Chapter 721: A Snowy Slumber, Part
I never noticed just how comfy Amanda’s bed was before. Resting in it was like laying my body adrift at sea, a weightless sensation’s embrace, so that instead of feeling the usual sinking feeling of sagging into the mattress... it was more like I was being hugged and comforted all the way to a gentle night’s sleep.
Yeah, I think I vastly prefer her bedroom to mine. Was that her plan? First the shower, now the bed, culinary skills on par with Ash’s... it’s like she’s giving me all the reasons I need to justify staying with her forever.
Then there was this.
Her arms wrapped around my right, as I stared unblinking upright toward the blank white canvas of the ceiling. I could feel her legs sandwiching between one of mine. An entire side of the bed belonging to her, and yet here she was pervading and invading every inch of mine.
The quick, furtive glances I managed to take of her revealed a satisfied expression in a world of bliss. She was breathing lightly, smiling widely, and sniffing heavily.
And, ah... she won’t stop sniffing.
“You smell different,” She commented, burying herself in the narrow gap between my neck and shoulder and taking another whiff. “You smell like me.”
.....
I could feel my skin prickling from the warmth of her words, so close... I could hear the quiver in her voice.
“Not my bathroom,” I answered simply.
“Then maybe you could bring some of your things over here,” She suggested. “Some clothes, a toothbrush, soap... make this place feel more like you.”
Hearing her proposal stirred a memory in me.
“Now that you mention it, didn’t you steal some of my shirts while I was back home in the country?”
“Yep, and I wear them all the time when I’m staying in. I think they’re with a pile in the washer just waiting to be spun.”
“And you want to bring even more here?”
“I think it is time you learn to accept the bitter truth, my sweet dear,” She said, her finger lightly tracing the outline of my hair. “They aren’t your clothes anymore.”
All was silent. Then I remembered something, something random that just flew out my lips without any thought.
“Ash sends you her best wishes by the way.”
“Oh, uh, I see,” was her understandably clueless reaction. “That’s nice of her.”
“Sorry,” I quickly said, too late realizing my hiccup. “I didn’t mean to-”
“Bring up the other girls?” She spoke for me. “Afraid I might accuse you of thinking of them despite me being right here in front of you?”
“Something like that.”
“Well, you kinda were.”
“Yeah, well,” I heaved in a breath, feeling her smell (or was it my own?) gradually replacing the oxygen in my bloodstream. “Can’t blame me, when your-”
“My fault?”
“No, it’s just-you’re just... you’re just so close to me right now, it’s... it’s stimulating.”
Silence again. Suffocating, overwhelming... almost like her.
Shifting, dragging, muscles stiffening, I turned over to my side, toward her. Face to face, inches away, her hands now gently pressed against my chest, and for a brief moment, I just considered her.
I considered how vulnerable she looked now, how relaxed and ingenuous she seemed at this moment. When she touches me, holds me... like this... it was like she was entrusting me with herself in her entirety, to do with as I wish, as I pleased... and as I desired.
My gaze strayed, slowly following the downward stream of her long blonde hair before stopping. I blinked, breathed, and considered her again... her fair, slender body so acutely visible before my eyes, illuminated clearly, almost boldly, in the soft glow of lamplight.
The straps of her nightdress were thin and flimsy, with one gradually slipping loose more and more down the slope of her shoulder with every slight move she made, and when she moves, I’d see her sway, and the parts that would sway gracefully along with it... the cold perking her breasts through the wrinkled seams of thin fabric... the frilly skirt of her gown hiking to her hips exposing the lacy bit of string fastened across them... revealing only so little, yet showing oh-so-much.
“Enjoying the view?” She asked, noticing the descending slant in my vision.
I looked back up, catching the playful admonishing look in her eyes.
“Like you don’t want me to...”
“But that’s the thing,” She said, somehow shifting herself even closer to me. “You’re just looking. Don’t you wanna do more?”
“Do you?”
“There you go again, question with a question,” Amanda sighed. “I know you can’t read minds, but... surely you’re able to read some signs, right?”
Honestly, right here, right now, I wanted nothing more but to touch her, feel her, succumb myself to the unbearable throbbing urge to do everything that I wanted with her.
And I knew she wouldn’t mind, I knew that’s what she wanted me to do too. She was just waiting, patiently, coyly, taking her time, enjoying the silence, yet any second anticipating when I’d finally give in to the moment.
All I needed to do was make my move.
But even with all the green lights blinking the all-clear... in spite of all the instances I’ve asked, I don’t recall having actually once heard her tell me what she wanted.
“I see the signs, I understand them,” I said. “But I think I’d rather just follow the leader. Y’know, have her decide what I should be doing instead.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know exactly what to expect. If being with you has taught me anything... it’s that anything can happen. Who’s to say the signs you’re giving are the same signs I should be seeing?”
“So paranoid,” She scoffed, her brows scrunching incredulously. “So... what? Are you saying I might have other intentions apart from the obvious? Something else in mind?”
“I don’t know,” I shrugged at her. “Do you?”
Amanda fell silent to just gaze at me, still sporting that quizzical look on her face like I couldn’t have been any more off the mark with my statement.
But then she spun away and the bed wobbled, then once it settled again, Amanda was still near, still inches close, but significantly a distance apart, joining me in my impromptu staring contest with the ceiling.
“I want you to love me,” She said straightly. “And I want to love you too.”
Just like that, huh? No more innuendos, euphemisms. She spoke now with nothing but her intentions.
And only her intentions.
“But,” with a corner glance, she met my eyes again. “I’m not sure... if we should.”
I listened to her, hearing her words, and huddled so close, hearing the uncertainty, the clear unease resounding in those words.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Then, suddenly, with a partway smile on her lips, Amanda decided to take a page out of my book when it came to being confronted with a question-by answering it with another and with one that was certainly out there in terms of being out of the blue.
“How did you do it?” She asked me back. “With Ash, how did you do it with her?”
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