Chapter 49
SLOANE
My whole body has gone heavy and useless, sunk into a mattress I never want to leave. Maggie's still draped over me and her breath moves the hair at my temple.
So that's what it's supposed to be like.
All these lovers, and not one of them ever found the version of me that's lying here now — wrung out, undone, not thinking about how I look or what I'm meant to say next.
I thought the low hum of dissatisfaction after sex was just the price.
Everyone seemed to pay it. Now I'm flat on my back with my heart racing and my legs still shaking, and that hum is nowhere to be found.
Maggie rolls off me and shifts onto her side. Her hand spreads warm against my stomach, causing a shudder to rip through me.
I bite down on a sound and turn my head to look at her.
She's gorgeous — distractingly so — and I can't fathom how I missed it those first weeks.
I think I did see it, somewhere underneath the resentment.
Now I can't see anything else. The strong line of her jaw.
Her eyes, dark brown, almost black in this light, with the slight ring of lighter brown around the pupil that I can only see from this close.
Long, dense lashes that cast small shadows on her cheekbones.
Her skin — warm brown, the inheritance from her mother.
The small empty piercings in her earlobes that I've never seen her put anything in.
Her mouth, which I now know intimately, and the look she's giving me, like she's dying to know what I'm thinking.
I want to touch her. The urge arrives whole and certain, the way nothing in my life arrives anymore.
My fingers land on her shoulder first. I don't know why I start there — maybe because it's safe, neutral, the kind of place you'd touch anyone. But nothing about it feels neutral. Her skin is warm and smooth under my hand as I slowly draw my fingers down the slope of her arm.
It's all so different. I've put my hands on plenty of bodies and they were all hard angles and hair and the particular scent that men give off.
Maggie's soft where I don't expect soft.
The curve of her shoulder into her chest, the give of her, the way her waist dips in under my palm.
She smells so good and I lean in closer and inhale against her hair.
Lifting up onto my elbow so I can see what I'm doing, I keep going, trailing my hand down her side and over the curve of her hip.
I'd assumed, in the abstract, that being with a woman would feel familiar from the inside — that I'd know what worked because I have the same body.
But I was wrong because Maggie's not a mirror.
I lean down and press my mouth to her collarbone. She inhales sharply and I do it again, a little lower. Her hand comes up into my hair.
I drag my mouth down to her chest and lift my eyes to her as I close my lips around her nipple.
It's bizarre — my mouth on another woman's breast, something I've watched men do to me a hundred times and never imagined doing myself.
Then I twirl my tongue around it slowly and Maggie's breath hitches, and the whole thing flips.
Her response goes straight through me and I want to do it again, harder, just to feel her react.
She licks her lips as she watches me and encouraged, I run my hand up the inside of her thigh and feel her tense, her knees parting.
"Tell me what you like," I murmur against her skin.
"You're doing great, Sloane." Maggie moans when my hand moves higher, over her sex, until I meet the top of her waistband.
"Can I?"
"Please."
I work the button open and she lifts her hips for me. I draw the shorts down her legs along with what's underneath. When I drop them on the floor she's completely bare and I take a moment to look at her again — all of her this time.
"Come here," she says quietly and I lower myself back over her and kiss her while my hand finds its way down between us. Her thighs part for me and when I touch her she's so wet that a small gasp leaves my lips.
"Oh, fuck," I whisper against her lips.
Maggie laughs low in her throat. "That's what you do to me."
I explore her and find the place that makes her hips lift and stay there, slow at first, then steadier as her breath starts to climb.
Her mouth is open against mine and every sound she makes feeds back into me until I'm almost dizzy from it.
I never knew I could want like this or give like this. Both things at once.
When I slide a finger inside her she draws in a sharp breath and her hand tightens at my neck.
"Sloane —"
"Is this okay?" I whisper.
"Yes. So good. Just don't stop."
I find her rhythm — slow and deep at first, learning what makes her moan and squirm underneath me. Her hips meet me on every stroke and when I add a second finger she groans into my mouth and grips me harder.
"Like that," she murmurs. "Just like that."
I keep going, and somewhere underneath the rhythm I notice my own hips are moving. Maggie's thigh is between my legs and I've been pressing down against it. The realization arrives at the same time as the heat does — a low, building pull that I didn't expect to feel again so soon.
A moan slips out of me and Maggie's hand drops to my behind, grips me, and pulls me harder against her thigh.
"Come with me," she whispers. "Don't stop. Come with me."
Maggie's brows draw together and her mouth falls open, her head tipping back into the pillow while her body begs me for more.
Her hand finds mine where it rests on the mattress and her fingers tangle through mine.
It's so intimate, holding her hand while I'm kissing her and inside her, that it brings a lump to my throat.
Then her breathing becomes ragged. I feel her tighten around my fingers and her whole body draws toward me.
"Sloane, I'm —"
I lose the rhythm of everything except her hand in mine. Maggie's body locks against me, her grip on my behind almost painful, and she shudders through it with a low, broken sound. I follow her over the edge a second later, my hips pressing down hard against her thigh, my forehead against hers.
We lie still until our breathing gradually slows. Her chest rising against mine and mine against hers. I close my eyes and let the warmth of her skin be the only thing I'm aware of because I'm thoroughly shaken and afraid to analyze this.
When I finally slide my hand out from between her thighs she draws a sharp breath, then a slower one, and she wraps her arms around me and strokes my back.
The first tear catches me by surprise. It slides down the side of my face and onto Maggie's shoulder.
"Sloane? Are you okay?"
I can't speak yet. I just shake my head against her, because I don't have the words, and another tear follows the first.
"Hey." Her hand comes up to the back of my head, fingers tangling in my hair.
"Sorry," I manage. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I'm crying." I swallow hard. "They're good tears, I promise. That was just so beautiful and I'm a little…"
"Overwhelmed?"
"Yeah."
Maggie kisses the top of my head and tightens her arms around me.
There are so many things I'm not saying.
That I clearly didn't know who I was. That whatever just happened was so beautiful it touched me somewhere no one has reached before.
That every person I've been with was practicing on the wrong version of me.
That for the first time, my body knows exactly what it wants and exactly where it wants to be.
That I'm falling for her, and I'm afraid of losing her. None of it makes it out of me.