Chapter 12
Paula
“Sit down, Paula. We need to talk for real this time,” she says, pointing at her bed and sitting against the wall with her back flat. “Tonight I figured something out, and I need to say it before the effect wears off.”
“Before the effect wears off?”
“Yeah, the effect of having a kid asleep on your chest for five hours. Turns out it's the most effective therapy in the world, and I know a lot about therapy. Plus it's free.”
“Okay,” I say, confused, and sit on the bed next to her.
“I want something real,” she says. “Not as some nice idea or an Instagram caption. I want crappy nights trying to get a kid to sleep. I want…” She stops.
Looks at her hands. Opens them. Closes them.
“I want a relationship like Tessa and Zoe's, and Paula, it terrifies me. Because if this is what I really want, why have I spent my whole life running from it?”
“You want a relationship?” I ask.
“Yes. Like Zoe and Tessa's. With kids,” she adds, draping her legs across my lap.
“And I want us to stop playing games, because I like you enough to try something serious for the first time in my life.
And you like me too, you just use all that crap about being my bodyguard and not crossing lines and blah, blah, blah… stuff you don't even believe yourself.”
I search for something to say, but I don't need words because she tucks her legs and leans in to kiss me.
And she kisses me slowly. Slower than Iris does anything. She brushes my lips, pulls back, comes back. No rush. Something worse: the certainty that this was going to happen, that we both knew it for days, and all that was missing was the step.
“Iris.”
“Don't say a single word about your job, because I swear I'll slap you, even if you slap me back,” she jokes.
She slides her hands over my face, fingers spread across my cheeks, holding me still, like she doesn't want me to move, even though I have no plans to.
I bite her lower lip. Soft. A sound escapes her throat, short, surprised.
“God,” she whispers against my mouth.
“You okay?”
“I'm great. Don't stop.”
Iris gets on her knees on the bed, facing me, and pulls my shirt up and over my head. She kisses my neck, and then stops at my left collarbone, where I have a mole.
“Hey there, little guy,” she whispers before kissing it.
“Are you talking to my mole?”
“Yeah, I love it. I mean, I love plenty of things about you, but I don't want it going to your head,” she says, covering my neck in small kisses.
Her teeth graze below my ear, and I shiver. A real, visible tremor that runs down my spine.
“So that's one of your weak spots, huh?” she murmurs, and I can feel her smile against my skin.
She moves down to my shoulder, mouth open over my collarbone, her teeth and tongue tracing the skin.
She pulls back, looks at me, and the smile she gives me feels like the best thing in the world. She pulls her shirt off over her head in one motion. Underneath, freckles on her shoulders and a gray sports bra from her sponsor that's seen better days.
“Not exactly gala lingerie,” she jokes.
“I don't need it.”
“Yeah, what you need is for me to take all my clothes off and you think I'm taking too long,” she says, unclipping the bra and gesturing for me to do the same.
Then she puts her hands on my shoulders and pushes me back gently until I'm flat on the mattress, and climbs on top of me, straddling my hips.
“Don't move,” she tells me, leaning down to brush her tits against mine.
The sigh that escapes my mouth must amuse her, because she laughs, and I have to beg her not to stop.
And then I lose track of everything. Her tongue circling my nipples, driving me out of my mind, her right hand unbuttoning my pants and sliding underneath to find me, feeling me like she wants to make sure I'm into this.
I can barely speak. I can barely move. I lie almost still, stroking her back while her fingertips trace my ribs and my stomach.
She peels off my pants and underwear together. Then my socks, kissing my instep before working her way up, along my whole leg, getting dangerously close before she stops.
Her warm breath grazes the inside of my thighs, so close I feel it right where I need her. I squirm, involuntarily, and she looks up with an expression that's half mischief, half pure want.
“Patience, Paula,” she murmurs, smiling. “We've got all the time in the world.”
Before I can answer, her mouth lands on my pussy with the softest kiss I've ever felt.
She nuzzles me with the tip of her nose before tracing a slow line downward with her tongue, parting me gently.
The first direct stroke on my clit tears a choked gasp out of me.
It's electric, precise, like she knows exactly where to press, how to circle her tongue in slow loops that make my back arch off the mattress.
“God, Iris…” I whisper, fingers threading through her hair.
