“Going somewhere?” he asks. The grin on his face is familiar, one I know well. It says we’re in on the same secret, that there’s something going on here only the two of us could understand. Something about it emboldens me.
“I don’t know,” I say, squarely in front of his door. “Are you?”
He pretends to frown, thinking. “Thought I heard something in the area of your room.”
“Funny,” I say. “I swear it came from your room.”
He drops his arm, steps close enough to me that I have to tilt my head just a little to look fully at him. Still, he doesn’t touch me. “Heard there’s a party on the beach,” he says.
“Mmm-hmm,” I say, nodding. “Heard there’s something better going on in here.”
This is the piece we’re good at, I know. The flirting, the banter, the lead-up, and what comes after. And my rationalbrain knows it’s a bad idea, but my animal brain gets one whiff of Everett and all logic switches off. Moves my hand so my fingers graze against his, flicks my eyes over his shoulder, lets him pull me into his room and lean me against the door, smiling up at him until he kisses me again.
There’s still some small voice listing all the reasons this is a bad idea in my head, but it’s muffled, drowned out by our bodies pressing together, Everett’s hands gathering mine and pinning them above my head, skimming back down until they land on my hips.
“I hated thinking about you at lunch with him today,” Everett says when he dips his mouth to my neck, breath warm against my skin. “I didn’t go into town with everyone else, because I was losing my mind every second you were gone.”
“I hated being there,” I admit, the words rushing out of me before I can think about it. I arch against Everett as his hand falls to my ass, pressing me closer to him. “I wanted to be with you.”
“Then be with me,” Everett says, voice vibrating against my skin. “I’ll come to San Francisco.”
His grip on me tightens. Even if what he’s saying is impossible, it has me swimming in memory, things I’ve been denying for years now, like how we seem to notch perfectly together, or how every single one of my sighs is swallowed up by him like something rare to be collected. Our kiss in the kitchen was a frantic rush to fit something in before we were caught. But this is slow and heady, hands taking their time exploring and any gaps between us slowly filling in, a sort of melding together.
Instead of answering him, I kiss him again, roll my hips against his and revel in the rough sound he makes.
“You used to be such a T-shirt man,” I say, looking down at the button I’m fumbling with until I get it. “You never used to wear shirts like this.”
“You never wore a dress like this,” Everett says, palms skimming up over my arms to my shoulders as I finish unbuttoning his shirt.
“Sure I did,” I say, though I’m not sure it’s true, am too distracted to really think about it as I slide my hands over his stomach, his muscles jumping under my touch. “Maybe you just weren’t paying attention.”
“I paid attention to everything, Sutton,” he says before lowering his face to mine again, kissing me slowly. His fingers slide over my exposed sternum before dipping underneath the fabric of my dress, palm curving over my breast, drawing a soft sound out of me as I curl into his hand. I deepen the kiss, fingers lacing into his hair as Everett pushes the straps of my dress off my shoulders.
We should slow down, I know. I should pause to consider what Everett’sthen be with mereally means. I should think about the others, should think about what happened, should think about the fact that I’ve spent the last five years angry with him. But I’m so tired ofshoulds. I’m tired of worrying about what everyone else wants. I’m tired of trying so hard to pretend I don’t want this.
I nudge Everett toward the bed, straddling his hips when he sits down underneath me. “Sutton,” he says, palms skimming up my back. “Are you sure we should do this?”
“Not at all,” I say on a sigh, hands diving into his hair. “But I want to. Just once, at least.”
I lean down, move his shirt out of the way so I can kiss his shoulder. He stiffens underneath me, and for a minute I think he’s going to stop this. But in the next breath, he’s hooking his arm across my lower back, the other steady on my waist as he flips us, holding me to him to shift me farther onto the bed before he lowers himself over me.
“Okay,” he says in an uneven voice as his lips skim down my neck, skate across my chest.
I draw Everett back up to me and push his shirt off his shoulders, hands dragging down his back, every muscle in him tense. He unzips the side of my dress and I arch up so he can pull it off of me. I’m not wearing a bra, and Everett immediately dips his head to my chest, his other hand hooking into the waist of my underwear, pressing into my hip.
My fingers coil into his hair as he returns to me, kisses me again. We shed the rest of our clothes quickly, impatiently, kicking things to the side of the bed and grinning into each other’s mouths until he slides against me. Any laughter is replaced by harsh breaths, sounds stifled against shoulders because part of keeping this between us tonight is staying quiet in case the others return from the beach, which seems impossible the more we move together, chasing friction, connection.
“Condom?” I ask him.
He reaches over to his nightstand, fumbles with his wallet for a minute before he sets it there again, the ubiquitous foil packet balanced on top. He’s starting to move down my body but I stop him, reach over and grab the condom from where he set it. He gives me a quizzical look.
“It’s been five years since we’ve done this,” I say to him as I rip the packet open. “The rest can wait.” I don’t pause to think about the fact that I’m implying there will be a next time.
“Sutton,” he starts, but anything else he was going to say is lost as I work the condom onto him, as I pull him back down to me and cant my hips up toward him.
“Please,” I whisper in his ear. The hand he has on my hip flexes.
Everett’s head drops into the curve of my shoulder, teeth just sinking into my skin there as he pushes into me, a deliciously aching stretch that I’ve been missing for years.This, I think as our chests meet, as we breathe together before we start moving again.This is what you were always avoiding.What you were missing.Some connection with Everett that sat on the other side of fear, of worry that the two of us would ruin each other. Sex with each other was always amazing, but in a fun, no-holds-barred way. We explored and learned each other in a way only our agreement could produce. There was nothing to be embarrassed about, so it was almost like a lesson each time—here, this is what you like,and let’s try this, andwe shoulddefinitely domore of that next time. Vulnerability in a way that only came from how we both managed to keep our deeper, darker emotions always just out of reach. The only goal was to feel good.
