Free Captured Shadows by Richard Rider Page B

sound through his nose – he did that often, I realised, as though every kiss were unexpected, even the ones he initiated – and I felt his arms slip around me, the shuffling movement of his body and mine as we hovered there, each on the very edge of his seat, balanced together like pieces of a playing card castle.
    It was a kiss like none we had shared yet, as though the realisation that we were truly alone together behind a locked door for the first time had exploded with enough force to break that final barrier, the last lingering little thoughts of is this right and does he want what I want . The touches in front of the camera had been more posed than true, angled to be flattering. Those in the darkroom had been quick and almost fearful, and the night in the privy behind the studio had been frantic and desperate, clumsy with unfamiliarity. Now, seated precariously in front of the fire, his hands were curled around my shoulders and my forearms rested upon his thighs, my fingertips pressed to his waist, and I kissed him with a raw feeling I thought might choke me. His tongue was warm on mine – and this was new too, this careful pressure of tongues, the exploration of the planes of his teeth and the curious way he sucked for a moment upon my lower lip. His eyes were open, a blur of white and green, and his lashes fluttered against my cheek when he relinquished my mouth and began instead to kiss a meandering path across my face and down my jaw. I was laughing again entirely without meaning to; there was nothing funny, but the exhilaration needed to escape me somehow and it chose my mouth, already cooling and hungry for more touch. I sought his lips again with my own and he submitted with a sigh; then I saw his eyes slide closed, felt the tug of his fingers in the back of my hair, and were it not for the heat of the fire to the left of me I think I would have stayed there forever and died where I was, breathing him and tangled up in him until the flames beside me flickered too far and turned us both to ash.
    "You're feverish," Archie murmured against my mouth, the back of his fingers touching my roasted cheek.
    "The fire's burning me," I said stupidly, and he laughed at me, bright and sharp in the hot silence of the room.
    "That's charming, that is. If you were a proper gent you would've said something nice about me then."
    "If you were a proper gent you wouldn't ask for compliments."
    "Who ever said I was a gent?" I found myself in his arms suddenly, hauled to my feet and so close to him that our noses touched and I couldn't make out his features, only his scent and warmth and this thrumming promise between us, pushed from his body to mine and back again with the thud of our beating hearts. "Say something nice about me."
    I wished I were a poet. Words had never come easily to me, especially not now; my lungs were burning, my mouth was dry, my mind was blank of everything but him, the memory of images, the scandalous daydreams of more. In a strained sort of mumble, quick and quiet, I managed to say his name and then fell silent, simply breathing out when he inhaled, breathing in when he let it out. The tremble of his hands at my waist betrayed him and I knew suddenly that his manner was mere bluster; he was as nervous as I, and it gave me the courage to try again.
    "I try to think of things to say to you sometimes when I wake up in the night. Even if I didn't dream of you. I lie there in my bed in the dark and I wonder how can I make Archie Wilkes believe I'm clever and interesting and worth knowing? Then I see you and words don't seem to make sense any more, because all my mouth wants to do is kiss you. But now, even now I'm allowed to kiss you, when I do then all over again I try to think of things to say to you after. I go around myself in circles like a damn dog chasing his own tail and I suppose the conclusion is something about wanting you, or loving you if you prefer, and telling myself what an idiot I am at the same