When his tongue slid inside me, I arched so hard I almost came off the bench. Only his hand on my belly kept me in place. He did it again, his tongue thick and ridged and warm, penetrating. I was desperate for more of everything.
“Tolrek,” I cried out, his name broken into syllables.
He responded by closing his lips around my clit and sucking, his tongue still working in small, focused circles while he slid a finger inside me. The dual sensation was too much and not enough and exactly what I needed all at once.
As he pumped his finger, adding another, the tension built higher and tighter, until I was balanced on a blade’s edge. Mythighs trembled. My breathing came in short gasps. My hands in his hair tightened, pulling him closer.
His tongue moved faster, the pressure perfect. He was reading the rising pitch of my breathing and the tension in my body the way he read developing plays on ice.
The part of me that catalogued, measured, and tracked patterns had disappeared. It never had before. I couldn’t have recovered it even if I’d wanted to.
When my orgasm hit, it came from somewhere deep I hadn’t known existed.
The first wave crashed through me, making me cry out. His mouth stayed on me, and his fingers continued to pump, gentling but not stopping, drawing it out as a second wave followed. Then a third. My back arched. I fisted my hands in his hair. Sounds came out of me, helpless, feral things I couldn’t have held back even if I’d tried.
The waves kept coming, each one rolling through me with enough force that I lost track of how many. He eased me through it, his tongue softening but not leaving until the last aftershock had faded and my body went boneless on the bench.
He rested his head against my inner thigh, his chest heaving against my leg, his breathing as ragged as mine. When he finally lifted his head to look at me, his lips were wet, and his eyes were darker than I’d ever seen them. The expression on his face was raw, unguarded, and it made my chest ache.
I stared at the gym ceiling, at the fluorescent lights that were too bright, and the acoustic tiles that had water stains in one corner.
He moved up, sitting back on the bench beside me rather than over me. I pushed myself upright on shaking arms, and we sat side by side on a weight bench at midnight. I would’ve laughed about it if I could’ve found the breath.
Neither of us spoke.
By now, I knew his silences. The careful ones in hallways and elevators, loaded with everything neither of us was saying. The comfortable ones in the restaurant and on the bus, when not talking felt like its own kind of conversation.
This one felt different from all of them. It didn’t need anything from me. It wasn’t waiting.
I didn’t want to move through it too quickly.
“Haley,” he said softly. Just my name in the specific tone he used when something was significant.
“Yes.”
I wasn’t going to be able to walk this back, and I didn’t want to. My father’s face appeared in my mind, followed by the job and the season and the team. All of it was still there, waiting for me to pick it back up and figure out how to hold it alongside this.
Just not yet.
He helped me dress, handing me my shirt and pants and holding my jacket while I shrugged into it. Then he tugged on his own shirt.
I retrieved the towel from the bench and tossed it into the bin near the door.
He paused while I gathered myself and walked beside me to the door. After unlocking it, he held it open, and we moved into the hallway together.
We didn’t hold hands, but we remained close, our arms touching.
At my door, he waited while I found my key card. My hands were steadier than I expected as I held the small rectangle of plastic over the reader without fumbling.
The light turned green.
I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. Then I remained in place, listening.
He remained in the hall, waiting. When I turned the deadbolt, the sound of it carried through the door. His footstepsmoved away. Down the hall. He opened a door and closed it carefully behind him.
I leaned against the wall and stared at the hotel room, taking in the standard layout with a bed, desk, and chair. The window looked out over a parking structure, a lit billboard, and the grid of an unfamiliar city working its way through the night.
I should not be able to hold this and everything else at the same time.
