Chapter 33
Thirty-Three
R ain in her hair and Tori on her lips, Mia regretted her delayed flight. With more time, she would have misted her sheets with some sexy fragrance. Would have lit candles and set up a playlist and done all kinds of romantic things worthy of Tori.
“Take this off,” Tori demanded, hands already clawing at her dress as they stumbled into Mia’s house.
“I think you can handle it yourself,” Mia teased, arms around Tori’s neck and pulling her backward into her bedroom.
Tori smirked into their frantic kiss. Mia imagined her teeth like the point of a blade catching moonlight—seductive and dangerous and mesmerizing. And then Tori was yanking off her dress in a single, decisive move.
Instead of ravaging her like Mia expected, Tori slowed when they neared the foot of the bed. A soft glow from the backyard flood light cut across the room and illuminated Tori’s face. Mia’s chest ached at the sight of her. Her features so soft, they had no right slicing her to the bone.
Running her fingertips along the edge of Mia’s bra, Tori bit her bottom lip. The way her expression changed when she followed the swell of her breast forced Mia’s pulse into a sprint.
“You’re so beautiful,” Tori whispered, lips skimming the column of her neck.
Mia opened her mouth to disagree with a sprinkle of self-deprecation, but Tori’s hand was cupping her breast and sending a rush of heat dancing over her skin. Her touch was so confident, so purposeful, Mia’s objection turned into a sigh.
“I want to see you.” Mia couldn’t hide the tremble in her voice or her fingers when she reached for the buttons on Tori’s shirt.
“But I’m still looking at you,” Tori teased, teeth on Mia’s collarbone and open palms sliding down her hips. “Wait your turn.”
Mia loved the tone Tori seemed to reserve for her. It was deep and sure and completely fucking dismantling. Fist in Tori’s loose, wavy hair, Mia pulled her away from where she was marking her throat.
“I’ve waited long enough,” Mia decided, turning Tori so she could gently push her onto the bed. So she could drop to her knees in front of her parted thighs and stare up at her while she opened her shirt, one button at a time.
Watching her through hooded eyes, Tori wore her lust like the most extravagant perfume. Mia would’ve done anything to keep her like that—undone, wanting, looking only at her. She wanted to stitch the moment into her skin, trade her name, her breath, her heart, just to keep mattering like that.
Mia greeted every inch of Tori’s newly exposed skin with a kiss. She tasted the salt of her collarbone. Skimmed the curve of her neck. Lost restraint when she reached the hollow of her chest.
Tori’s hand found Mia’s hair, the other gripping the mattress for balance. When she groaned and arched back to give her room, Mia followed the curve of her torso with her mouth. She burned a trail of kisses—scattershot, fraying, already giving way to teeth—until she reached the cool metal of Tori’s belt buckle.
Hesitation cost Mia the upper hand. Before she could loop her finger into the leather and pull it apart, Tori reached down. Grabbing her by the arms, she scooped Mia off the floor and into her lap.
Mouth hard against hers, Tori kissed her like she might die if she didn’t consume her. Fingers digging into Mia’s hips, she flipped her onto the bed before Mia reacted to the change in tempo.
“I’ve been waiting a hell of a lot longer than you,” Tori growled when she climbed on top of her, voice so deep it vibrated at Mia’s core.
Parting her thighs to pull her between them, Mia clawed at Tori’s open shirt. “You can at least have the decency of being naked.”
Grinning into their kiss, Tori bit Mia’s bottom lip and tugged so hard it seemed impossible she hadn’t drawn blood. The idea that Tori wanted her badly enough to bruise and break sent an unstoppable ache pulsing through her body.
And then Tori was up, kneeling on the bed between Mia’s parted legs. She pulled off her shirt and tossed it on the floor. While Mia gawked—propped on her elbows to avoid missing a thing—Tori reached behind her back. Sultry gaze pinning Mia to the bed like fingers curled tightly around her throat, Tori unhooked her bra.
