“Is this good?” His words are barely more than a growl.
I nod frantically.
“Frances,” he bites out, but he’s still unbearably still inside me. “Tell me how to make this good for you.”
“Can you…” I look at where his hands are splayed on my leg, suddenly shy to ask. “Can you put one hand on my throat again?”
He lifts his arm and follows my request. The light weight of his hand against the base of my throat is even more delicious than the memory of it when we first kissed. I swallow thickly, and his pupils darken as my muscles dance against his palm. My hips roll, almost of their own accord, increasing the pressure, heightening the friction for one mind-bending moment.
We both inhale sharply, eyes flying down to where we’re connected.
He looks like he’s about to fall apart, face desperate and jaw twitching, until he finally begins to move. I drop down to my elbows and cross my ankles behind his back, chasing thehum that vibrates through me with every one of his strokes, and throwing back my head when it flares into something brighter.
In his hands I feel precious, cared for, enough.
I pant his name as he glides into me again, my voice raw and unrecognizable. It spurs him on as he locks me against him with one broad hand on my back, the other one tracing over my body. Greedily, like he can’t decide where he wants to hold on to me, he digs his fingers into my waist, drifts past the swell of my breast and flicks his thumb over my nipples, before he catches my jaw for a kiss. The lick of his tongue and bite of his teeth is a slick echo of the movements of his hips. I can feel myself tremble around him, can feel the erratic in and out of my breath, but even as I arch further into him, the deep, aching hunger doesn’t let up.
When I whimper, Lewis slips a hand up my calf. “I’ve got you,” he murmurs against my temple as he opens me wider, then dips his fingers to my clit. His circles grow tighter as he takes me deep and slow, and I curse, sensing how frustratingly close I am to blazing off.
And then he does this thing with his fingers. A tap against my clit, just the right side of forceful.
“Oh.”The sudden jolt makes me come with an intensity that shakes my legs, fuse burning and obliterating my nerves. I pulse around him again and again and the jerk of his hips turns into a stutter, like the force of my orgasm has brought him off course and scrambled up his rhythm.
“Put your hands on my shoulders,” Lewis orders, and when I curve my arms around his neck, he thrusts into me, once, twice. On the third one he sinks in deep, and presses his thumb into my collarbone. His teeth find my shoulder as the pleasure pools out of him.
Gradually, my moans wane and his muscles slacken undermy hands. He leans heavily against me when the tension leaves his body, and I hug him close. I inhale the warm scent of his skin as he kisses the spot that’s tender from his bite and presses his nose into my neck. Curved into each other and breathing the same oxygen, I sift my fingers through his hair and think about how each time I’m vulnerable with him, he makes me feel like it’s a good thing.
“I like it when you make plans,” I confess into the hollow below his ear.
“Do you?” He trails his fingers up my arm, and I shiver, hypersensitive after his touch. He clasps my hand and lifts it to his lips, mouth swollen from kissing me. “I like my plans, too,” he murmurs into my wrist. “Especially when they involve you.”
Lewis picks up my limp body and carries me to the couch, where he kisses my forehead before he disappears into the bathroom. When he returns, my cheeks are still warm from his honesty, and with a relaxed smile on his face, he lies down next to me and smooths his hands over my hair. Wrapped up in his warmth, I feel at ease. Like the stress of the last week, months, maybe even years has finally detonated out of me.
“Did you really bring my thesis?” I ask after a while.
He tilts his head. “Do you want me to get it out?”
“I understand the hot cocoa powder, and the marshmallows, probably for drowning my sorrows in chocolate, but my thesis? For what? So we could take a bath together and I’d read you my propositions?” I pause as his mouth crooks up. “Oh my god, is that something that turns you on?”
Lewis watches me silently for a moment. My reaction to the weird mental image of this scenario must play out on my face, because his smirk etches deeper. “No, Frances,” he says. “I brought it because sometimes it’s good to remind ourselves what we’re doing all of this for, and I figured your thesis would be a good place to start.”
“Oh,” I say. I consider his words once more. “Why do you evenhavea copy of my thesis?”
“I took it the other day. There’s a shelf for alumni outside the secretary’s office.” He rubs his neck. “Yours was there. I was curious.”
“Oh,” I repeat. His tenderness and thoughtfulness peel back something, an intimacy I’m not yet ready to think about, especially now when my skin is still warm from his touch and heavy with his scent.
Lewis, I’ve begun to realize, is good at telling from only one look if he needs to shift the conversation sideways or hold the wheel steady and face me head-on. Now, he nudges his knee against my thigh. “But it’s also fine by me if you want to take a bath and look at some of your figures together.”
Sideways, it is.
“Stop it.” I laugh, grateful for his attempt to keep me from spiraling.
“Are you sure? I have some thoughts about chapter four…”
Chapter Nineteen
It’s the middle of the night, and once again, I can’t sleep. The curtains are open, letting in the view of the stars and the moonlit crowns of the swaying pines, but that’s not what’s keeping me awake. It’s the quiet of the night when I’m used to lullabies composed of clinking bike chains, humming motors, and howling sirens. It’s the unfamiliarity of a person next to me. Maybe I should’ve let Lewis pick his own bedroom, but I wanted to stay close to him. He has the exceptional quality of getting me out of my own head, except now he’s fast asleep, which means I’m back in there with all my thoughts. The unanimous consensus seems to be that sleeping with Lewis was a very, very bad idea.
