Page 97 of Wells

His hand slides down, spreading across my ribs. The air hits my skin, and then his mouth is on my sternum, the space between my breasts, and my hands close hard in the sheet.

He doesn't rush. Each kiss, each drag of his lips across my skin, is masterful. My stomach tightens as his mouth moves lower, and when he presses his lips just below my belly button, my hips lift.

His hands slide to my waist, fingers hooking under the band of my leggings, and he pulls them down so slowly I think I might scream.

Then he settles between my thighs, and I forget the river, the city, the apartment, everything except the heat of his breath against me. I don't even think about the discomfort that usually keeps me locked up here, the part of me that never lets anyone get this close.

His scruff rubs the inside of my thighs, a sensation that has never been there, in that sacred spot, and it intensifies everything.

His tongue moves slowly, and the first stroke pulls a sound from my throat I've never heard from myself. He doesn't react except to stay there, tasting me with a thoroughness that strips me bare.

I reach for his hair, fingers threading through it, and he hums against me in approval. I press him into me. I want more, harder. I'm greedy for all of it.

He doesn't speed up or chase the finish, working me with the same patience he brought to the kiss, building me up in layers I can't control. My thighs shake against his shoulders, and when I try to press closer, he holds me steady, keeping the rhythm exactly where he wants it.

Coming apart under his mouth, I gasp, my hips snapping up off the bed as it tears loose in me. But he doesn't stop. He stays with me through it, tongue gentling but not retreating, and the second one hits before I've come down from the first.

I cry out, the sound raw, and my whole body trembles under him. My whole body trembles under his perfect mouth.

Only then does he pull back, pressing one last kiss to my inner thigh before he moves up my body.

I'm shaking, wrung out, and I can't seem to catch my breath.

Wells pulls me against him, his hand stroking through my hair, and I close my eyes against the sudden sting of tears.

This wasn't performance. This wasn't me giving something to get something back.

Reaching for him, I can't hold still under everything that just came loose in me. My hand finds his belt, fingers working the buckle without thinking, and my body shifts closer because this I know. Because giving is the part I know, the part I understand, the part where I keep him.

Wells catches my wrist.

"Not tonight."

I freeze.

"I want to give you what you gave me. I want you to feel me like I just did you."

"I do feel you. This is about you and you only."

He says it without elaboration, without apology, and the simplicity of it hits harder than anything else he could have said.

No one has ever only wanted to give to me.

Wells pulls me closer, tucking me against his chest, and I let him because my body won't hold itself upright anymore. He keeps me there, and I press my face into his shoulder and breathe.

The room quiets. Our breathing slows. The Mississippi keeps moving far below the glass, dark and constant, and everything I can't say settles in between my ribs.

Wells's fingers trace absent patterns across my shoulder blade, and I close my eyes. Held like this, safer than I have words for, the thing I've been clamping down all day finally finds room to come up.

"Oh, my God," I say, sitting up. "I almost forgot to tell you that my friend, Locke, was in a wreck this afternoon."

Wells goes still. I lie back down, planting my face on his chest, my fingers tracing delicate circles on his skin.

"He's okay," I add quickly, because I need to say that part out loud too. "He’s banged up but lucky. His car's totaled, but he walked away."

"What happened?"

"Semi crossed lanes on the interstate. Chain reaction. Locke's car was one of the last in the pileup that got hit. The first car…"