I ran my fingers through his dark waves that softly framed his face, curling slightly around his well-defined jaw that was set in his characteristic half-smile. Gently I leaned down and kissed his lips, which were slightly chapped from jogging every morning in the cold weather.

“Do you think this is wrong…you know, us?” I mused, letting my head sink into the pillows. He closed his eyes for a moment and then sighed. I didn’t really know what to make of that so I closed my eyes too and waited in the awkward silence. It was a few minutes before I felt a hand with coarse but not harsh fingers brush a twist of golden hair off of my sweaty cheek, flushed from our passions beforehand.

“We’re not wrong, how could you think something that feels so perfect is wrong?” His voice was low and smooth, never failing to render me helpless to his words, complete with goose bumps on my body every time he spoke.

“I just mean… I mean…” My heart pounded as I struggled to vocalize exactly what we both already fully knew. Somehow I felt that it made it worse to actually speak aloud our sinful relation. Lightly he pressed his fingers to my red lips and I relaxed, melting at his touch. I shifted my weight so I was facing him, propped up on one elbow. The red sheets hung loosely around my body and I knew my long hair was probably disheveled beyond repair. The sweet scent of his body hung in the air, mixed with that cologne he always wore for occasions like this because he knows it’s my favorite.

One strong hand moved to cup my face, his muscular forearms flexing considerably. “Don’t you worry about it. I’ll worry about it…but not you, please don‘t,” he whispered, drawing me closer and lightly kissing my forehead. My body went limp as I was once again drawn into the web that was his remarkable being. I still found it amazing that my body fit so perfectly with his. If I was a religious girl I would be convinced that the spot between his neck and broad shoulders was designed by God himself for my head and my head only to rest so seamlessly.

My hand wandered over his flat stomach, caressing the form that my fingers had by now memorized in sheer adoration, kissing his neck lightly, feeling the contentment inside myself stretch to its limits until I felt I would burst. I felt his body relax as he held me a bit tighter and ran his fingers lovingly about the small of my back. This was so perfect, and yet so flawed. So very, very flawed.

Lazily I looked about the room at the strands of weak sunlight filtering through the blinds of the hotel room and suddenly I was filled with sadness. The color was becoming increasingly more golden, and fell upon a ring of a similar shade on the nightstand that fit certain fingers caressing me, though the ring was a promise to somebody else. A glance at the alarm clock beside us read 6:00 am, and I knew it was time to leave.

Pulling myself up from his warm embrace I turned away to hide my expression. But he knew what my visage held nonetheless, and even without looking at his, I knew his face mirrored my own. Silently I picked my clothes up off the floor and slipped back into them, the scent of my perfume from the night before slightly stale, an obvious sign of its cheapness. (Was I cheap as well?) In the background I could hear him pick his ring up from the nightstand and I imagined him putting it back on, it burning his skin until it left singed flesh where only love should have been.

I looked into the mirror and pulled my hair back, watching his reflection pull his shirt on and give me a sad, but knowing smile. I couldn’t bring myself to return it, though I wanted to, badly. Instead I averted my gaze.

Finally it was time for us to leave, and we stood facing each other, I staring at my shoes and him boring a hole into the top of my head with those green eyes that first captured my attention. I couldn’t say bye. We had been through this same scenario too many times for me to count, and each time, goodbye was the hardest. Hello was enthralling, being around each other was electric…yet saying goodbye was as black as the forbidden indulgence would seem to anyone who found out. Instead of saying goodbye, I latched onto him in a light hug and kissed his lips, leaning on tiptoe. I hoped he wouldn’t say anything either, just kiss me back. It would make for perhaps a less awkward situation later.

But instead he moved his lips to my ear and said, “I really do care about you. I don’t care what the circumstances are, or what others would say if they found out: that I’m using you. Because I’m not. We’re more than that… I need you to know that.” My lower lip trembled as I pulled away and nodded gently and turned my back as a tear rolled down my cheek.

“I’ve got to get to school,” I said, my voice quavering as I steadied my shaking slight frame against the doorknob as I turned it to leave.

“Me too,” he said, and I wished he didn’t. My stomach knotted for what came next. “Don’t worry about your homework assignment, I know you didn’t have time to do it.” My heart felt like jumping out of my throat as I walked out of the hotel room and away from my history teacher.