Secondborn

His hands go to the hem of my shirt, peeling it away over my head, exposing my military-issue bra. Midnight-blue cotton covers my breasts, a light blue string cinching in a crisscross at my back. Hawthorne reaches around me and unties the lace. The string slips from my back. He keeps the ribbon, tucking it inside the pocket of his pajama bottoms.

I arch my brow.

“It has your scent,” he answers in a gruff voice. He leans his face nearer.

I tilt my lips up to meet his mouth. His kiss weakens my knees. He gathers me closer to him, and the warmth of his forearm against the small of my back is seductive. His fingertips move to my shoulder, sliding off the blue strap. He kisses my skin, and I shiver. An ache builds inside me. My hand slips to his back, feeling the play of his muscles beneath his smooth skin. The tips of my breasts rub his chest. An explosion of heat drenches me.

Hawthorne lifts me in his arms and presses my back against the wall. My legs wrap around his narrow waist. I feel the hard length of him against me. My mouth finds his again. He holds my bottom, his strong fingers digging into my flesh, his tongue caressing mine.

“I don’t want your first time to be in a shower closet,” he says.

“What does it matter where,” I whisper, “as long as it’s with you?”

“When I make love to you, Roselle, it’s going to take longer than a few minutes, and we’ll need protection. They’ll kill our baby and you, too, if you get pregnant. I’ll never let that happen.”

Being secondborn is a curse that never ends. “I hate them,” I hiss. “I hate them all.” Hawthorne sets me on my feet. I pick up my shirt and hold it to me. Angry tears threaten.

“Shh . . .” He embraces me again. “Don’t cry. It’s no good hating them. They can’t feel it, and it will only turn you bitter.”

“We need to change things.”

“We need to stay alive, Roselle. We can work around the rules and still be together. Let me show you.”

He takes my shirt and tosses it to the floor by the door. Blue light flashes from the scanner on the wall when he swipes his left hand beneath it. The showerhead turns on. Warm water soaks us both. A smile tugs at my lips. I look up at him. Water runs over his face and drips from his chin. He returns my smile, staring into my eyes. His hands cup my cheeks. His mouth finds mine again, kissing away everything awful about today.

I lean against him. Hawthorne’s hand strokes my wet hair. His steely muscles tense under my fingertips. I discover he’s a bit ticklish when my unhurt palm caresses his side. He chuckles, his lips grinning against mine. I feel his hands go lower, following my spine to the waistband of my pajama pants. His hand slips underneath the fabric—past my sturdy underwear—to my bare skin. He cups my bottom. I almost melt in his arms. My heart flutters wildly as he explores my body. Eternity wouldn’t be long enough to discover the vastness of him, but the seconds tick by. My fingers tangle in his wet hair. The water turns off. Hawthorne reaches over and swipes his moniker again. It turns back on.

“How did you do that?” I ask.

“I’m a higher rank than you. I get a longer shower.”

“That’s not fair,” I say breathlessly.

“Are you complaining?” he teases. “Because I could—”

Rising up on my tiptoes, I kiss him. His tongue strokes mine. He inches my pajamas down, and I step out of them.

I’m naked. With him.

I slide my hand inside his waistband, over the smooth skin of his backside, and his clothes pool with mine on the floor. He groans. “You’re so beautiful, Roselle.” Softly uttered, his words fill my head. Tender kisses fall on skin. Desire tears through me like fragments of an artillery shell. Its sharp shrapnel travels everywhere with devastating effect. The heat of it is almost too much to bear. “Terribly beautiful,” Hawthorne amends.

I’m inexplicably linked to this man, as if he owns pieces of me—shards of my heart. The intimacy existing between us was forged in battle and by circumstance, sealed by a searing need for something real to cling to in a world of disposable people. And I do cling to him, consumed by the upheaval of passion that he elicits in me as I learn his body and he, mine.

The water turns off again. Hawthorne hangs his head. “I’m out of shower credits for today.”

It’s difficult for me to let go of him, but I must. I move away to the shelf by the door. I take a towel from the small stack of them, wrapping it around me, and then I hand him one. “I’ll leave first, and then you,” I whisper.

“Wait!”

I turn back around.

Hawthorne takes a step to me and kisses me again. “I didn’t get to kiss you good-bye.”