Moments in Time: Suprasternal

He never knew what made him do it. Whether an impulse of the heart or lack of judgment. A moment of courage or sheer idiocy. He stepped off the edge of himself, stepped over a line they’d never discussed, let alone ventured near. Stepped into her space and put his hand on her. He set it gently in the curve between her neck and shoulder, her clavicle bone straight across his palm.

Her chin came up slightly, and he saw how the tendons in her neck fluttered around the hollow at the base of her throat. He watched as his thumb moved across her skin and settled into that warm, enticing notch. It fit him perfectly, the depression in her flesh adhering to the arc of his fingertip as if one had been created expressly for the other.

She laid her hand on top of his wrist and they stood there, in a room suddenly devoid of oxygen, both pulling in breath after labored breath.

“I want to kiss you badly.” His voice trembled, the words thick and weighted in his mouth. His thumb moved out of the hollow of her throat, and then back in.

Her eyes closed, she wrinkled her delicate brows. Then her forehead smoothed, as if she had worked out the solution to a problem. “No,” she said. “You want to kiss me well, you just want it badly.”

photo credit: Daniela Vladimirova
via Creative Commons