Chapter 22
Sloane
“My turn,” she says with a grin that is pure lust. “I need to feel you,” she murmurs, voice a little ragged from sleep and sex. “I need to taste you. It’s been too long.”
Her hands are hot on my wrists, braced beside my head, and her thighs clamp around my hips like she’s worried I’ll escape if she lets up.
I could, in theory. I could roll her right back, wrestle her for top spot, but I don’t.
I let her anchor me to the mattress, because in this weird, tangled moment, I think we both need it.
Need the certainty, the yes-this-is-happening of it, and also the oh-my-god-please-don’t-ever-leave-again of it.
My soul is burning for her. Eden looks at me like she’s seeing me for the first time. Every inch. Her eyes are dark and laser-focused, and her mouth is just a little bit open as she slides down my body.
It’s so surreal I almost start laughing. But then she bites down—gently, but enough to let me know she means it—on the spot just below my collarbone, and the laugh turns into a gasp, then a moan.
“Jesus,” I whisper.
“I want to know if you still taste the same,” Eden says, and the way she says it, low and playful, with a thread of pure need woven in, my heart rattles against my ribcage.
I arch my back, offering up the rest of me.
Eden gets the hint and works her way down, lips pressing, tongue tracing, teeth grazing but never quite marking.
She slides her hands under my back and kneads at the muscle there, which would be distracting if her mouth wasn’t zeroed in on my nipple, tugging it in a way that has my eyes squeezing shut.
I can’t decide if I want to be louder or quieter, so I settle for breathing through my teeth and letting my hands tangle in her hair. She moves lower, her cheek scraping along my abs, her tongue hot and slow as it circles my belly button, then lower still.
It hits me, out of nowhere, how much I trust her. That she could break me right now, could drop me from a hundred feet up and I’d thank her for it. The truth of that makes my eyes sting.
Eden pauses right above where I want her, pressing a slow, almost reverent kiss to my inner thigh. She tilts her head upward, meeting my gaze. The dim morning light seeps through the thin curtain, casting a warm glow across the room.
“Hey,” she says with a soft voice. “You still with me?”
I nod. Too choked up to speak, but definitely present.
She smiles, all warmth and mischief. “Good.”
She runs a palm up my thigh, fingers splaying as she nudges my knees farther apart. Every muscle in my body goes liquid. Eden starts kissing her way up, slow as hell, teasing, until I’m about to scream.
I dig my fingers into the sheets, maybe to anchor myself, maybe to keep from grabbing her too hard.
She licks me once, a taste-test, and the sound I make is totally humiliating, but I don’t care.
She does it again, slower, and I see stars behind my eyelids.
She’s relentless—not in a bruising, conquering way, but in the way a wave grinds a rock down over years: patient, focused, inevitable. She knows exactly how to break me.
When her tongue finally slips inside, I let out a full-throated moan.
I’m shaking, and she’s barely started. Then her hand comes up, two fingers sliding in alongside her tongue, easy and smooth, and I lose track of everything but the hot, thick pleasure that’s building between my hips.
She curls her fingers, presses, and I nearly come on the spot.
“Fuck, Ed—”
“Not yet,” she murmurs, lips never leaving me, and the vibration of her voice makes everything more intense.
It’s a goddamn symphony, the way she works me.
She never misses a beat, and when she wants to, she knows how to slow it, then ramp it up until I’m on the edge, nearly sobbing with how good it feels.
When she adds a third finger, I nearly black out.
She works them in, careful but deliberate, and my body arches so hard I think my spine will snap.
She holds on, steady, grounding me with her free hand against my hip.
It’s too much, but I want more, and she knows that, too.
She speeds up, then slows, then teases, determined to push me beyond my limit, and every single time I think I’ve hit the limit, she proves me wrong.
My hands grip her shoulders, and when I finally look down, she’s got her eyes on me, unblinking, waiting, deciding the exact moment she will let me come apart.
It happens all at once. The pressure, the feeling, the electric, bright flare of orgasm that rips through me, so hot and sharp I lose the ability to make noise.
My whole body shudders, legs clamping around her, and the next second I’m crying, tears spilling down my face because it’s too much—too good. Too familiar.
She doesn’t pull away. She just keeps gently taking me and drawing every last ripple from my body until I’m a fucking puddle, limp and wrecked and happier than I’ve ever been.
Eden crawls back up my body slowly. Her arms slide around me, and she presses her face into my neck. I’m crying a little, and she just strokes my hair and kisses my cheek, not saying anything because she doesn’t need to.
Eventually, I come back to myself. I can feel her heartbeat, slow and steady, under my ear. Her hand is rubbing circles on my back. I blink away the tears and laugh, a choked, almost manic sound.
“That was—” I start, but my voice cracks, so I start again. “You’re unreal.”
She kisses the top of my head. “You taste the same,” she whispers, and the tears come all over again, but this time I’m laughing through them.
“Can we stay like this?” I ask.
“As long as you want.” She peppers small kisses behind my ear. “Forever if you’ll let me.”
I snuggle in, so close our bodies are one sweaty, sticky mess. My whole world is heat and her and the smell of us, and it’s perfect.
We drift in and out of sleep, the city humming outside, her breath always right there anchoring me to the present.
The sun sets as we finish making love for the millionth time.
