‘You are, Satoshi.’ I wrapped my hands around his left forearm, using it as leverage so I could catch his rhythm. ‘Just you. Only you.’
‘That’s – fucking – right.’ He bit the words out, short, staccato, punctuated with thrusts. ‘Tonight, you’re mine.’
‘Yes.’ I drove myself down onto him, taking him as deep as I could, ignoring the bitter protests of my knees and hip flexors. ‘Yours.’
It was fast and hard and urgent and sweaty, the kind of sex I would feel for days afterwards. His fingers were insistent against my clit as he pounded into me, our skin slipping together as I tried to match him, the sound of it visceral, carnal, the sight of it in the mirror almost too much to bear. ‘I’m going to come,’ I panted, my legs shaking violently with the force of it. ‘Satoshi, I’m so close.’
He kissed the spot behind my ear – a featherlight gesture, small, chaste – and it tipped me over the edge. The sound that came out of me was animal as I clenched tight around him, the white heat of the sensation going on and on as he bit my shoulder hard and groaned my name, driving as deep as he could and holding me there as he followed.
In this position, I had nothing to cling to but him. I snaked my right arm behind me, hooking it around his neck in a way that would have been awkward and uncomfortable if my whole body hadn’t been drained of any semblance of resistance. His left hand was still pressed hard against my heart, and I covered it with mine, twining my fingers through his.
He buried his face into my throat, heedless of his glasses. I could feel his breathing against my skin as he gulped down air, swift and shaky and uneven.
‘That was…’ I tried to find the right words to describe it,rubbing my cheek against his hair. ‘That was more cardio than I’ve had in a long time.’
His snort of surprised laughter was muffled against my neck. ‘Is that why your heart’s racing?’
I slid my fingers deeper into the gaps between his and pulled his hand up to my mouth. ‘Yes.’ I kissed the veins in his wrist, then the base of his thumb. ‘But it’s not the only reason.’
Satoshi looked up. His eyes met mine in the mirror.
And there wasn’t a single word I could find for what I wanted to say. None that could possibly encompass how it felt to be held by him, surrounded by him, enveloped by him like this; the flood of emotion it sent rushing through me.
All I could do was press his hand to my heart again, and hope he understood what I did not know how to express: that this meant everything to me.
When I woke later, it was dark, and I was alone.
I blinked, scrabbling automatically for my phone on the nightstand. It was just after two in the morning.
I didn’t know when I’d fallen asleep. I’d checked my phone at about half past ten when Satoshi got up to get rid of the condom, in case Elias or Jonah had messaged me about the kids. There had been nothing, though, and I’d grinned as Satoshi emerged from the bathroom, an aggrieved Yquem in his arms. This was, I thought, as he cooed to her, holding her close to his bare chest and stroking her head until she calmed down, a very specific – and effective – type of pornography.
Then he’d come back to bed, and we’d lain down together, him spooning me.This is nice,I’d whispered, running my fingers up and down his forearm.
Mmmm,he’d replied, the vibration of his voice a low hum against the back of my neck.Yes.
He’d kissed a gentle line across my shoulder.Do you want to talk about it? What happened today?
I’d sighed.Not really.
But I’d spilled the whole story anyway: Matt turning up on my doorstep, Lex’s outburst, the way I’d sent the kids off with my brothers so I could finally have it out with him.I’ve never been so angry in my whole life. The fact that he thought he could just show up like that – like I’d roll over for him…
No wonder you wanted to cheat on him,he’d murmured.
I’d taken his hand and pressed it to my lips.I don’t want to think about him anymore, Satoshi.
We’d had sex again, long and slow and languid this time, and then I must have fallen asleep. My last memory was of Satoshi at my back, our fingers tangled together, one of his thighs between mine, his breath warm in my hair.
But now he was gone.
I sat up and used the torch on my phone to look around his apartment. Yquem was draped along one of the arms of the sofa, but Satoshi wasn’t anywhere.
I paused for a moment, then set my phone down and flicked on his bedside lamp.
My ruined underwear was nowhere to be found, but he’d folded my dress, my bra sitting neatly on top of it on the coffee table. My shoes were no longer in the messy pile with his that they’d been in when we kicked them off – rather, they were sitting on the top row of his shoe rack, aligned precisely perpendicular to the wall.
I retied the sash on my dress, the thought of him taking the time to get up and tidy making my heart ache. I rubbed at it with the heel of my hand, the skin still tender from how tight he’d held me to him, a memory that made it ache even more.
I found Satoshi downstairs in the bar. He was only in his underwear – his boxer briefs were royal blue, I noted, unable to stop myself smiling at the fact that they matched his glasses, a different pair than the green ones he’d been wearing before – as he wiped down tables, mop and bucket propped against the wall.
