Her legs lock around my hips, and her nails dig into my shoulders as she gets closer to her peak.
“More,” she whimpers, her grip on me tightening.
I thrust into her harder, bending my head and kissing her.I kiss her like a promise, like a prayer.She meets me kiss for kiss, touch for touch, and when I think I can’t possibly hold it together, she loops her arms around my neck.
“CJ—” She gasps as she breaks apart.
I lose it in the best possible way, following her over the edge.“Fucking hell, Princess Angel Baby.”
She chokes on a laugh as I collapse beside her before my arms give out and I crush her beneath me.We don’t move for a long time.The room hums, the lamp throws soft halos onto the ceiling.My heart gradually slows to its normal pace, and I take a deep breath.
“Hi,” I say again, because apparently that’s my post-sex vocabulary.
She huffs a laugh against my collarbone.“You already used that line.”
“Did it work?”
“It did,” she admits, her fingers drawing idle patterns on my chest that absolutely guarantee I will never forget this bed, this night, or the exact path those fingers take.
Eventually, I roll over to grab water from the nightstand and hand her one.She thanks me, takes a drink, and sets the glass down on a coaster because, of course, she does.I pull the quilt up and tug her close so her back is to my chest, my arm heavy over her waist.She melts into me like we were built from the same mold and someone only recently remembered to put us back together.
“You okay?”I murmur into her hair.
“Mm,” she says, and I feel the sound more than hear it.“I’m… more than okay.”
I decide to try honesty on for size.“I haven’t—” I start, then stop, a little embarrassed by the truth.“I don’t bring people here.”
“To your apartment?”
“To bed,” I say.“I was a virgin, too.”
“Really?”she asks, her eyes wide.
“Yeah.I should have told you.”
“Yeah.I should have told you, too.”
Something tender flickers across her face, something I’m not sure she knows she’s showing.
We fall into an easy quiet.The faint hum of the city outside is joined by a softer one of the heater kicking on.I can feel each of her breaths where my palm rests under her ribs.In.Out.In.Out.Like the simplest drill in the world.
A thought sneaks up on me as my eyes get heavy.It’s ridiculous.It’s fast.It’s exactly how my life works when something finally makes sense.
I don’t want to sleep alone again.
EIGHT
Olivia
The first thing I register is warmth.The second is weight.Strong arms wrapped around me, heavy and secure, a chest pressed against my back, breath steady at the nape of my neck.For one delirious second, I let myself sink into it, savoring the rare luxury of not being alone.
And then reality slams into me.
CJ.
My eyes fly open, taking in the unfamiliar shadows of his bedroom.Last night floods back, his kiss outside my apartment, the way I surprised myself by saying yes when he asked me to come home with him, the wild heat of our bodies tangled together until we collapsed in a sweaty, breathless heap.
I’m in his bed.In his arms.
