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.”