The Magic Word

**This story is a little explicit. Don’t read it if you don’t want to think about sex.

It had been a beautiful night, and it was coming to an end. Jenny sat next to Lucas in the sand, close, her side tingling where it pressed against his.

“I’ve had a really nice time tonight,” she said.

Above them, a dark sky shifted behind darker palm trees. A strand of her ponytail blew past her lips.

“I have too,” said Lucas. His face was turned to look at her. Moonlight bounced off of the smooth ocean and jumped into his eyes. “I’d like to kiss you.”

Jenny was not surprised. The beach, the breeze, the moon, the trees. The excitement in the skin on her side grew and began to warm the rest of her body, her face. A mist of sweat joined the mist from the ocean on her brow. Kissing him would be nice, but so would stretching this moment out a little longer. It was her favorite moment, the one before a first kiss. The tension between two people at this moment felt like a substance that should be bottled up, sold for a thousand dollars per ounce. It hardly ever happened, only now, before a kiss. It might not ever be there again for her and Lucas. So she would wait.

“You would?” Jenny let her smile wander out towards the ocean.

“Yes. Wouldn’t you like to kiss me?” His face was closer now, and his arm was creeping around her shoulders, pulling her in.

“Well…why should we kiss? We’re already having such a nice time.”

“It could be nicer.” Now he was talking into her neck, his breath was on her neck. His nose, warm, was rubbing along her jaw line. If she turned her head just a little, their mouths would meet. The special moment, the moment of liquid tension suspended in a spot just below her belly button, had reached its crescendo and was almost gone. The ball had dropped. Now, that tension spread like honey and she began to ache, the ache of honey and honey eater at once. An ache in what she could only describe as her womb…she turned her face.

The first kiss was soft, as though they were passing a dandylion seed from lip to lip. They looked at each other. He seemed unbelievably happy, as though that kiss had affirmed everything he believed was good in the world. She was happy, too. This had been a wonderful night: dancing with friends, meeting this man, sitting on this beach. This kiss. It could all happen again. She could fill the summer with happy nights.

Their lips met again. This time, she let her mouth open a little to his. He mashed his mouth into hers, opening her more, the material soft but the action hard and urgent. He pulled her body to face his, his hand dropped to the waistband of her jeans, slipped around her thigh, up under her shirt.

And what was she doing? She was receiving it all, and letting her brain catch up, little by little.

By the time it caught up, Lucas’s hand had already dipped into her pants again, and now it was fumbling with the buttons of her fly. She grabbed his wrist and pulled it away, all while sustaining the kiss that had never stopped. With a little more force, he pushed his hand back, deeper into her pants. “Oh, you’re so wet…”

She pulled his hand out again and let him feel her smile with his mouth. They were playing a game! A game where she wouldn’t have to make a choice, and he wouldn’t feel rejected. They would both go home happy, and repeat the whole thing again tomorrow.

His fingers had finally gotten the buttons of jeans to release, and he was trying to pull them down. Sand caught in the fabric as she tried to pull them back up, and stuck to her skin. He caught her hand and held it, continuing to tug at her pants.

Jenny pulled away from the kiss. Leaning back from him, she looked at him, leaning in to her. His hand pressed hers into the sand, his face was flushed, excited, handsome, intoxicated by her. She wanted that look to last, if he looked at her again, she wanted it to be that way.

“I’ve had such a nice night…” the night swirled around them, intoxicating, flushed, particles of magic blowing through the fronds of the palm trees.  The word would kill the magic, the flush, the intoxication, the look. It would muddy everything.

Lucas’s was kissing her neck and then he was pushing her back, lying his full weight across her twisted legs. His hand was inside of her now. It had to stop, just this part, she didn’t want it. Yet. Maybe tomorrow, or later in the week, but not now. But the rest, his happy look, the quiet beach, their budding happiness, that she wanted to last, to keep going forever. The word would kill it all, both what she wanted and what she didn’t. He was pulling his own pants down, kneeing her legs to open wider.

Say the word.