Just then, steps pause outside Nomi’s open bedroom door. “Hey, cuz? We’re heading out, you need a—HEYOOO!” Marco’s eyebrows meet his gelled-back bangs as he sees me on my back, Nomi straddling my lap, and the giant vibrator buzzing in our joined grip. His hands shoot into the air. “Excuse me! Didnotmean to disturb youse!”
“Marco!” Nomi shrieks, still fumbling to turn off the vibrator. “It’s not what it looks like!”
“PLEASE! As you were!” Marco flashes me a huge wink and closes the door, through which I can hear his muffled announcement: “The hostess has retired for the evening. Let no man, woman, or nonbinary individual disturb this room!”
Fuck, Marco is cool. How did I not realize this before?
My eyes return to Nomi’s, and I see the happy confusion I’m feeling staring back at me.
“You remember?” she asks breathlessly. “The song that played when we first held hands?” Her cheeks are flushed a pretty pink from our wrestling, and her bottom lip, so pouty and full, is partially hidden where she’s biting it in. The flush carries down her neck, across her collarbone, down the tops of her round breasts brimming the low neckline of her dress.
“I remember everything.” My confession leads to a sharp intake of her breath. Both of her hands are clasped around my one, over my head, and my one free arm longs to caress the arch of her back, dig my fingers into her hip, and grind her against me. My arm actually flops a bit at my side, like it wants to but can’t.
Concerning, really. I’d be more worried, but shooting stars explode at every point of contact between us, and I’m too dazzled by the sensation to think of anything else.
She shifts against me to steal her vibrator back, but the movement puts the apex of her thighs directly against the massive erection throbbing beneath these summer-weight chinos. Her eyes flutter shut, and forget it, I was practically flaccid before compared to the column of rock slotted against her now.
“Oh, God, I’mStonehenge,” I murmur, dazed with excruciating pleasure. “The balance beam, and you’re my gymnast.”
Nomi blinks dreamily down at me. “What?”
“Can I kiss you?” I let go of the vibrator to run my good hand down the side of her face, fingers dipping into her long waves. “Please, Nomi? Oh, God,please?” I’m begging, and I don’t even care, I’ve never wanted anything more. I murmurpleaseover and over again as her beautiful, confused face draws closer, giving us both time to avert this kiss before it happens. I’m still begging when her full mouth drops lightly onto mine, and a seismic shift upends my entire world. Land torn apart, then crushed together anew, all the continents of who I am reborn under one new flag, ruled by a new empire—Nomi.
My fingers find the back of her head, the curve of her neck, and the kiss opens up, deepens, expands until it’s all consuming, open ocean, no land in sight. The feel of her small body lying on top of mine is the most comprehensive pressure I’ve ever experienced, calming me, grounding me, the spiraling tentacles of my ever-reaching anxiety receding into my body quick and vicious, like one of those stressful tape measures handy types use. The soft wet of her mouth sliding against mine makes my cock ache and strain, and she’s begun to rock gently against it. I groan into her, pulling her tightly into me, and a sigh of pleasure escapes her lips before we crush together again. Our mingled breath fogs the lenses of my glasses, but I can’t stop staring at her face as it slides through expressions of longing and pleasure, like I’m watching her get off behind the steamed glass of a shower.
Oh,God, Nomi in a fuckingshower?? My good hand slides from her head down the arch of her spine, resting in the curve there, until she grabs my hand and drags it lower, under her dress, and presses it against her ass. I grip her, feeling madness at the information my fingers send to my brain, the rounded wedge of flesh between panty and leg visible in my mind as I anchor her to me, turning her gentle rocking into a rough, grinding punishment that I’ll crave now for the rest of my life.
“Nomi,” I moan, my voice cracking, loud enough that everything stops.
Nomi’s eyes open. She blinks down at me and gasps, seeming to rememberit’s a’ me, Julian!cue Mario Bros music. In one heartbreaking instant, she scrambles up my torso, grabs the vibrator, and rolls off, leaving us both panting on our backs, lying side by side. The whole interlude felt like hours, but in reality, was probably less than a minute. Only one minute of kissing her—that’s all I get? I want tocry.
Oh, shit. I can see my hard-on without lifting my head.
My eyes shift to her just as her eyes shift tome, down there, then seesmeseeingherseeit.
“Oh my God.” She covers her face with both hands. “What were we thinking?!”
“That that was amazing?” I roll onto my side, staring at her in bleary-eyed wonder. “That that felt better than anything I’ve ever experienced?”
Nomi shoots up to sitting. “It’s the pot’s fault. Some kinds make people horny, that’s all.”
“It does?”
“Yes. Does your body feel, um—” she pauses to swallow, “extra sensitive to touch right now?”
I nod vigorously.
“Well, that’s why,” she says, her voice strangely high-pitched. “Nothing to do with us or our feelings whatsoever.” She pulls her dress’s hemdown, then lurches to standing, grabbing all the hastily dropped first-aid supplies and depositing them on the bed. Then, she throws a towel at me, a T-shirt, and after a beat of digging around her drawers, a pair of sweatpants, too. “You should shower to clean off all those cuts, then you can put those on, we’ll eat, and I’ll call you a Lyft home.”
I feel strangely evicted from our kiss, hurt in a way I can’t explain. “It was just the pot?” I repeat, frowning as I try to process this. “But it felt so real.”
Nomi, hearing the hurt in my voice, sits back down and awkwardly pats my leg. “Yeah. But it’s okay. Sometimes cannabis makes you chase pleasure, that’s all. I promise you, tomorrow you’ll realize what a crazy idea kissing each other is, and you’ll understand.” Her eyes dart toward my massive erection, then back to mine as she quickly withdraws her hand. “Trust me, okay? You are very,verystoned right now, and I’ve been smoking, too.”
“Okay.” I yawn, my eyes feeling delightfully heavy, if sad. Since starting work at the ER, sleep has become a utilitarian act, devoid of any pleasure. Two hours here, five hours there. Maybe a full eight on a rare weekend off. My body is trained to fall asleep the second my eyes close, then wake up from a period of dreamless black, like a battery dinging when recharged. But right now, I feel like a cat languidly lying in a puddle of sunlight, eyes squeezed closed in little satisfied diagonals. I stretch luxuriously across Nomi’s down comforter.
“Yell if you need anything.” She eyes me suspiciously, then shuts the door, which is so weird because she immediately starts knocking on it again. “Julian? Are you decent?”
I blink at the door as she slowly opens it. She sighs, exasperated for some reason. “You didn’t shower yet?”
