My mouth moves over hers and she opens to me, soft and warm, taking my tongue, my sounds. I want to claw my way out of my skin and into hers somehow, in love, in desperation for more of this. I still don’t want to fuck again yet, but my body screams at my brain.
Her eyes come open and she smiles when she realizes I’ve been watching her as she kisses me.
“Can I . . . ?” she asks, lightly skirting her hand down my stomach. To my belt. I watch as she unfastens it, pushes it aside.
I let out a shaking “Yeah,” adding a very breathless “Yeah, okay.”
London laughs at my oddly desperate restraint, and I can’t blame her. But I mean, fuck. I don’t want to say no. I can’t say no. Not with her naked next to me. Not with the feel of her clenching still echoing down my fingers. If she doesn’t touch me, I’m just going to lock myself in the bathroom and jerk off.
She works the zipper down, watching her own hands coax the fabric of my dress pants open. It kills me, it really does. She pushes my pants down and I kick them off before returning to her. Her shoulder lifts and then pushes down as she digs into my boxers, finally looking up at my face. “Come here.”
She means the part of me she’s taking into her hand, the part she’s remembering with her fingertips. And fuck, I don’t know why it’s so hot that she’s said that, that she didn’t mean for me to come closer, to kiss her, but it is. It’s sweet, and reassuring, and sexy, and I want to let the words burst free—I fucking love you—because it’s exactly what I feel watching her do this, but it seems like the worst time to say it again.
It’s ironic, but I’m stubbornly monogamous, I realize this now. When I commit, I go deep, unable to even imagine letting someone do to me what London is doing now. She’s just touching my dick, but it’s hers. Every cell in my body belongs to her. Even the tiny image of Mia in my thoughts as I test out this impulse—the nanosecond flash of being with her instead of London right now—is wrong enough for me to want to drown it with the feel of London’s mouth on mine, the pleasure of soft, deep kisses as her hand moves up and down—at first reacquainting and then with intent: firmer, faster, her focus just where I need it. I moan into her mouth and she pulls back.
“That’s not fair!” she protests, laughing. “You don’t get to kiss—”
I cut her off with my mouth over hers again, lips fitting between, coaxing her open so I can lick at her, go deeper, feel like I’m inside her in every way I can be right now.
Because now I know why she wanted my mouth on hers when I touched her. There’s an ache in my chest, clawing its way up and out of me, needing to feel her deeper, to thank her or—fuck, I don’t know—show her what it feels like that she’s touching me like this, giving me this kind of pleasure. I rock into her hand, giving in and finally rolling on my side to face her, pulling her by the hip to face me and fucking her fist, reaching between us to lift her leg, pull it over my hip so I can touch her, too.
So wet.
I push a finger into her, stroking her, sucking and swallowing her noises and falling into the feel of her hand on my dick, her slick skin covering my hand.
It’s sex, but it’s not.
It’s sex, but it’s more.
There are so many ways to love this girl; good God, let me find each and every one of them.
London shifts against me, rocking, rubbing, getting there and she’s close—she’s holding her breath—and when I look at her I see her eyes on me, looking back and forth between my face and where her hand grips and I fuck into it and it’s almost like I can see her thoughts, see it telegraphed, how watching me come undone like this is going to send her falling along with me.
“Come on me?” she whispers.
It doesn’t take effort to get there. Fuck, I’ve been holding it back since the beginning of time—at least that’s what my body is screaming. I cut the control, letting it overtake me, fucking hard and fast three, four, five more times into her fist and then everything is warm, shooting down my back, out of me, onto her. On her stomach, her hand. Over her breasts, on her arm. She stares, eyes wide, mouth opening slowly more and more until she’s crying out, riding my hand, head falling back as she comes with a staccato of sharp, relieved cries.
She goes quiet, breaths heaving as she lets her head rock forward and rest against my shoulder.
“We’re really good at that,” she whispers, and then laughs before kissing the center of my chest.
I know we’ve just finished a round, but I can’t imagine ever being done with her.
My hand moves carefully back and forth between her legs and she whimpers a little, rocking into my palm.
“Are you sore?” I ask.
I feel her hair brush against my ribs when she shakes her head no.
“London?”
“Hmm?” she hums.
I stroke my middle finger across her clit. “I really want to kiss you here.”
She arches into me, holding me closer and sliding her hands up and around my neck so she can kiss me.
So she can keep me from crawling down her body and putting my mouth on her.
“You don’t like it?” I ask against her lips.
“I like it too much,” she whispers. “I’d like it the most of anything I think you could do to me.”
I pull back, the question then why won’t you let me? perched on my tongue.
But she speaks first, whispering, “I can’t give my heart away all at once. I want to. But I can’t.”
I kiss her, and hold there while something tight works its way past my throat. “Okay.”
Her blue eyes are trained on my face. “To me, that’s the most intimate thing anyone can do.”
Nodding, I tell her, “I agree, actually.” Moving my hand up her body, I circle my wet finger around her nipple and then bend to suck her into my mouth.
It’s a mistake.
I can taste her, and already, only minutes after I’ve come on her skin, I want her again.
