“Don’t care what she does, she’s not my concern, you are.” He brings the pizza to my lips. I keep them closed. “Dautie, this is happening.”
I open my mouth to protest, and find it filled with warm, cheesy goodness.
And oh my God, it tastesgoooooood.
How many years has it been since I last had anything like this? Food with fat and flavor that is not counted in micros and macros and caloric content.
It’s divine. Even as I’m shaking my head, my internal programming still shaming me for eating something off the approved list, Rye is having none of it. He presses it back towards me, and I take another bite.
Then another.
I’m soon helping him to feed me, holding his hand as the next bite comes my way. We share, taking a bite each, and there’s no judgment, no trying to put limits on my enjoyment. It’s like whatever I want, he wants, and I squirm in his lap just to feel that familiar and comforting hardness under me.
“I’m going to dance for you,” I say finally as my stomach tells me I’m actually full.
“Swan lake?” Rye asks, but I’m shaking my head as I climb up on the stage.
The jukebox shuffles andGimme Morecomes out of the speakers and I don't even question it. The universe has spoken.
I know this song. I've danced to it alone in my bedroom in the dark approximately a thousand times with zero technique and zero apology and it is the absolute opposite of everything I've trained my body to do since I was four years old.
So I just dance. My own way. Hips rolling, hair flying, no turnout, no spotting, no anything my mother would recognize as valid. I flip the hem of his dress and flash him the frilly panties he picked out and the sharp breath I hear from the table does something very specific to my lower belly.
Maggie is suddenly fascinated by the ceiling tiles. The two attendants have discovered an urgent interest in the ball pit.
Rye is watching me like I'm the only thing in the room.
He stands and I know that look and I feel it everywhere.
"Everybody out," he says.
"Sir, we really can't just—"
"How much." He already has his wallet out. The number that gets named is genuinely offensive and he pays it without blinking and thirty seconds later we're alone in a warehouse full of blinking arcade games, one very judgmental animatronic bear, and Britney Spears.
I'm still on the stage.
He comes to the edge of it and I dance down to him because I'm not stopping on his account, and he puts his hands on my waist and lifts me down and I keep moving against him because the song's not done and neither am I. He lets me. His hands stay on my waist and he doesn't choreograph a single thing, just holds on while I figure out what my body actually wants to do when nobody's grading it.
I turn in his arms and put my mouth against his jaw. "I want to be on top."
He pulls back to look at my face. He always checks. Every time. "Yeah?"
"I've been thinking about it since this morning."
His eyes move over me, reading. Then: "You set the pace. You want to stop—"
"I know." I take his face in my hands. "I trust you. Now sit down."
Something shifts in his expression and he sits on the edge of the stage and pulls me in and what happens next is mine.
He lifts my dress, releases his monster from his pants and guides me down. The stretch is still extreme but I’m drenched and I love feeling so full.
My pace, my rhythm, my hands on his shoulders deciding everything. He keeps his grip loose on my hips, and when I find what works he makes a low rough sound that I feel more than hear.
"That's it," he says. "Right there."
It's nothing like what happened at the club. It's slow and a little clumsy at first and then less clumsy and entirely mine and he just lets me have it. All of it. Doesn't take over, doesn't rush me, just stays present and solid and saysI've got youwhen I need to hear it and nothing else at all.
