I do as I’m told and as soon as her lips start grazing the column of my neck, my eyes close and a long and ragged exhale leaves my mouth. Her tongue darts out to caress my skin and I shudder, actually shudder. I can’t remember the last time somebody made me shudder during sex. Maybe nobody ever has. It’s a reaction I pride myself on eliciting from my partners, but I’d never wondered before if I was capable of responding to touch in that way.
But Maeve has just proved that I am.
“Don’t stop, Maeve,” I tell her and I move my wrist faster, squeezing my fingers around the head each time they reach the top.
She kisses a trail down one side of my neck.
“Your skin is so soft,” she says before she moves to do the same to the other side. “And you taste so sweet. Like maple syrup.”
Her words are so simple and so innocent and yet, again they have a great effect on me. An emotional effect. I have no idea why but I almost want to cry.
Maeve starts sucking on a spot on my neck and her hand makes a fist out of the material of my T-shirt, pulling it up, which I’m grateful for because I’m almost certain I’m going to come very soon.
“Maeve, are you sure you—”
“Yes, Loncey, yes,” she says into my neck and then she pulls up and says it again as we stare into each other’s eyes.
“I… I…” I try to tell her how I feel. I really, really do, but my orgasm is charging straight for me and it feels like I’m blacking out, losing control, coming undone. This doesn’t normally happen. Normally, I know and can predict every single millisecond of my climax but that feels impossible now. Everything feels impossible but surrendering myself to this moment and to Maeve who continues to look at me like I am the brightest star in the night sky.
“Come for me, Loncey,” she says and I hear the bravery in her voice. These are not words that Maeve says uncomplicatedly or effortlessly, and I love her for it.
I love her. I love Maeve.
I hold her gaze and I take my hand off my dick. Staring into her eyes, with what little consciousness I feel is left, I replay those words and I recall the touch of her lips to my neck. I watch her smile grow, and I come. It’s like a riptide pulling my body in every direction, and pleasure is in every stretch, every single millisecond of the pull. I shudder, I shake, I tremble and I shiver. And it doesn’t stop.
I come and I come and I come. I’m only aware of coming back to my body when I feel my dick twitch as it spurts and spills. It continues to jolts up and down, up and down until it’s spent which takes an unusually long time.
I don't know if my eyes are open or closed. I don't know if I keep looking at Maeve or not. I just know that I see stars. More stars than I've ever seen in my life.
It’s chaotic. It’s catastrophic. It’s completely out of my control.
Just like my love for her.
*****
I wake to the sound of my phone ringing. I can’t remember cleaning myself up but I can tell that I am clean. Maeve must have done it. I can’t remember stripping or brushing my teeth, but I hope I managed to do that myself. I definitely don’t remember climbing into bed, but somehow I’m here lying in just my boxers and getting woken up by the lilting melody of my ringtone and the buzzing of the device’s vibrations. Taking a moment to realize the light filling the room must mean it’s well into morning, I reach out for it with only one eye open. When I see whose number it is lighting up the screen, I sit and wake all the way up.
“Shit,” I say.
“Who is it?” Maeve asks as she comes to sit up too.
“Taylor and it’s late in Vegas. This can’t be good.”
Maeve’s hand lands on my arm.
“I’m here,” she says, and I finally feel brave enough to answer.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Maeve
It’s been years since I’d stepped foot in a hospital and now here I am in my second in a week. It just so happens this one is on the other side of the world compared to the first, and it’s for a very, very different reason.
Three days ago we’d been welcoming a new life into the world, albeit somewhat precariously and dramatically. Today… Today I’m sitting in another waiting room fearing the absolute worst.
A collapsed lung.
A collapsed lung sounds terrifying for anybody but for Jessica… I’m struggling to even process what that means to her. My limited knowledge of CF doesn’t help, but as I’d held Loncey’s hand on the overnight flight we took, it was clear their better understanding of the illness was no help or comfort. They were pale. They were silent. They were a million miles away. And yet, they weren’t completely. They stayed tethered to me. Theykept my hand in theirs. They stroked my skin with their thumb. And when they thought I was asleep, they kissed my forehead, my cheeks, my knuckles.
