lipstick

[merideath]

He sees her mark everywhere.

On the paper cup from Starbucks that holds some concoction of chocolate and peppermint syrup. On the pen he borrows from her desk as he goes into a meeting. A kiss on a cloth napkin. A smear on the corner of a file folder.

His file folder.

Little marks on paper and cloth. Pink, peach, plum and reds he doesn’t have a name for. The color of dark winter berries and cotton candy pink.

A kiss on his cheek he can’t bear to wash off.

He rubs his fingers through the slick of red war paint. He licks his fingers, tastes the wax of the lipstick and the crystals of sugar from the donut she had been tearing apart with her fingers. Nails painted a deeper red than the paint on her lips.

He’s been kissed before. Starlets, chorus girls, a Parisian whore once. His mind skirts away from the kisses that mattered. The kisses that set his blood alight and his heart beating fast. A lifetime ago.

An innocent kiss between friends.

He still feels the ghost her nails scraping the back of his neck as her lips pressed warm on his jaw.

He closes his eyes and imagines Darcy’s perfect lipstick smeared across her mouth from kissing her. Carmine lips trailing kisses over his heart and down his abdomen. His belly twists, heat crackles under his skin and jolts down his spine.

He’s been kissed before.

The red lipstick on his cheek, the slow smile that curved her lips, the flash of her tongue wetting her lips.

Her mark on his skin.

It’s not innocent at all.