She is meeting me. Her hand is on the back of my head and her mouth is on my throat and I am saying things into her hair I’ve never said before, that I’d never say in daylight, that I’m only saying now because the voice I use for everything else is gone, and what’s left is whatever this is.
“Stay.”
“I’m here.”
“Say it again.”
“I’m here.”
“Nova.”
“I know.”
Her hands are everywhere — my back, my shoulders, the back of my neck — and I have my forehead against hers and her breath is in my mouth and we are not in a hurry. We are not racing anything.
We are just here.
Doing this.
I am thirty-two years old, and I have never made love to anyone in my life.
That is what this is.
There is nothing else to call it.
“Jax.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m —”
“Me too.”
I come inside her with my forehead pressed against hers and her ankles crossed at the small of my back and her hands on my face and her mouth saying my name once, soft, into my mouth.
I stay there.
I don’t move.
She doesn’t move.
The shower is still running in the bathroom across the suite.
We stay.
Later — I don’t know how much later — I roll us so she’s on my chest. Her wet hair against my collarbone. Her hand on my ribs. Her leg over mine.
The Strip is moving outside the window.
I run my hand up and down her back. Slow. Once. Twice.
“Jax.”
“Yeah.”
“What just happened.”
“I don’t know.”
