Free Wildflowers by Fleet Suki

want to,” he mouths.
    “But you’re scared to, right?”
    He nods.
    “I will show you. I will prove it to you, I swear.” I take his hand. “Tell me what the consultant said.”
    For a minute, Sam frowns and bites his lip, unable to hide the war going on in the amber depths of his eyes. Eventually he signs, I have to have dialysis for the rest of my life. I need a transplant. I need looking after…. You should have let me go.
    “Not an option. I want to look after you,” I say, swallowing every selfish emotion that threatens to make this more about me—my shock, my grief—than about him.
    Right now we are here. We are alive. We can deal with this—we can deal with anything, however complicated it gets. I will not hold back anymore. Our time together is too important, too precious.
    There is a high shelf on the wall by the door. I stand up briefly and place my book on top of it. Then I turn the shower on warm and sit back down beneath it, linking fingers with Sam as the water soaks through our clothes like summer rain.
    “Kiss me,” I say softly as I lean forward and brush my lips against his. I pull Sam close to me and move us out of the heaviest spray.
    “Don’t do this lightly,” he mouths, his gaze pleading. “Only if you mean it.”
    I kiss his still-open mouth and hear his gasp as our tongues touch. The back of his gown is open and I press my fingertips lightly against his skin. The water drowns out the small sounds we make.
    All we do is kiss and kiss. All I do is fall a little more in love with him with every second that passes. It’s impossible to feel this much. I don’t understand it.
    I want to be the water that rains down on us, the air we breathe, the blood rushing through our veins—except I am so wet and heavy I feel chained up in my clothes. Without breaking away from him, I pull at the buttons on my shirt and wriggle out of it. Sam moves to straddle my lap, his eyes squeezed shut as he deepens the kiss, causing me to groan and push my hips up against his. His fingers stroke my face, my hair, as gentle as feathers.
    I pull away briefly to catch my breath. “You sure you want to do this?” I whisper breathlessly.
    “I always want to do this,” he mouths, and for the first time in so long, he smiles.
    It hits me like a sweet shot of electricity zipping up my spine, and I bite my lip as I gaze up at him. “Take your gown off,” I say softly.
    Without taking my eyes off him, I reach up above my head and turn the shower to a slightly warmer setting.
    We get stuck in the gown’s ties behind his back, and in the end he impatiently shoves the thing over his head.
    It’s not as if I haven’t seen him like this before, but I want to savor this moment, this moment when he is mine and I am his. His soaking hair has fallen in his eyes. He is skinny and bruised, and low down on his back, where I can’t see right now but only feel beneath my fingertips, there are two heavy dressings where tubes have been stuck into him. I have never seen anyone so beautiful, anyone so absolutely perfectly made for me, anyone I would lay down my life for without question.
    The water runs off him in hundreds of rivers and I want to chase each one with my tongue. There’s a delicate flush on his chest and neck. I trace the outline of it with my fingers, and I watch his eyes close and his hard cock lift at the sensation. He is so easy.
    I move my legs from between his and open them wide. I really should have taken my shoes off earlier , I think distantly as I kick them off against the door, but Sam leans in to kiss me and I stop thinking entirely for a while.
    I used to worry that Sam only had a crush on me because no one else gave him a chance. I used to think the intensity with which I would sometimes catch him staring at me was just him channeling all the emotion he couldn’t show anyone else. I don’t think that anymore.
    I stay still as his fingers dance across my chest. The shower is barely trickling