Rosethorn by Ava Zavora

muffle her small shriek. She scrabbled off her desk and watched as Andrew pulled himself up, grimacing as he did so. He drew up his body, grunting a little, then awkwardly, noisily pulled in his long legs.
    “Shhh!" Sera held her finger to her lips. He was too large, too noisy in her silent house. He dwarfed everything in her room.
    As he got off her desk, his foot caught the lamp cord, and the lamp fell sideways, making a loud noise. Sera rushed to the lamp before it could fall off the desk, but Andrew had caught her in his arms and his lips were on hers, softly, insistently parting her. His mouth was moist and warm and he smelled of the night air.
    She was aflame, she was melting, she dissolved.  Her senses were enslaved by this one long, deep, and burning kiss.
    When he drew his lips away, hers followed.
    “I’ve waited longer than two weeks to kiss you and, no, I couldn’t wait another night,” he murmured before finding her again in the dark.
    Still kissing, unable to stop, they fell onto her bed.
    Could it be that this world of moist heat, tangled lips and tongues and mingled breaths, of being so close to someone that you could hear his heart beat had existed all along and she had never known it?  Was it hours or just moments that they kissed, she couldn’t know. She never wanted it to end.
    She could feel his chest through the thin fabric of her shirt, the roughness of his jeans on her bare legs. She never wanted to move from bearing the weight of his body on hers.
    He raised his head.
    “What is it ?” she whispered, still ravenous.
    He was looking at her, his hands on either side of her face, searching her eyes and lips, her hair fanned out on her pillow, over the edge of the bed. The moon shone full through her window, its light making his eyes mysterious and intimate. Far from satisfaction, her ache for him only grew sharper.
    He buried his face in her hair, groaning softly.
    “Why’d you stop?”
    “I have to stop now, because I don’t think I’ll be able to stop if we keep going.”
    “Is that a riddle?"
    Andrew laughed.
    Sera quickly put a hand on his mouth.
    “Shh!  You’ll wake my grandmother!”
    “I should leave.”
    “No!” Sera put a hand on her own mouth. “No,” she said more quietly. “Don’t leave." She wrapped her legs around his waist tightly as her arms snaked around his neck. “I won’t let you.”
    “Christ, Sera, don’t do that." Andrew started to get up, taking her arms off his neck and pushing up from the circle of her legs.
    “Was I doing it wrong?"
    “Oh, no, no. No." He sat on the edge of the bed, his hand in his mouth. “I just didn’t know it would be so...hard ,” he chuckled.
    “Don’t you want to kiss me anymore?"
    He looked at her, his eyes flashing, “God, yes." She took his hand and pulled him to her.
    “Then kiss me until I fall asleep."
    “How about if I hold you, like this?" Andrew lay sideways and cradled Sera in the crook of his arm. She snuggled next to him and closed her eyes.
    “As long as you don’t leave.”
    “But I have to go home sometime. I snuck out,” He whispered as he stroked her hair.
    She traced the curve of his Adam’s apple, the length of his jaw, and rested her finger on his lips. His eyes, his face, the pale hair on his tanned arms, the bristly softness of his newly shorn head, the hard square of his shoulders.  His whole body underneath his clothes was a foreign land she was aching to explore. “What have you done to me?"
    He lowered his head, his mouth on her neck. “You’re all I think about. I can’t breathe without you in my head, my body, everywhere, even when I close my eyes, you’re there..." Sera arched her neck and moaned, feeling as if every inch of her skin was begging to be touched by those lips.
    Unable to stand it any longer, she found his mouth and pushed herself against him, wanting to devour him and, in turn, be devoured by him. She was falling, falling, falling...
    He raised his head and