“Please, Alice.”
I hum and push my palms up her thighs, trying to commit every inch of her to memory.
“Please,” she begs again, and the desperation in her voice sets a fire in my lungs, then another between my thighs. She looks down at me, eyes stormy and sultry and utterly irresistible. My favorite shade of blue they’ve ever been.
“Eyes on me,” I breathe. “Just like that.”
My confidence surprises me. It’s been so long since I’ve been with anyone like this. Much longer since I’ve done it sober. But when it comes to Renee, I’m so entirely myself, so fully connected to what I want. I want her. All of her.
Renee bites her lip as she nods, and those blue-flame eyes don’t budge from mine again. Not when I guide one hand over the wet silk between her thighs. Not when I twist the fabric out of my way. I part her with one gentle finger, and we both moan when I dip inside.
“So perfect.”
Renee whimpers in reply, then again when my thumb ghosts over her clit. I go slow until she begs me not to, gentle until her hips grind and buck, demanding more and more.
The first time Renee comes undone for me, it’s fitful andfrenzied, and she cries out my name. I’m addicted to the sound. The second time, it’s almost too easy; the release pours out of her on a honey-drenched sigh, her legs trembling even minutes after. When I go for a third, Renee flinches away, too sensitive.
“Sorry,” I murmur.
Renee hums. “Are you, though?”
She smiles down at me, her tongue pressed against her teeth so little flashes of pink show through. She’s so agonizingly cute. How can a single person be so cute, so hot, so striking, so everything? When she climbs up and helps me to my feet, I realize we’re both still fully dressed, but that doesn’t last. I shiver when Renee’s hands find the curve of my waist, the button of my shorts, the waistband of my black cotton briefs. She undresses me from the waist down while walking me back into my couch until the cushions hit the backs of my bare knees. Then she sinks between them, and desire riots through me.
Her sweet blue eyes lift to mine. “Can I?”
“I’ll lose my mind if you don’t.”
Renee hums a laugh, and a chill sparks between my shoulder blades. It spreads like a burn down the backs of my arms as she parts me with her tongue, tasting me for the first time. Heat tenses and pulses through me, months’ worth of want shooting to my fingertips. My toes. The cradle of my hips, which rock into her mouth as she explores how to make me gasp and clench and sigh out her name. I lose my breath when her lips seal around my clit. She sinks into me with two fingers, and I arch and shiver, shuddering against her tongue. And then I’m gone. Unwound like a spool of silk thread until I’m nothing but a ragged breath and thumping heartbeat. My body is hot and heavy and all hers.
Renee looks up at me through her thick black lashes, blue eyes sparkling like gemstones.
“Hey, you.” Her voice is a sweet, breathless rasp, and I would submerge myself in it if I could.
“Hey,” I sigh out. “I…wow. Thank you.”
She hums and kisses my left knee, then the right, then climbs up onto the couch beside me, nuzzling into my neck. Warmth fizzes at every place where she touches me: her hand on my shoulder, her cheek on my chest. I shift so I can kiss her again, and I moan when I taste myself on her tongue.
“You are way too much, you know that?” I growl, and Renee pulls back for a moment. Her eyes brim with admiration as she traces my jaw with her thumb, pressing it to my lower lip. I kiss it, and she breathes the smallest, sweetest laugh.
“You, Alice Pierce.” She cups my face. “Are exactly enough.”
I pull Renee’s mouth back to mine, and the sweetest moan pours into me from somewhere deep in her throat. It sounds like a song I’ve been searching for, a melody I could set on repeat and play through the night.
And that’s exactly what I plan to do.
Twenty
For the third time this summer, I wake up already panicking.
Where am I? Whose bed am I in? Did the tour van leave without me?
My pulse charges against my chest, muscles braced against each racing thought before I’ve even opened my eyes. A train rattles past outside, and I suck in a fractured breath, placing myself back within the present. I’m at home. I’m in my own bed. And, yes, the tour van left without me. ThankGod.
My breathing starts to even, and I open my eyes to see that, again, for the third time this summer, I’m tangled up in Renee Roberts. She’s curled into me, cheek pressed just below my collarbone with her hair mussed up, blond strands falling every which way across my gray tank top. Her bare leg is hitched up, thigh pressed against the waistband of my briefs. She slept in nothing but my threadbare band T-shirt, a red one I dug out of storage, just for her. Like so many nights following a Cold Sweat show, I crawled into bed with someone, but unlike every time before, I’m sober, and she’s no stranger. I know Renee Roberts better than I know myself most days. I know how to cheer her up and piss heroff in equal measure. I know her favorite musicals areGreaseandRent, and I know the lyrics to my half of that stupid duet she always wants to sing. I know the taste of her tattoos, and how she moves when I trace them with my tongue.
Renee shifts the smallest bit in her sleep, the soft skin of her thigh shifting against mine. Heat pools between my hips at the memory of last night—Renee, in the kitchen, stripped down to tattoos and moonlight. How her breath wavered when I ran my hands up her thighs and pressed my thumb into the treble clef tattooed over her hip. The curve of her back as she stood, palms pressed to the quartz countertops, peering over her shoulder with a devilish grin that I kissed right off her mouth. The warmth of her moans as they spilled into my palm, how I kept her quiet with one hand and drew loud moans out of her with the other. I spun lazy circles on her clit, then faster ones, building speed and pressure and grinding my hips against her ass until she came apart, a pinched moan opening into a full, glorious sound I would’ve happily drowned in. I licked the taste of her off my fingers, and when I slid them back inside, the way she said my name…God, what was it about the way she said my name? It poured out of her like a prayer. Like a plea. Like Renee needed me.
I know I need her too.
