“Nothing from Em,” she said.
He didn’t say anything for a long time. She knew it was for Michael, that silence. She knew it was so heavy on him.
“We just have to wait,” he finally replied. “Like you said.”
She nodded, but she thought now they were both in the four thirty a.m. thick of it, picking through their individual laundry lists.
“Layla,” he said again.
“Sorry,” she answered this time. “I’m—”
“Roll over,” he said gruffly. “On your back.”
“Oh! Sorry, am I—”
“No,” he answered, then he shifted, moving more swiftly than she was anticipating, and in a second she was on her back, Griffin leaning on his right elbow over her. Beneath the sheet, his left hand moved; he found the hem of her—his—shirt, and she thought,Oh, thank god. Thank god he can touch that fabric so easily, that he can push it up over my stomach, that he—
“Help me out,” he said, when he had the shirt pushed up enough to expose her breasts, andyes, she was so glad he asked; hewould have to get used to asking her things like this; she would have to get used to anticipating it—
She cut off that train of thought, thatgetused to. She lifted herself enough to take off the shirt, felt his palm settle against her sternum, pressing her down again. She was already breathing hard, already desperately wet—the worry, the intensity ofeverything, the temptation to think about getting used to him—all of it short-circuited her, driving a need for a release.
“Is this okay?” she said, but when he answered, his mouth was already on her right breast, a muffledMm-hmmthat intensified the sensation of his wet sucking.
He stayed there for so long—alternating between her breasts, leaving a mark at one point, she was certain; he stayed through all the times she begged him to do something else—to let her come, topleaselet her come—as though he would not indulge her until he was sure, completely sure, that he had destroyed her laundry list, every single item on it. He stayed until she maybe did not know what a list was, untilshewas disoriented, unsure of any place in the world except the expanse of this bed.
And then he finally, finally lowered his head and licked right through the center of her, one time and she was coming—so quick it would have been humiliating except that he simply kept going, as though he had moved on from her list and was now hell-bent on destroying his own, eating her even as she knew he had also reached down to touch himself, groaning into her as his own pleasure crested, and as she came again—fast and forceful this time, obliterating. Distantly, she felt him move over her, felt the warm wetness of his release on her abdomen, felt him finally flatten himself beside her on his back, out of breath and she thought—she hoped—sated.
“I’ll get up,” he said. “One minute.”
She reached back, grabbed for the shirt. Shoved it beneath the sheets and cleaned herself off.
He chuckled.
“You have so many, what does it matter?” she said, and he laughed again, then quieted. A serious quiet that settled over them, as sure as the sheets on their bodies. Outside, the sky was growing lighter and lighter. Pink-purple, Paris dawn.
“Thank you,” he finally said. “For last night.”
She turned her head, looked over at him. She wanted to say something like,What if it wasn’t just last night?but that wasn’t right; she knew it wasn’t quite right. She wasn’t trying to say that she wanted him to have more nights like that, or that it had been good or interesting or even rewarding to care for him that way.
She wanted to say,Just so you know, last night sucked, but I do not care. I would never care. A million more nights like that, and I don’t think I would ever care.
But maybe that wasn’t right, either. Maybe it was too big for only knowing him as long as she had. Too big for only minutes after having her mind blown by him again, and probably only a few hours from finding out whether this wedding had been blown apart.
So she would try saying it smaller. She whispered his name, barely more than an exhalation. A test, maybe. A question.
“Griff?”
The pause was so long she thought he might not have heard.
But he finally said, “Yeah?” in that rough voice, rougher now from his breathlessness.
“I would do it again,” she said, and as it turned out, when she said it, she realized it wasn’t small at all. It was not last night: It was this wholeweekthat she would do again; it was maybe even every single thing, good and bad, that got her to this week in thefirst place. She would do it again. Get scolded by him on the plane, get shocked to her core to see him again. Get dragged off a boat, get danced with in a garden ballroom. Get kissed in a doorway, get left alone in a rideshare, get her cracked heart patched up while looking at a piece of art.
Get lost with him in Paris. Get found for who she really was.
Everything, she would do again.
She stayed still, flat on her back and naked beneath the sheet, now not touching him at all. It was scary, but she knew already that she didn’t regret it.
