Page 88 of Until We Come Home

“Mateo,” she pleads. “Please.”

I take my cock in my hand, line myself up, and slide into her in one long, deep stroke. She cries out, her palms flattening against the countertop, her whole body arching back into me.

I hold myself there, buried in her, and reach up to wrap my hand around her jaw, tipping her head back against my shoulder so I can see her face. In the window over the sink, rain streaking the glass, our reflection looks back at us: her mouth open, her eyes heavy, my hand on her jaw.

“Watch,” I tell her, turning her face toward the glass. “I want you to see what you look like when I fuck you.”

She moans, her eyes locked on our reflection, and I start to move. I fuck her slow and deep at first, pulling almost all the way out before driving back into her, each thrust pushing her up onto her toes. Her hands slide across the counter, looking for something to hold, until she grabs the edge and hangs on.

I grip her hip with my free hand, pulling her back onto me harder, faster, the sound of skin on skin louder than the rain and the record still spinning in the next room. She’s so tight and wet around me, and the sounds coming out of her are wrecking me.

“That’s it,” I tell her, my mouth against her ear, my hand still holding her jaw. “Take it. Every inch.”

“Don’t stop,” she pants, her knuckles white. “God, Mateo, don’t stop.”

I slide my hand from her hip around to the front of her and find her clit, rubbing tight circles in time with every thrust, and she falls apart. She comes with a cry that echoes off the cabinets, shaking all over, her pussy pulsing around my cock, and that’s it for me. I bury my face in her neck and drive into her deep, once, twice, and come inside her.

I stay pressed against her back, my arms around her waist, both of us breathing hard. The record has run out in the other room, and all that’s left is the rain on the window.

CHAPTER 26

Mia

The weeks blur together in the best way. The kids are back at the barre in Studio C four afternoons a week, our music thumping through the walls as the light fades outside, and they still show up bouncing with energy even after a full day of school.

The days are getting shorter, the weather chillier, the maples along Capitol Hill turning orange at the edges, and the early October rain has arrived. Despite being a California girl through and through, I love it.

I love the chunky sweaters, I love lazy morning coffee with Mateo when we’re all loved up and still in pajamas, and I love the cooler weather that doesn’t make me feel like I’m going to melt. Something about this place has started to feel like mine.

The kids are working pirouettes from fourth today, getting them clean before next week, when I’ll teach them how to unwind the turn into a spiral down to the floor. Ruby is staging a full-scale protest from the corner, arms crossed over her purple leotard.

“I just think that if Pina Bausch could break all the ballet rules,” she says, “then I shouldn’t have to drill them in contemporary too.”

“I love the argumentative spirit,” I say, walking over to her. “But I hate to disappoint you. Pina Bausch danced with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet before she broke a single rule. You gotta know the rules to break them, kid. Besides, these ballet foundations are important for our contemporary work, and you know that.”

She pulls a dramatic face. “Ugh, I still hate doing the repetitive drills though.”

“Yeah, well, I felt the same about bourrées,” I tell her, shuddering at the memory. “Twelve years old, shuffling across the studio on my toes in tiny steps like I was late for the bathroom. My teacher made me do them for twenty minutes straight. Didn’t kill me, but it came close. Now come on, let’s take it from the top.”

She heaves an eleven-year-old’s sigh, then steps into fourth with the others watching from the barre. She pliés, pushes off, and whips around, and she almost nails the landing, her spot perfect, her heel coming down clean. I clap so hard my hands sting.

“Yes, good!” I call out. “Next time snap your arms into first faster, but you’re getting so close.”

Ruby grins and bounces back into line, trying very hard to look like she doesn’t care, and the rest of class is happy chaos after that. The streetlights flicker on outside the windows before five now that it’s October. Mateo has been on shift the last two days, but he’s been texting me constantly.

Fire season is winding down, though they’ve still got the usual run of house calls, welfare checks, and car accidents. Plus a photo of the chili James burned for lunch, with a caption that just says pray for us.

By the time class wraps and the kids pull on their rain jackets and head home with their parents, the studio is quiet except for the rain against the glass. I stretch out on the floor, rolling my shoulders against the sprung wood, then get up and work through some new choreography I’ve been building for the hell of it.

Being here has me feeling creatively full, like the ideas are pouring out faster than I can catch them. I’ve been bouncing a few off Jada, and collaborating with her is so much fun, the two of us trading counts and stealing each other’s best moves until neither of us can remember who came up with what.

My phone lights up on the floor beside me, and I grin when I see Lark’s name.

“Hey, you,” I answer. “How’s Mexico treating you?”

“I love it here,” she says, her excitement crackling over the line. “My parents flew down from SoCal to join us, since I’m spending all my downtime between shoots visiting family. And the weather, my God, it’s paradise. I barely need real clothes.”

“Sounds like a total dream,” I say, settling back against the mirror. “I can’t wait to see what Andrés and his crew did with the choreography. Their work is incredible.”