Ro held my hands over my head, and ran his lips along my skin, his thrusts slow rolls. “Bouncy Top 40. The infectious kind that you find yourself humming all day.”
I wrapped my legs around him, drawing him in even tighter. I’d spent so long convincing myself I didn’t want this connection, this attachment, and I’d been right. Wanting meant craving something that could be taken away without catastrophe, like candy or alcohol, something you liked, something that maybe even had its hooks in you, but that ultimately, you could survive without.
I could not survive without this.
“I think we’re both music,” I said. “We’re like two different parts of the same piece: separately we’re cool and interesting, but together we’re transformative.”
“God, Nava.” His eyes blazed molten gold. “I meant it. You’ve slain me. I–” Rohan shuddered and came, his face twisting in ecstasy and his fingers clutching mine.
My orgasm slammed me sharp and hard and bright, sparks erupting off my skin to singe the blanket.
Rohan watched me with those expressive fucking eyes of his and chasing hard on the heels of my dreamy flying state, came the sensation that I was unbound. Unmoored. My entire being undone for him.
I buried my face in his neck, light-headed and shaking, like a butterfly had been trapped in my chest, its wings madly fluttering, except it had just revealed that it was really a pterodactyl, its teeth bared.
Rohan gathered me into his arms, wrapping himself around me, and pulling the blankets half over us while he stroked my hair, whispering how incredible I was. My breathing slowed. Every heartbeat drove me closer to him.
Rohan kissed my eyelids. “How are you?”
Threadbare, I could only nod, unable to speak in the wake of these emotions breaking wide-open inside me.
He didn’t let go of me and I was grateful, letting myself succumb to his embrace. “It’s intense,” he said.
Understatement. My eyes hadn’t fully slid back into focus yet and my soul ached. Roleplaying was supposed to be an escape from all these feelings, not something that made me feel them even more. Not something that forced me to tell the truth to myself when I wanted to pretend.
I tried to get up, but my arms wouldn’t support me.
Rohan kissed me, slow and sweet. “Stay there. Let me take care of you.” He wiped me down with a warm washcloth. “Are you dehydrated? Do you want water?”
“Juice box. In my purse.” I motioned with a shaky hand.
“Someone came prepared.” He pulled the straw free with a crinkle of plastic and punctured the top.
“Ms. Clara was very thorough about what I could expect.” I sucked about half the juice back in one go.
Rohan winced, blushing. He sat naked and cross-legged on the bed and massaged my leg. “You told Ms. Clara?”
“Are you embarrassed? That’s adorable. Of course I told Ms. Clara. I needed to talk to someone about this.”
“It was good? For your first time?”
“It was perfect.” I smiled. “If I’d known I was going to get a spa treatment after, I might have signed on for this faster.”
“Think we can do that again sometime?” He said it with a studied casualness, pressing his thumb into the arch of my foot.
I flexed my toes against his hand. “Next time you’re paying for the outfit.”
Ro grinned down at me. “Do I get to pick the toys, too?”
“We’ll see. I’ll have to run your suggestions past my sex mentor. See if she thinks it’s a good fit.”
The full-body massage he gave me left me boneless. When he finished, he kissed the precise spot at the corner of my mouth to send shivers through my body. “Do you want a shower?” he said.
“If you’ll help me. Buddy system and conserving water and all.”
“We gotta do our part for the environment.”
“That we do.” And we did, though there was no more sexytimes. Both of us were too exhausted and shower sex sucked. Rohan lathered me up, letting me close my eyes as he massaged my scalp. Kissing me pressed against the tiles, his fingers laced with mine until the hot spray finished, and believe me, it took a long time in a hotel to make the water turn cold. The walls ran with rivulets of water, the bathroom now a steam room, but all that, including my pruney fingers, was worth it.
I dried off, wrapping a towel around my head and slipping into underwear and one of Ro’s T-shirts. I felt light as air and so very, very happy. Giddy even. I bounced on the bed. “Can I have room service?”
Rohan towel dried his hair. “Baby, you can have whatever you want.”
I kept bouncing. This mattress was pretty great. “Oh yeah? Will you get me a pony?”
“And rent a stable to keep it in. You gotta be practical when it comes to equine care, Sparky.”
I laughed. I didn’t care about Ro’s money, but after the past few days, silly teasing was a welcome relief. “Will you get me gadozens of fancy purses?”
“Gadozens?”
“A gazillion dozens.” Bounce. Bounce.
“A gadozen gadozens.” He pitched the damp towel into the bathroom and grabbed the boxers I’d brought for him.
“Will you take me to Paris for dessert?” Rohan stilled. I hadn’t meant to say that, especially since I only knew about this part of his romantic history because I’d been eavesdropping. Except, I guess I had meant to say it, to let Rohan know that I knew about the lengths he went to for Lily. I didn’t like that about myself. I didn’t want to be the girlfriend threatened by his past.
“Cheeseburgers,” I said gaily, to cover the impending awkward silence. I hopped off the bed, picked up the receiver, and hit the room service button. I ordered for both of us, then stared at the phone, wondering who else I could call so I wouldn’t have to deal with the loaded tension.
He wrapped his arms around me. “Do you want dessert in Paris, Sparky? You can have it.”
“I don’t. Not really.” I turned in his embrace and raked his damp strands of hair out of his eyes.
“I gave Lily that, but I never fully gave her myself. Not like I do with you.”
“It’s fine, honestly. I mean, Cole never had me like this, either.” I snapped my lips together against that final truth that had just slipped out.
“Phrasing,” Ro snickered.
I rolled my eyes, but I was secretly thankful to put things on a more lighthearted track.
Half an hour later, we were eating cheeseburgers in our underwear and T-shirts, watching an old Fugue State Five documentary that Ro had bitched about putting on. The mattress dipped under his weight as he returned to the bed and tossed me one of the two tiny bottles of Scotch he’d liberated from the mini bar.
“You’re one classy motherfucker, Mitra.”
“Right? L’chaim.”
We lifted our bottles in unison and clinked them. I shot back a hefty swallow, clenching my jaw against the burn.
“Cheeseburgers after bondage are the best.” I couldn’t shovel in the food in fast enough.
He licked ketchup off the corner of my lip. “Agreed.” He grimaced, watching his younger self talk at length about the poetry of his lyrics. “Please shut this off. It’s painful.”