a potent, heady elixir that she sometimes felt herself sway a little when she was standing that way. It was only because he was often holding her in his arms when she was looking up at him that she didn’t forget herself and topple over.

On this particular day, work had been gruesome. Political in-fighting at work at the lavel of hierarchy directly above her meant that she was often having to play part offense, part defense, part spy. She hated the wrangling. Why couldn’t work just stand on it’s own merit? It felt endless. Also, her mother had been on her about a car that needed fixing, some repair work that she needed help with at her house, and some drama she was going though with one of her recent ‘men’. She was her mother’s only support network. So her mother’s to-do list was always invariably her own to-do list; one that seemingly had no end. Her mother’s to-gripe-about list was just as long. She had just gotten back from her Mom’s house after a long day at work and she was exhausted. The routine pieces of a life that had just piled on a little too high on that particular day.

She shook her head as if trying to shake the day’s debris away and then looked up at him. This is what she needed right now: him, his warmth, his eyes.

Her hands at his arms, she started sliding them up towards his chest and towards his shoulders. He looked at her as if drinking her in, recognizing what was in her eyes. He focused his eyes even more intently at her and gave her a languid, slow smile. He knew what her eyes were saying that day — no translation needed. He tipped his head down as she tilted her chin up higher to meet his lips.

Oh, his lips! How delicious they were. Why hadn’t anyone ever told her that lips came in this particular flavour? They were like heaven, and ocean, and the first days of spring had come together to make whatever this sweet, living, torturous hellish, ambrosial flavour this was. He knew exactly how to use his lips-slash-implements-of-the-sweetest-torture too.

As his mouth had come down to her, her lips had parted instinctively. His lips started by caressing hers. Slowly, softly, back and forth, and ending in the middle where he decided to finally kiss her. His lips on hers, feeding her while at the same time feeding off her. Her mouth meeting his movements, she felt her head get lighter almost as if departing from her body and joining a night without stars.

His mouth now open she didn’t hesitate to take the invitation and she went searching for his tongue, only to find it was already on its way to meet hers. Their tongues played with each other, teasing while seeking, probing while drawing, as he continued to seemingly absorb and feast off her lips with his. She sank deeper into the moment.

His hands were now wrapped around her face, holding her as if she was something almost too precious to hold, as if he would never be sated and didn’t want to miss a single opportunity, a single morsel of her lips. He paused for a moment and looked at her. Again as if attempting to absorb her into his being. A look of wonder came over his eyes as he said, “How do you do that to me?”.

She simply gave a half-smile as her answer because even if she wanted to she wouldn’t have been able to get a word out. There are some moments that spoken words can only hope to mar, and frankly her level of intoxication right now was such that speaking in even a somewhat coherent manner would have been impossible to conceive. She did manage to gather one thought however. In that moment, she felt a sense of comfort, contentment, that he seemed to be feeling the same type of bewitchment that she was experiencing from the kiss. She didn’t have much time to sit with the thought though because as she looked up she realized he wanted more.