Page 22 of Plain Sight

Jameson rolls his hips into me impatiently, then refocuses on my panties.

“She had this—this squad of old ladies, too, and they⁠—”

A frustrated growl. “How the hell do I get this off?”

“Just rip it. They swooped in with sewing kits. Like those miniature sewing kits you keep in your purse and they—they⁠—”

He bends his head, and his mouth is against the side of my neck. I can’t say anything when he’s kissing and sucking like that. Not softly. Not hard, either. Like he has to feel the pulse under my skin in order to survive.

“Fuck, Lily,” he whispers, and drags his teeth lightly, lightly over that curve. “Fuck.”

“I know.”

“I thought⁠—”

“I know.”

That old fear pours back into me, but it’s gone again before it can stick. I let my hips meet Jameson’s. I can feel his fly through the fabric of my panties and how hard he is underneath.

“I could come like this.” I work my hips again to show him how. “I could, but I don’t want to. I want⁠—”

One sharp jerk of his hands, and my panties are in pieces.

It feels so good to have additional contact on my bare pussy that I let out a sound that’s entirely inappropriate for anywhere in sight of the cathedral grounds. Jameson uses one hand to angle my face so he can kiss me again, and then his grip is gone. I’m balanced mostly on his hips while his hands move between my legs. His belt clinks. His zipper pulls. He shoves at his clothes, seeming exactly as desperate as I feel, and then the bare parts of me are against the hard length of him. It’s such soft skin over such an incredible amount of heat.

His eyes meet mine, and we’re braced against one another. My back makes small slipping sounds against the spines of the books. I think, half-drowned in Jameson, that this is the story of my life. Me, with my back against a wall of books and studying and classical music with nowhere to go but forward. Nowhere to go but toward a life that was full of uncertainty and danger and wild joy.

Because that’s there, too. I’m shaken and scared and I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, or next week, or when I’m nine months pregnant with Jameson’s baby.

And I’m so happy to be here. I never thought for an instant that I could feel like this outside The Membership, when I wasn’t dancing.

Jameson stares into my eyes while he positions himself against my entrance and pushes in with a sigh that turns into a groan.

I’m ready, and I’m not ready, and the size of him sinking into me strikes the perfect balance between the two states. I’m buzzing with how much I want it to feel like the first time. How much I want him to feel like he’s taking up space inside me.

Oh, God, he’s taking up more space than this inside me. My stomach does a frantic swoop. His baby—our baby—is inside me at this very moment. It’s so, so tiny, but it’s there.

He’s there. I clench around him, the pleasure of it radiating up through my torso, and he makes a bitten-off sound and pushes closer, rocking his hips.

“Ah,” he says, shifting his hands so I’m more secure against the bookshelves. “You look like you could fly. They cut wings into your dress.”

“I feel—” Like there’s not enough air, but only because I want to breathe in so much of him. “I feel like I could fly.”

One of Jameson’s hands tightens on my ass, and then he’s fucking me into the bookshelves. A book falls and lands on its side with a slap. All I can hear is my own breathing and Jameson saying Lily, Lily, Lily and I feel incredibly alive and un-murdered and free.

I never⁠—

I didn’t⁠—

I didn’t realize how free I would feel, finally married to Jameson. A ring on my finger and signatures on paper don’t mean as much as the things we’ve done together, but they mean something to the world. Our rings say we chose each other. The signatures say you can’t keep us apart, no matter how much you hate this.

They say permanent.

Jameson picks up speed, his hand gliding between us to find my clit. It’s a starburst of pleasure in a long roller-coaster of a day, and it blocks out everything but the sensation. I come once. Twice? The waves seem to last a long time, and I’m happy to ride it out with him.

Then Jameson slows the pace, his green eyes burning into mine. The emotion in his face is like a storm. Like the aftermath of a lightning strike. I thought of that before, in that room—I thought of him like lightning, touching down with a crack and a burst of blinding light.

“Are you—” My arms are around his shoulders. He’s taking each thrust as its own unique project, letting out a little breath with every one. It feels so good. “Angry?”