“You okay, baby girl?” I ask softly.
“Nope.” She smiles broadly. “I may never be okay again. That’s the kind of sex that ruins a girl.”
I relax and chuckle. “I mean, thanks?”
She laughs. “Didn’t you ever hear you’re not supposed to thank a partner for sex?”
“I wasn’t thanking you for the sex—I was thanking you for what I perceive was a complimentaboutthe sex.”
“Okay. Then you’re welcome.” She lightly trails her fingers down my back. “I hope I didn’t break the skin.”
“I hope you did,” I whisper against her ear. “Because it’ll make me want to go again.”
“You did promise me a shower.”
“And a couch.”
She giggles.
And it’s the sweetest sound ever.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Allora
There’s good sex and then there are out-of-body experiences.
What Landon and I just did is neither.
It transcends good sex and surpasses what I imagine an out-of-body experience would be like.
There are no words to properly articulate what we just did.
By the time we’ve done it in the shower and again over the back of the couch, I’m sated and more relaxed than I’ve been in a long time.
I’m also feeling clingy, which is new for me. I do enjoy a post-coital cuddle but I find myself curled against Landon’s much-larger body like a second skin. And there’s no doubt he’s aware.
“You okay, baby?”
“Mm, yes. Just feeling…some kind of way.”
“Vulnerable?”
“Maybe.”
“It’s okay to feel like that.”
“But you probably don’t.”
“No, but I’m not you. And I wasn’t sexually assaulted a couple of weeks ago.”
I stiffen, his words bursting my little bubble of happiness.
“You can’t pretend it didn’t happen. And your first time having sex after something so traumatic is undoubtedly triggering. Even if you don’t want it to be.”
“It’s not triggering,” I say quietly. “It’s more…a reminder, I guess, when I want so much to forget.”
He’s quiet for a few seconds before asking, “Did they hurt you?”
