I don't know how long it goes on. Minutes. Hours. Time loses meaning when all I can feel is his mouth on me, his breath hot against my most intimate places, his hands holding me like I'm something precious.
"Please," I gasp. "Please, I need—"
He wraps a hand around my cock, stroking in time with his tongue, and that's it. That's all I can take. The orgasm buildsfrom somewhere deep in my gut, a wave that starts slow and then crashes through me without warning. My body shakes as I spill over his fist, as his tongue keeps working me through it, drawing out the pleasure until I'm oversensitive and twitching.
When it's over, I'm a puddle. Boneless and twitching, every nerve ending still singing. Jagger crawls back up the bed and lies beside me, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. His lips are red, swollen, and there's a satisfied look in his eyes that I've never seen before.
"Good?" he asks.
"I think you killed me. I think I'm dead. This is the afterlife."
"Dramatic."
"I'm a dramatic person. You knew that when you signed up." I turn my head to look at him, still trying to catch my breath. "What about you?"
"This wasn't about me."
"Bullshit. You're hard as a rock right now." I can see the outline of his cock through his boxers, straining against the fabric.
"I can wait."
"You don't have to." I reach for him, but he catches my wrist.
"Later." He brings my hand to his mouth, kisses my palm, my fingertips, each knuckle. "Right now, I just want to look at you."
There's a catch in his voice. It’s soft and aching and almost scared. Like he can't believe I'm real. Like he's afraid I'll disappear if he blinks.
I don't push. Just let him hold my hand, let him look, let him have whatever this moment is giving him.
The light shifts as the sun rises higher. Outside, a bird calls and another answers. I feel warm, safe, more at peace than I've been in years.
And that's when the memory hits.
It comes without warning. One second I'm floating in post-orgasmic bliss, and the next I'm somewhere else.
A kitchen. Yellow curtains. The smell of something baking. A woman standing at the stove, humming a song I almost recognize.
"Jonah? Baby, can you set the table?"
She turns, and I see her face. Dark hair like mine, going gray at the temples. Brown eyes that crinkle when she smiles. A flour smudge on her cheek.
My mother.
"Jonah."
The voice is wrong. Not her voice. I blink, and the kitchen dissolves, and I'm back in the cabin with Jagger's worried face inches from mine.
"You went somewhere," he says. "Your eyes were open, but you weren't here."
"I remembered." My voice cracks. "I remembered my mother."
He goes still. "Tell me."
"She was in a kitchen. Yellow curtains. She was baking something, and she asked me to set the table, and she—" I stop, because my throat is closing up, because tears are spilling down my cheeks and I can't stop them. "She smiled at me. She called me baby."
Jagger doesn't say anything. Just pulls me against his chest, wraps his arms around me, holds me while I fall apart.
I cry for a long time. Not pretty crying, not dignified tears. Ugly, heaving sobs that shake my whole body, that leave me gasping for air. Three years of not knowing who I was. Three years of not having a single memory to hold onto. And now this. A kitchen. Yellow curtains. A mother who loved me.
