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 thought 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.”