Once we started the floodgates opened, and we both knew we wouldn’t be leaving Eden’s bed anytime soon.
I only ventured into the kitchen once about three hours ago to grab whatever snacks I could carry and bottles of water to rehydrate us.
I hear Becca and Bella come home, but Eden is going down on me so I’m a little preoccupied.
Eden looks up at me from between my thighs, mouth glistening, and gives me her signature lopsided grin that makes my heart try to launch itself out of my chest. Once she knows I’m done, she climbs up and collapses on top of me.
We’re both sticky and twisted in sweat-damp sheets.
I slide my palm up her spine, just to feel the fine shiver that runs down it when I do, and she groans into my neck.
“We’re animals.” I laugh. My voice is still hoarse, every nerve ending blown out.
“Yeah,” she says, sounding very pleased about it. “But we’re really good at it.”
We always were.
She leaves a lazy line of kisses on my jaw, then up to my ear.
This move has always made me insane. It’s a little evil of her to remember it and use it now, and it confirms a suspicion I’ve had since I crawled into her bed last night: she’s got no intention of letting me out of this room until I’m nothing but Jell-O.
I flip her over so she’s on her back, then bracket her face gently with my hands. “You want to see who the real animal is?”
Eden’s eyes go wide. “I hope it’s you.”
It is. I mean, I don’t even recognize my own body right now.
I’ve never wanted sex like this, not ever, even when I was a horny teen.
I feel insatiable. Eden makes me feel insatiable.
We were always fire together, and it’s more than comforting to know it’s still like that between us, even after the time apart and all the mental junk that got between us. She’s still it, and she always will be.
We kiss for a long time, just lips and hands, soft and almost lazy.
But then she lets her hand drift, and it’s on again.
Each time is different, but also somehow…
gets better! I don’t know how that’s possible, but I’m grateful.
At some point, we wrestle for dominance, which is hilarious because I’m still stronger than her.
We end up with Eden flat on her back and me pinning her arms above her head.
Our hips crushed together, both of us breathing hard.
She looks so alive and so in love that it makes me want to cry again.
Instead, I start kissing every inch of her.
I start with her neck before slipping down to her shoulders, her collarbone, and then her lightly freckled arms. Down and down I go, making sure not to miss a single spot that used to make her lose her mind.
She is gasping and swearing loudly. Obviously she doesn’t care who hears us now!
Her hands are everywhere. She grabs my hips, then my ass, and then my hair. She scratches…hard. I leave red marks with my teeth on her inner thigh, and she laughs at how much I clearly can’t help myself.
Finally, I put my mouth on her. I know exactly how to do it, exactly what she likes, and I do not let up.
Eden comes apart instantly—like, immediately—and I’m proud, but not so proud I don’t want to do it again.
I keep going until she’s half screaming, half begging, and eventually she pulls me up and kisses me, teeth and tongue, so hard I think my mouth will be bruised.
For some reason, this makes me start laughing, which makes her laugh, and then we’re just tangled together, giggling like idiots, wet and exhausted and so damn happy it makes my bones ache.
We lie in silence for a while, our limbs tied in a knot, just listening. Eventually Eden reaches over to her bedside table and grabs her phone. I’m guessing she wants to check to make sure there are no messages from her gran or Pia.
Instead, her thumb swipes and she holds it up to show me a picture of us from high school.
It was just after we started dating, and Eden was less moody about having to exercise.
It was only a few years ago, but we look so young.
We were so young. I had no idea the trials I would face after leaving Holcroft.
There’s a weird ache in my chest, but it’s a good one.
Because even though the last couple of years have sucked, I still got to experience so much, and for the most part, I had Eden by my side.
“You know what’s weird?” she asks, running her finger around the edge of my ear, pulling me back to the moment.
“What?”
“I think I love you more now than I did then.”
I close my eyes and let that live in my chest for a minute. I don’t have words for what I’m feeling, at least not yet, so I just kiss her again, soft and sure.
Hours pass like this. Sometimes we’re asleep, sometimes awake, sometimes both at once.
Eden gets up only to fetch cold pizza and haul back a handful of cookies she’s been hiding from Bella, the resident truffle pig—Eden’s descriptor, not mine.
We eat in bed, naked and gross, and it’s the most content I’ve been in a year.
When the night turns into day again, we finally decide to shower. We do it together, because of course we do, and even though Eden jokes about the water bill, we stand under the hot spray for what feels like forever, alternating between washing each other and kissing.
At one point, Eden lathers my hair with both hands, then holds my head still, looks deep into my eyes and asks me not to leave her again.
I nod and promise her I’m not going anywhere. I’m expecting her to say something more, but she just grins and smacks my ass, and that’s how we end up nearly breaking the shower curtain, twice.
We wrap ourselves in towels and go back to bed, content to put off reality for a few more hours.
She lies with her head on my stomach and traces my ribs, her eyes serious now. “I don’t want you to freak out, but…” she starts.
“But?”
“I want this. Full-on. Making up for the time we lost. You as my girlfriend.” Her hand shakes a little, but she steadies it on my side. “Are you ready for that?”
I want to tell her yes, a million times yes, but my throat is tight, so I just stroke her head and nod, and she beams at me.
Eventually, we fall asleep wrapped up, her arms and legs wound around me like she’s worried I’ll disappear if she lets go.
But I don’t. I stay put.