“Yeah?” I teased, lifting both hands off her entirely.
“Comeon.”
“All right, all right.” I returned to my happy place and went to town, kissing and licking, and when she inhaled sharply and held her breath and her legs stiffened, I gave a final little suck and she screamed.
Good Lord. I wasn’t sure I’d ever been so turned on in my life. The men of Tinder were fucking idiots.
“Now we do you,” she said. I wanted to tell her to stop and take a breath, recover a bit, but then I thought,I bet dancers have really good cardiovascular health, and I let her flip us around, so I was lying on my back and she was hovering over me. We made eye contact, and she grinned and said, “Thanks.”
“No problem,” I said, like I was talking about lending her a guitar pick.
We looked at each other for a beat longer, and her grin grew knowing. Then she did some dancer ninja move and before I could blink, her mouth was around my dick.
“Oh my God,” I bit out. Who would have thought it? Sourplum, the woman who had annoyed me beyond all reason that first day: two weeks later, here she was, blowing me in my cabin. It was almost too much to process. Which was fine because I wasn’t going to last very long, and I wanted to pay attention. I wanted to remember this. I let my hand settle on her head—not to push her or direct her, but because I wanted to touch the pink-tipped strands. She tipped her head back, even as she kept working me with her mouth. Her eyes sought out mine, and they were so bright, but so pale at the same time. They were like tiny bleached swimming pools. She smiled at me around my dick, andfuck. Maybe shewasmy muse.
The pressure was becoming too much. I laid a hand on hercheek to guide her off me. She went, but she made a very gratifying mew of protest, and it was the final nail in the coffin. I came, bucking my hips and cursing as pleasure spiked through me. I had to close my eyes against the onslaught of sensation—it had been a long time, longer, I guess, than I’d realized—and when I opened them, she was stretched out next to me, close but not touching. I didn’t know what to say, so I echoed her previous word back to her. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” she said, echoing mine.
What now? While I was trying to think of what to say, she spoke. “Normally I’m insecure about my small breasts.”
Huh? My gaze automatically went to the breasts in question, two perfect little mounds. They were marked by diagonal tan lines—from all the swimming, I supposed—that converged in her cleavage. “But you’re not insecure about them now? And for the record, size doesn’t matter.” Except it kind of did. I loved her big butt. But I also loved her small breasts. They were like little bonuses.
“Not today,” she confirmed. “I think it’s the context, you know, like we talked about?”
“What is the context here?” I was getting confused. This was a lot of talking, and my brain wasn’t fully back online yet.
“The context isnot dating. I don’t have any expectations or hopes. No secret wishes. We don’t have a future together. So I don’t feel like I have to watch what I say, or care what I look like, because I don’t care whatyouthink I look like.” She barked a single delighted “Ha!” as if she found the notion liberating. “I mean, I don’t have any makeup on, things are not particularly groomed”—she gestured toward the hair between her legs—“and I showed up in a hoodie I spilled coffee on this morning.”
I had not noticed items one and three in her list of perceived shortcomings. I had noticed item two, but I hadn’t seen it as a shortcoming. I was agnostic in matters of hair removal.
“You were just using me for sex,” I joked.
“Well…” Her nose and forehead scrunched. “We were using each other. Right?” A hint of unease had crept into her tone.
“Right,” I assured her. “I hope your last hurrah met with your expectations.”
She smiled and stretched and looked for a moment like a self-satisfied cat. “It sure did. Can I lay here for a bit before I go? I’m so cozy.”
“Sure.” I wondered if playing with her hair was offside. Probably.
“But to be fair,” she went on, rolling onto her back and contemplating the ceiling, “I also trust you. I even like you, to my ongoing surprise. I think that’s important for context, too. I don’t have to worry that you’re going to call me a slut or whatever.”
“That’s true,” I said through an enormous yawn, as I considered the fact that I liked her back—weird. When was the last time I’d made a friend in the real world, outside the Concrete Temple bubble? “I trust you, too. You never called the tabloids.”
“I still might,” she joked, running her hand down the bed. “Why are your sheets so soft? Why do you have nicer sheets than I do?”
“I bought them at Target. You know how you have your thing where you don’t like to share food?” She nodded. “This is my version of that.”
“Ah,” she said, like she got it. Shedidget it.
Which made me want to say more. “When I was a kid, Islept on a lumpy futon mattress on the floor. The sheets in our house felt like sandpaper. When I started spending nights at Scott’s, I learned about thread count.” I made a silly face. “And now I’m a diva when it comes to bedsheets.” I was going for humor, but another yawn tanked it.
“You’re sleepy,” she said.
“That’s because I haven’t slept yet.”
“What do you mean? You didn’t sleep last night?”