She doesn't answer with words. She slides a finger inside me, moving slow, curling it right at the spot that makes me shake.
Then another, matching the rhythm of her mouth on my clit: sucking, licking, with an intensity that leaves me breathless.
My body responds on instinct, my hips rising to meet her, but Iris holds me down, pressing a hand flat on my stomach.
“Stay still or I stop,” she orders, though her tone is playful and every word hums against my skin.
I give in, and the pleasure builds like a wave that can't be stopped, her fingers moving faster, her pinky slipping between my cheeks.
When I can't take any more, I let out a long moan, and she practically purrs in approval, looking up to give me a gorgeous smile, her fingers still inside me.
She doesn't pull them out until my body goes slack, until my gasps turn into broken sighs. Only then does she pull away, licking her lips with a satisfied grin, like she just tasted the best thing on earth.
“God, I love how responsive you are,” she says, climbing up my body to kiss me. Her mouth tastes like me, and when she pulls back, she places her fingers on my lips for me to suck.
“I think you're wearing too many clothes,” I joke, pointing at the pants she still has on.
She smiles and shoves off her pants and underwear, almost tripping, then positions herself over me again, this time opening my legs so her pussy rests flush against mine.
She rocks slow, a circular motion, a slick, maddening friction that makes us both moan.
My hands go to her hips, but she's the one setting the pace, slow at first, then faster, more urgent.
“Yeah, like that… just like that,” she pants, head thrown back, the freckles on her shoulders catching the dim lamplight.
It's hypnotic to watch: the sweat gleaming on her collarbone, her lips parted, moans spilling out and tangling with mine.
Then her body locks, she cries out my name, and lets go on top of me while pulling me over the edge with her.
I collapse under her, wrecked, trying to catch my breath while Iris drops beside me and pulls me against her chest. She tangles her legs with mine, her heart hammering, and I trace the freckles on her shoulders with my fingertips, grinning like a fool.
“I want so much more of this, Paula,” she whispers, and kisses my forehead.
“Me too,” I admit.
Later, with the sheets wrecked and Seattle's gray light leaking through the window, she draws circles on my stomach with her finger.
“Paula.”
“Yeah?”
“Don't ask me to be someone else. Please. I'm still going to show up late. I'm still going to be a mess. I'll still drive Hades crazy because that's who I am. If you're looking for someone neat, punctual, and low-key, this isn't going to work.”
“I know. It's like the dragon in the stories you make up for Wesley. You're that dragon. That's why you also invented the wise turtle who keeps reminding him that he doesn't need to stop being a dragon.”
She goes quiet for a second.
“That's the nicest thing anyone's said to me naked,” she says after a beat.
“And with clothes on?”
“Oh, I have some very intense fans. You can't imagine what they tell me sometimes,” she jokes.
“I can.”
“Oh, and the mole on the collarbone…”
“What about it?”
“It's mine. I'm claiming it. Iris territory from now on.”
A little later, she falls asleep. No television. No podcast. Nothing. She falls asleep with her head on my chest and her hand on my stomach.
I stay still. Listening to her breathe.
And I think about Valentina.
This time without pain. With clarity. Valentina was a lapse in judgment.
I got too close to someone I was supposed to protect, and the closeness blinded me.
When everything went wrong, I decided that distance was the right answer.
Three years of distance. Three years convincing myself that the problem had been allowing myself to feel, when the problem had been not looking closely enough.
Iris shifts in her sleep.
This isn't Valentina. Valentina was darkness mistaken for light. This is light. She might be complicated, loud, late, and foul-mouthed, but she's light.
I pull out my phone, careful not to wake her, and text my grandmother.
“How are you, mija?”
“Good. I'm good.”
“That sounds like more than good.”
“Yeah.”
“The soccer girl?”
“The soccer girl.”
I laugh when she says she wants to meet her.
Iris stirs. Opens one eye.
“Who are you talking to?” she mumbles.
“My grandma.”
“At eleven in the morning?”
“It's noon for her.”
“Did you tell her you're in bed with me?”
“No.”
“You should. She'd love it.”
“She's pretty progressive, actually,” I say, smiling.
Iris closes her eyes again. Curls against my chest. Outside, the rain has started, and the wind throws drops against the window.
“Paula,” she says, half asleep.
“Yeah?”
“Didn't need the TV. Or a podcast. Just you,” she sighs.