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Luca nods. She’s panting, her thighs trembling with exertion. “Mm-hm. Love it—ah. Love it so much, Flo.”

Her hips are rocking in a steady rhythm, keeping perfect time even now. Florence tries to memorize it for the next time she has her. The idea of a next time makes her heartbeat trip over itself. Even if everything else ends up in flames—the band, her image, her entire stupid music career—she thinks she would be all right if she knew she still had this.

“You’re doing so well,” she says. “So perfect for me.”

With a whine, Luca tips forward to bury her face in the crook of Florence’s neck. Florence can feel the full-body tremors rippling through her. With Luca’s mouth so close to her ear, she can hear every one of her hitching breaths, the little sighs she probably isn’t aware she’s letting slip free. Each one feels like a gift, something only for Florence to have.

“Are you getting tired?” Florence asks, carding a hand through her hair.

“Y-yeah.”

“You can go on,” Florence tells her gently.

The next sound Luca makes is almost a sob. “Okay.”

God. She really is so good. So sweet even as she’s coming apart in Florence’s lap, even as her legs are threatening to give out, even as she’s panting hotly against Florence’s neck like she can’t get enough air into her lungs.

“Do you think you can come like this?”

Luca nods, then shakes her head, like she isn’t sure, too overwhelmed to parse what her body is telling her. “Can you—my hair, or—”

Florence understands right away. She slides a hand into Luca’s hair and pulls, just enough for it to sting. Uses her hold on it to tilt Luca’s head back, to let Florence see her: the glazed look in her eyes, the pained little furrow between her brows, her teeth gnawing at her lower lip. She looks wrecked. It feels like another gift, seeing her like this.

“Look at you,” Florence whispers, reverent. “So good, asking for what you want.”

To drive the point home, she crooks her fingers where they’re deep inside Luca. Luca’s eyes flutter shut at the feeling, her hips faltering for the first time.

Where other people get more vocal, Luca grows quieter as she gets close. But Florence knows the signs now: the uneven stutter of her breathing, the way her thighs go tense. She crooks her fingers again at the same time that she rakes the blunt nails of her left hand down Luca’s thigh, and it’s that, the unexpected flash of pain, that makes Luca tip over.

Her features go lax as she comes, her mouth parting on a sighed-out “Oh” that feels specifically designed to haunt Florence for as long as she lives.

Florence lets her ride it out, moving her palm in little circles against her until Luca is trembling. Eventually, Luca slumps forward, her head dropping heavily onto Florence’s shoulder. Slowly, Florence pulls out her fingers.

“You’re okay,” Florence murmurs when Luca whimpers at the loss, using her free hand to pet soothingly at her hair, her neck. “You did so well, sweetheart. Perfect.”

Luca shivers at the praise. Lifting her head, she stares down at the five red lines running down her thigh. Her expression is awed as she brings her own hand down to trace them and says, her voice raspy and faint, “I think that’s the hottest thing that has ever happened to me.”

“Agreed,” Florence says earnestly.

Luca laughs, a tired, pleased little sound, before she finally lets Florence take her full weight, unable to hold herself up on her knees any longer. She’s pliant and blissed-out as Florence cradles her face in both hands and kisses her, swallowing up her quiet moans. Florence feels like she just had a religious experience of some kind, like she’s been fundamentally remade. It’s a new feeling; she’s had lots of hot, fun, objectively good sex, but none has ever ended with her heart suddenly feeling too large for her ribcage to hold.

Pulling back, Luca asks, “Do you want me to do something for you too?”

Florence pauses. Somewhere between unbuckling Luca’s belt and now, she’s lost track of her own body in favor of focusing on Luca’s. Her own desire has quieted to a low thrum—still present, but easy to ignore. There’s no urgency in it; she knows she can wait. She thinks that, maybe, it will be even better that way.

That’s new too.

“I’m all right.” She presses a kiss to the corner of Luca’s mouth. “Let me make you dinner, first.”

“Are you sure?” Luca asks.

“Yeah. What do you want to eat?”

Luca thinks about it for so long Florence feels like she should probably come up with an idea of her own. But then—

“I think,” Luca says hesitantly, “maybe curry?”

Florence’s answering smile is so broad it hurts. “Anything you want.”