She feels me stir, rolling to face me and reaching for me. “But we’ve already had sex . . .” Looking up at my face, she says, “I don’t know why we aren’t doing that right now.”
I groan, watching her stroke me, feeling emotion tighten my breaths. “I just need to know it’s different.”
“You seem to feel different,” she whispers. “At least that’s what you said.”
“I mean . . . I need it to be different for you.”
London kisses me then, a slow, exploring kiss that makes my brain unravel.
She doesn’t move to climb on me, or pull me onto her, and this silent admission that she’s heard me and won’t push it is both a comfort and torture.
* * *
I FEEL DRUGGED, pulled up from somewhere low and heavy.
Her hands are on me, frantic and insistent. Pulling me over her, scratching down my back. I feel her, wet against me. The warmth of thighs around my hips. The suction of kisses on my neck.
The slick heat of her.
She gasps.
Yes.
Luke, yes.
I’m dreaming—at least I think I am until the sharp sting of her teeth on my shoulder jolts me fully awake and I realize I’m starting to push inside.
Beneath me she’s gasping tightly, asking me to move into her, to be deeper.
I’m so groggy. Her hands are on my face, pulling me close.
“Please. Luke.”
“Holy shit.” It’s all I can say, all I can think as my vision clears and I sink in. “Did you wake me up?”
London giggles and the sound is hoarse from sleep. She runs her hands down my back to my ass. “I don’t know.” Between breaths she adds, “I woke up.” She sucks in a breath, and her thighs come around my hips. “I kissed you.” London arches her neck, moaning when I pull out and slowly push back in. “And you were warm and smelled so good.”
I groan, rocking into her.
“And then you were . . .” she says, gasping, “you were so hard, and you rolled on top of me. I tho
ught you were awake.”
She’s soft and warm, wet all around me, her limbs slow with sleep. I’m groggy, aware of how smooth my sheets are, how desperate she seems when she slides her teeth down my neck. I’m aware of her sleepy, sucking kisses, the wet slide of her all along my cock. London rocks up when I push in and we’re moving together in this easy, grinding tandem,
so good,
so fucking perfect.
I groan, kissing her through all of it, deep, licking kisses, sucking on her lips, her chin. And fuck, we’re noisy together, talking through it all.
It’s good, she says.
So fucking good, I agree.
She asks me why on earth I wanted to wait.
And I bite her gently, admitting in a murmur that I wanted to savor her. Admitting I wanted to treat it like something special.
But she tells me it’s already special; says it like it’s obvious.
And don’t stop, Luke.
Don’t stop.
I’m fucking smiling, pressing my face into her neck, and I can’t stop the relieved laugh that escapes. I forgot how it feels, how insanely different it is to make love, not just hook up or get off. It isn’t two bodies coming into contact for pleasure alone. It’s the weird sense of getting inside that person, turning sex into a fucking revelation.
But pulling back and looking into her eyes, I know I’ve never had this before, this sort of unspoken understanding of what’s happening. Her whispered words are only an inch from my lips. I feel so bare while she watches my face as I move in her. I was too young with Mia to experience this, and too detached after.
It’s so good
Luke
It’s so good
Oh my God, Luke
she keeps saying over and over, looking right into my eyes, and she could say it a hundred times and the sound of it would never get old. It’s hoarse, her voice. Hoarse and pleading, and yes it’s good but it could be better and I know it can be. I know it will be over time, and holy fuck, I can feel it when she starts to come, the way her skin gets hot and her muscles tense, the way she goes still, holds her breath and then it’s like a cascade of tiny explosions go off inside her and she’s arching, crying out, scratching her short nails down my back.
I bend and fall into my quiet mind and my frantic body, feeling the perfect heat of her tongue, sliding over and around mine. Feeling her pleasure through the vibrating moans. Feeling my body get warmer, tighter, until that relief is building low in my back and taking over every thought. Just the relief of it, the fucking joy of being with her like this.
I come with a groan, so deep in her, arching away and I can feel her eyes on me, sleepy and proud. Her hands slide over my chest and back down over my abs until her arms wrap around my waist, holding me over her.
Keeping me inside her.
The thought tickles in the back of my mind: I came inside her.
“London, I’m not wearing anything.”
She turns her face into my neck, kissing. “I’m on the pill.”
It’s a relief, but I’m still uneasy with the need to reassure her. “I was just tested—”
“Shh,” she says, nuzzling her face into my skin. “You wouldn’t have done that with me if you weren’t safe.”
She’s right, but I still feel a little off-balance as the connection I felt with her evaporates slowly as she falls asleep, when she won’t talk to me more about what we just did. It feels monumental to me—I’m reeling from the emotion of it—and I’m still inside her. I want to press her, ask her if there is an Us now, if she really trusts me as much as this means she does. But her breaths even out, and she goes still beneath me.
* * *
I PULL OUT several minutes later, only when I’m pretty sure it won’t wake her. Kneeling between her legs, I stare down at her body. Her hair is a mess, lips pressed lightly together. Her pulse is a rhythmic beating shadow in her neck; her chest rises and falls with her steady breaths. I look lower, to her spread thighs, her skin naked and smooth and flawless.
I’m in love with her body, in love with her mind.
