"Let it happen, Ella. I've got you."
She comes with her face pressed against my shoulder and her hand clenched around my wrist. I don’t even have a finger inside her, just pressed against her clit, but I feel her body pulsing, contracting. I hold her through it, solid, steady, whispering her name.
She's quiet for a long time after. Breathing. Eyes closed. Her hand loosens on my wrist, but doesn't let go. I don't move. I barely breathe. I let her slide back to herself in her own time.
"That was—" She opens her eyes. They're glassy. "Was that?—"
"That was a super-hot orgasm," I say, because she deserves to name it.
"From someone else."
I blink, needing not to imagine her getting herself off alone, in my bed, without me.
"Bernard. That was …" She shakes her head. "Different."
"Good different?"
"I don't have a vocab word for what that was."
I press my forehead against her temple and breathe her in and try very, very hard not to think about what I want, which is to be inside her, which is never to let anyone else touch her, which is to burn the "right guy" framework to the ground and tell her there is no other guy, there's only me, there's only this.
I can’t resist bringing my hand to my mouth and licking the taste of her from my fingers. My new favorite flavor.
"What about you?" she asks, shifting against me, obviously feeling the situation at my hip.
"I'm good."
"Bernard, you're clearly?—"
"Ella." I pull back and look at her. "That was a complete experience. You don't owe me anything."
She studies me with those sharp nurse eyes. "You're sure?"
"I'm sure.”
“Okay,” she has a hand on my arm. “But I do need to learn how to…” Ella gestures lewdly, and a strangled sound flies out of my throat.
I scoot back on the bed. “Don't you have circus school?"
She laughs, still dazed, still flushed, and I help her sit up, handing her T-shirt back, watching her pull it on and smooth her hair, all composure and deflection settling back over her like armor. She stands, wobbles slightly, and steadies herself on the arm of the couch.
"Aerial silks," she corrects.
“Sure.”
She looks at me for a beat. Something moves behind her eyes, not quite gratitude, not quite affection, something deeper and more dangerous. "Thank you, Bernard."
She disappears into the en suite. The shower starts. I hear her through the wall, moving around in the bathroom, and I sit on my bed with a throw blanket on my lap and her taste on my lips and the phantom grip of her hand around my wrist, and I try to breathe.
She emerges fifteen minutes later in leggings and a tank top, hair wet. She smiles and rummages in her suitcase, still packed with stacks of folded clothes. She stands with a tote bag and grabs her water bottle from my dresser. "I'm meeting Aarthi and McKenzie outside. I'll be back by…"
"I'll pick you up. Text me the address."
She hesitates, then nods. "Okay."
The door closes behind her.
I sit in the silence.