In the faint glow from the window, Tori’s body was art to be studied. To be revered. It wasn’t just that she was beautiful. It was that she was hers .
“You’re going to have to give me Dr. Bloom’s number.” Mia tried to joke with what was left of her brain cells, voice too thin and attention glued on Tori’s body.
The sight of Tori’s graceful fingers unfastening her belt made Mia’s mouth run dry and the rest of her grow painfully wet.
“Why?” Tori slid off the bed and let her pants fall to the floor. She stood there a beat longer so Mia could bite her sore bottom lip and make an embarrassing sound. “You’re absolutely perfect the way you are,” she said before crawling over Mia.
Hands gliding up Tori’s bare, muscular back, Mia couldn’t find the will to waste words. To point out her plethora of imperfections. Not when she’d inadvertently tricked the most perfect human being into wanting her. Tossing her head back, she didn’t stop herself from grinding against Tori. To moan as loudly as she wanted with Tori ravaging her neck and rocking her hips into her.
“You’re incredible,” Tori whispered against Mia’s ear, hand running over Mia’s chest and slipping behind her back. “Can I take this off?” she asked in a voice so quiet, it was like she didn’t want to spoil a game.
Mia nodded, starting to sit up so she could undo the more complicated three hooks of her bra. But Tori pushed her back down with the lightest touch.
“Let me do it,” she demanded.
“It’s too hard to?—”
Mia’s protestation was cut off by Tori’s hand slipping between her body and the mattress. She’d barely arched her back when Tori unclasped her bra with nothing but a snap of her fingers.
Eyes wide, Mia was going to ask Tori how much practice she had undressing women when Tori tore the garment from her body and threw it like she never wanted to see it again. When she dropped down half on top of Mia and took both breasts in her hands. When she took one of her nipples into her mouth and moaned. When she drove Mia to the brink and they’d barely started.
“Fuck,” Mia panted, hips raising up to meet Tori’s body. To steal friction wherever she could get it.
“I thought you weren’t sensitive,” Tori teased, tongue circling the stiff point before taking it into her mouth again.
“I’m not.” Her voice was already cracking into a whimper. She couldn’t explain that every part of her body was alive with wanting Tori. That she’d thought about this every moment they’d been apart. That there wasn’t a single part of her body where Tori’s touch wouldn’t drive her insane. That the anticipation was so intense, it was pounding in her ears and mouth and chest.
Tori’s grin was unapologetically wicked. Like she’d looked into Mia’s soul and seen how desperate she was—how on the edge. Slithering down Mia’s torso, Tori used her hands and mouth to devour her as she went. Never had anyone paid such singular attention to every part of her body. Lips over sternum. Teeth over ribs. Tongue over navel.
Grabbing fistfuls of sheets, Mia was bordering on hyperventilation. She was trembling by the time Tori settled between her parted thighs. Panting when Tori ran her fingertips so lightly over the thin, damp fabric of her underwear. Cursing when she raised her hips to find the relief of full contact.
Diabolic delight etched into Tori’s perfect mouth right before she bit her bottom lip, attention on Mia as if she didn’t want to miss a moment of her torment. “I guess now is a good time to tell you I’m not going to let you come.”
“What?” Mia shrieked in a way that would’ve been embarrassing if she had any fucking control over her emotions, but they were in a tailspin along with the rest of her.
Tori responded with a touch so light, Mia couldn’t be sure it had happened. Didn’t know whether her frayed nervous system imagined it. Eyes still trained on Mia, Tori pressed her lips to the inside of her knee.
“Not until you make me believe that you want it,” Tori said, showing Mia how deals with the Devil came into being.
Moving her mouth slowly down her inner thigh, Tori didn’t increase the excruciatingly inadequate pressure over the very tip of her clit. By the time Tori ran her tongue along the edge of her underwear, Mia was tearing at the sheets. She concentrated so intently on the weak touch, willing it to be enough, that a headache started to build at her temples.
