She finds a rhythm. Her hand and her mouth together, the slide of her fingers matching the pull of her lips. She grips my thigh, nails digging in just enough that I hiss through my teeth.
My hand tightens in her hair on instinct and she makes a sound I’ve never heard from her before—low and startled and completely different from everything else, from last night, from the basement, from any of it. My brain locks onto it the way it locks onto a release point, filing it, tagging it, because she didn’t pull back when I pulled. She pushed closer. And the sound she made wasn’t pain or surprise, it was something else entirely. I don’t have a word for what it means but my body understands it even if I don’t.
“Mackie.” My voice doesn’t sound like mine. “You need to stop or I’m going to?—”
She looks up at me through her lashes. Then she takes me deeper, her hand moving from my thigh to cup me, rollingme gently in her palm, and every thread of control I have is gone.
My hips thrust up before I can stop them and then I’m coming, both hands fisted in her hair, and she jerks back in surprise at the first pulse but she doesn’t pull off. She hollows her cheeks and takes me deeper and I make a sound that starts somewhere in my chest that I couldn’t have stopped if I wanted to.
Everything gives. I’m boneless, sinking into the mattress, and my hands fall out of her hair because I don’t have the coordination to hold onto anything while she pulls off slowly.
Then she looks up at me and opens her mouth and I can see myself on her tongue and my brain screamsmine, something hot unspooling in my chest that I’ve never felt before.
She closes her mouth and swallows, holding my gaze the entire time. I stare at her unblinking because my brain can’t even serve up words right now. I watch her confidence dissolves in real time, the flush climbing her neck.
“Why aren’t you saying anything?”
“I think,” I say slowly, “you sucked out whatever brain cells I had left.”
She bursts out laughing, falling onto my chest and I wrap my arms around her and hold on.
“Good?” she asks into my shirt.
“Mackie.”
“Just checking.”
“Yeah. Better than good.”
She lifts her head and sighs. “I have to go. You know my mom and I are meeting the team in Vancouver tomorrow.”
“I know.”
“Text me your room number. I’ll find a way to sneak in,” she says, already informing me of the plan rather than asking.
“That’s a terrible idea.”
“Do you want me to or not.”
“Yes. Always yes.”
She grins and kisses me once before climbing over me to get out of bed. At the bathroom door she turns back. “Don’t look so smug.”
“I’m not.”
“Zach. You look extremely smug.”
“I just found out you’re sneaking into my hotel room in Vancouver even though it’s a catastrophically bad idea. I’m allowed.”
She laughs and closes the door and I lie there counting down the hours.
By noonI’m on the plane and the group chat starts before we’re off the ground.
Rodriguez
gentle reminder that we are heading to Vancouver where our boy Z has a whole entire family waiting for him
Dex
