Her body locked around mine, and she cried out against my lips, shaking through the orgasm while her nails dug into my shoulder. I held her through it, hips driving up once, twice, and then I was gone too.
I came hard, buried inside her, face against her neck, her name rough in my voice.
For a while, neither of us moved.
Then Jade made a small sound. “Your ribs?”
“Still attached.”
“You need a better line.”
“I’ll work on it.”
She laughed softly and rested her forehead against my shoulder.
I held her there until breathing became something we could do again.
Afterward, we cleaned up in the bathroom with an awkward amount of care.
“You need ice,” Jade said.
“I need five minutes.”
“You can have five minutes with ice.”
“That sounded like an order.”
“It was one. Don’t make me call Crystal and report noncompliance.”
“That’s low.”
“That’s effective.”
She won. I sat on the bed with a cold pack wrapped in a towel against my ribs while Jade stole one of my clean T-shirts and came back from the hallway wearing it over bare legs.
My pulse kicked once and stayed there.
She noticed. “Don’t get sentimental. Your shirt was closest.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were thinking loudly.”
“Occupational hazard.”
She climbed onto the bed beside me and leaned back against the headboard. For the first time since I’d met her, she let herself be tired without bracing to bolt.
“Crystal’s going to need help with the legal mess,” she said.
“Yes.”
“She’ll need someone who understands numbers and doesn’t make her feel stupid for being scared.”
“She seems pretty good at numbers herself.”
“She is.” Jade traced a seam in the blanket. “She was always good at that. I was better at drawing on things I wasn’t supposed to draw on.”
“That explains a lot.”
