The answer - as good as permission - shot her through with fierce longing. She sucked in another breath and nodded, then nodded again. Her expression hadn't changed, but when she stepped back to him again, it was faster than she'd intended. Her hands ghosted across his stomach and up to his chest. His skin had cooled from before. She remembered how he felt - hard muscle, smooth marble skin, like nothing else she'd ever touched.
Unlike any other time, she didn't hesitate or laugh or rush. She was cool and methodical, or at least it seemed on the surface. She mapped out the frame she'd secretly held in her memory for a long, long time. Part of her felt like she was living a fantasy - like none of this could be real. She'd given up on the possibility of ever doing this again, and to be here now, with her fingers counting each rib, with her palms against the ridged plane of his stomach, she found herself detaching completely from the experience. Rising above herself. Examining it as a hawk might, from far above. Trying to understand it.
This should be impossible. He should be impossible.
By degrees, the coolness around her began to thaw. She wanted. She wanted so intensely, it was almost a need. Her bones ached, and her muscles were screaming, and when she finally (finally, finally) set her lips against his chest - her fingertips resting against his back, holding to him delicately - she didn't succeed in strangling the tiny, desperate sound in the back of her throat. She wasn't shaking, not physically, but her heart was shuddering from the closeness.