I can’t give my heart away all at once.
I want to. But I can’t.
And then we had sex without any other words of reciprocation on her part. No admission that she wants more with me, no real reassurance that she’s giving me any of her heart, let alone all of it . . . and it stings. I realize that it was spontaneous middle-of-the-night sex, and we were more animal instinct than conscious thought, but it still makes me uneasy.
Climbing out of bed, I pull on boxers, shuffle down the hall and into the kitchen, and run straight into my sister.
She looks haggard, in pajamas, with a face that tells me she hasn’t been sleeping.
And then the two pieces connect and I realize why she hasn’t been sleeping. My stomach drops out and I nearly vomit. “Oh, God.”
Margot nods. “Yeah.”
Suddenly very aware of my mostly naked body, I’m relieved that at least I put on underwear. “I didn’t know you were staying here tonight.”
She slumps against the counter. “The roommate—enjoy the humor here—had the girlfriend over and they were being very loud.”
I scrub my face with a hand. “Fuck. I’m sorry.”
Margot shakes her head. “Part of me wants to congratulate whoever is in there because that certainly sounded great.”
“Margot. Gross.”
She straightens, pushing past me and opening the cupboard for a glass. “I thought you weren’t hooking up with random girls anymore?”
“Not that it’s your business,” I say, stealing the glass from her and filling it with water. “But London’s in there.”
Her eyes go wide and she considers this for a few seconds in silence before shaking her head and shivering. “I’d be happy for you if I wasn’t still traumatized.” She looks me over. “I mean, gross, Luke. You’re still sweaty.”
“And now we’re both traumatized.” I gulp down the water. “Seriously, though. You don’t even live here anymore.”
Pushing herself up to sit on the counter, she’s now close to eye level with me, and studies me closely. “You look stressed considering . . .”
I don’t really know what to say. If you’d asked me earlier in the day how I wanted today to end, I would have said, “London in my bed” without hesitation. But now I’m just not sure what it means that she’s in my bed.
I want it to mean something.
“It’s nothing,” I say, and when Margot makes an annoyed face, I add, “I worry she’s not really taking this as seriously as I am.”
My sister looks toward the heavens. “Let me enjoy the irony of this for a second.” She inhales deeply, and then exhales. “Man, that’s great.”
Anger rises inside me. “Margot, are you shitting me right now?”
She looks genuinely confused. “Yes? I think so?”
“If I gave you crap for hooking up with however many women you want, you would tear me a new one. If you slept with a different one every night, you would expect me to pat you on the back and tell you I think your commitment to your sexuality is admirable.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to have opinions on my sexuality,” she deadpans.
“Fine, but you’d expect me to accept it, and not judge you.”
She allows this with a tiny nod.
“So why is it different for me?” I ask. “Why can’t I have had some wild oats, and then fall in love without it being ironic when I worry she doesn’t have the same feelings for me?”
“Love?” she repeats, eyes wide.
“Yeah,” I say finally.
Dropping her head, she stares at the floor for several breaths before mumbling, “Wow. Sorry, you’re right. I am happy for you. I’m just tired and grossed out.”
I lean forward and kiss the top of her head. “We’re sleeping now. We’ll be quiet.”
Turning, I walk back down the hall to my bedroom. London is sitting in the middle of the bed, covers
pulled over her lap.
I climb under the sheets and try to coax her down beside me but she resists.
“Was there a girl here?” she asks.
Fuck. She heard our voices. Of course she would be suspicious. And fuck. So much for trusting me.
“It’s just Margot,” I assure her. “I didn’t know she was staying here tonight.”
London exhales, nodding, and then lies back down, curling into me.
I know I should be reassured by how easily she melts into my side, by the tiny, sleepy kisses she trails up my neck to my mouth—and I am. But none of this is as easy as I expected it to be when she finally came around. I still have so much trust to build, and London still has so much trust to give me.
Chapter FIFTEEN
London
I WAKE WITH A blanket over my head and a naked chest pressed to my back, bare hips and thighs curled all along mine. My stomach and legs protest at the slightest movement, and I have to stifle a groan as I sit up, carefully extracting myself from the tangle of sheets that seem to barely cling to the bed.
I feel gross: sweaty from exertion and spending the night wrapped around another human being, and sticky from . . . other things.
It’s too early to be up but I need a shower. Luke has barely moved and I tiptoe across the floor and out of his room, down the hall toward the bathroom.
The door closes with a soft click behind me and it feels like I can finally breathe again. Though even that hurts a little, too. I remind myself to congratulate Luke on a job well done . . . later.
The bathroom is large for such a small house—definitely remodeled—and I’m so anxious to clean myself up that I ignore the chilly morning air and jump beneath the spray before it’s even had a chance to heat up.
“Shit,” I squeak, bracing myself against the tile and then melting as the water starts to warm. The last time I was here Luke washed my hair. I think about that as I reach for the same bottle, the scent of his shampoo mixing with steam to fill the shower.
I realize now that that day is when my plan first derailed. I’d tucked Luke into a nice little box, labeled him and written him off as a good time, and thought that was it. He was fun, a way to scratch an itch, but nothing more.