“Please,” Mia whispered, mouth dry from hanging open, fingers in Tori’s hair.
Tori’s mouth hovered over undoubtedly soaked underwear. “Terrible first try.” She moved her hand, wrapping both arms around Mia’s trembling thighs, and kissed her through the fabric.
“Fuck,” she cried, tipping her hips up to chase more but Tori held her down like she’d anticipated her reaction. Like she woke up every morning and worked out for exactly this cruel purpose. “Please.”
“Please what?” She skimmed her lips over Mia’s aching clit before kissing her again, too gently to do any good.
How the hell was Mia supposed to know what she wanted? All she needed was to ease the gnawing pain of desire holding her brain and body hostage.
“Let me take these off,” she pleaded, desperation making her voice sound so strange through her pounding eardrums. “Please,” she added when Tori didn’t move.
An agonizing eternity later, Tori relented. With both hands, she yanked the underwear down, pulling them off like she was offended they existed at all.
When Tori was back to her position, arms wrapped around her thighs, Mia closed her eyes and waited. Time shifted and warped until she felt the faintest brush of Tori’s full, kiss-swollen lips. The slight contact was a seismic tremor. Mia braced for more, hips digging into the bed like that might do something for her need.
“Tori, please,” Mia cried, clinging to the sheets she’d torn off the bed.
“A little more convincing,” she agreed, measured and merciless and unwilling to rush Mia’s ruin.
As a reward for being just pathetic enough, Tori ran her tongue lightly over Mia’s clit before taking it between her lips. At the taste of her, Tori groaned. Her hold on Mia’s thighs tightened, and she threw herself into the act like she’d happily drown in Mia. Like she’d never tasted anything more incredible in her life.
Mia dropped her jaw to moan, but it got lodged in her throat. Got trapped along with the exhale burning in her lungs. Head tossed back, she was overwhelmed by the heat of Tori’s mouth, and her skilled tongue, and soft lips all working together to drive her immediately to the edge.
Something primal and bright surged through Mia too fast. It pressed against her skin like it was trying to escape. It gathered low in her belly, spinning chaotically—dense, molten, unstoppable—like the core of a sun that didn’t know how to do anything but burn.
Back arching off the bed, Mia’s entire body ignited. Clenching her jaw when she managed to close her mouth, her entire being coalesced to the point where Tori’s mouth met her body.
And then Tori stopped abruptly and painfully. Even without her touch, Mia nearly tumbled over the edge by sheer momentum.
“What’s wrong?” Mia gasped, legs shaking and core pounding.
Tori looked up at her, eyes dark and intent darker. She wasn’t the sweet woman who’d held her close and sent her flowers and mailed her little handwritten notes while she was away. The woman looking up at her had never sent her a good morning text to say she’d thought about her on her run. Had never asked her about her day, or listened patiently while she recounted every moment from therapy. This Tori was calm, calculating, and entirely in control of Mia’s destruction.
“What did I tell you?” Tori’s voice was low, almost lazy, like she had all the time in the world. Like she didn’t care that Mia was breaking apart from the build up. Like she wanted her to shatter.
Mia couldn’t think. She could barely breathe. Memories of anything before this moment were hazy and unfocused, distant like they’d happened to someone else.
“Please,” Mia begged, voice raspy with unabashed need. “Please, Tori. I need you.”
Tilting her head to the side, Tori looked at her like she was considering what brand of frozen pizza to pick at the store. Like it was all the same to her if Mia never felt another moment of happiness in her life.
“Need me for what?” Her finger trailed Mia’s entrance as if to show her how wet she was. As if Mia didn’t already know she was dripping.
“Let me,” she begged, so hoarse it was almost embarrassing. “Make me come, please.”
Tori pushed inside just far enough to send a fresh wave of heat punishing her from a new angle. Cursing, Mia swung her hips, desperate to lure Tori in deeper. To stretch around her fingers and come so hard she unlocked a new level of consciousness. It was so close.
“Convince me that you want it,” Tori said, but this time Mia heard the desire she couldn’t mask from her tone. It only made Mia’s need more urgent. More inescapable.
“I want it,” Mia swore like an ancient oath. “Fuck, Tori. I want it so fucking bad. I need you, please.”
“When you come…” Tori added a second finger and pushed into Mia just a little further. God, it was almost enough. Mia couldn’t help grinding against her, ready to promise anything for release. “I want you to say thank you .”
The moment Tori’s tongue was moving at lightning speed over her clit while she slipped her fingers in deeper, Mia nearly broke her promise. It was all happening too fast. Her mouth and fingers were moving in a coordinated attack to unravel her.
Body tense, Mia tossed her head back. Sweat stung her eyes when she managed a “Thank you” seconds before an orgasm ripped through her. An orgasm so intense that she didn’t reach its end before Tori was sucking her clit and bobbing her head in a way that made Mia feel like she was fucking her mouth. Something she’d never imagined wanting, but the idea alone was sending her into an even harder climax. She barely eked out another thank you before her hips were shooting off the bed again.
Mia was on the verge of painful overstimulation when Tori released her. Kissing a rough line up Mia’s body, Tori claimed her mouth with a kiss so deep it was debilitating just before she plunged two fingers so deep inside her, it triggered another orgasm before Mia could make a sound.
Clawing at Tori’s back, Mia could barely sustain their kiss but she wouldn’t give up Tori’s mouth. Rocking hard against Tori’s fingers, pushing her in as far as she could go and wishing for just a little more, Mia’s orgasm tore through her. She clung to Tori’s sweat-soaked body like she might fall off the planet if she loosened her grasp.
Tori slid out of her gently, but Mia didn’t let her move. She needed Tori’s full weight on top of her. Needed every inch of her body on hers or she’d stop existing. Or she’d float away and she’d be back in Philly. In the gray life she didn’t know was colorless until Tori filled it with something vivid and bright and blinding. Until she made it make sense again.
“Are you okay?” Tori pressed the lightest kisses to her cheek, her jaw, her ear. The tenderness in her voice made Mia want to cry, but she closed her eyes hard and refused to let the tears fall. “Was it too much?”
When she could feel her extremities again, Mia ran her fingers through Tori’s damp hair. She made soothing circles on her back while holding her close. “Was what too much?” She kissed Tori’s shoulder, her neck. “Using reverse psychology to trick me into an orgasm?”
“Just one?” Tori joked, voice soft.
“Don’t get used to it,” Mia replied, gathering her nerve to try and match the unparalleled. “That’s not how it usually goes.”
“We’ll see,” Tori said with intoxicating self-assurance.
It was the confidence Mia didn’t have and couldn’t hope to fake. She wanted to kiss Tori the way she deserved to be kissed. To show her with her mouth and hands and body and words that she wanted her. That she longed for her. But she couldn’t make herself move. Didn’t know how to make Tori feel all the things she had felt.
And then too much time passed. She waited a second too long. Another beat, and then another.
Tori’s steady breaths and soft sounds of contentment filled the silence. She didn’t move. Didn’t initiate more. Didn’t tell Mia what she was supposed to do next. She just rested her head against Mia’s collarbone like she could hear her heart pounding and didn’t want to chase it away.
Unsure what to do, and trying not to cry, Mia held her. Kissed her shoulder. Ran her hand up and down the curve of her back until Tori’s body softened against hers completely.
Tori fell asleep like that—wrapped around Mia, face pressed to her throat.
And Mia didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Didn’t dare breathe too loudly in case it woke her up.
Instead, she stared at the ceiling and tried to keep her heart from splitting open. Because the only thing more terrifying than how much she wanted Tori but didn’t know how to show her, was how much she already loved her.