Chapter Twelve #2
I focus on my movements, my rhythm, listening for clues and matching what I do to how she sounds.
More pressure when she’s louder, a swirl of the tongue when she whimpers, and it’s not long before I feel her fingers gripping the hair on the back of my head.
Her hand tightens, pulling me more firmly against her, and I grip her hips because I know it’s coming, she’s coming.
And then her hips raise up, and a cry emanates from her throat, and I hold on to keep my place.
I dig my fingertips into her hips as they lift and roll and finally lower slowly back down to the mattress.
My mouth is still pressed against her, and I can feel her pulsing against me.
When I finally feel her fingers loosen in my hair, I lift my head to look at her.
Her eyes are squeezed closed and she’s whispering something in Italian, so I wait with my cheek against her warm thigh, the taste and smell of her still on my lips.
Several moments pass by before she takes a deep breath and finally looks at me.
The things I see on her face, the emotions, are many, and they’re gorgeous.
She’s glowing, so there’s that. She’s smiling, also an amazing thing.
She looks a bit sheepish, which is super cute.
She crooks a finger at me, summoning me to her, and because I’m not a stupid woman, I oblige, slowly crawling up her body, kissing different parts as I go and loving how she gently twitches as I do so, clearly still very sensitive.
Finally, I settle next to her, my head pillowed on her shoulder.
“Wow,” she says. “That was…” She shakes her head, as if she has no words, and you know what? I will take that. All day long.
“Yeah?”
She nods.
“Well, that was pretty amazing for me, too.” I run my fingertip across her collarbone. “You were gorgeous to watch.” She covers her eyes with her hand, grinning and sheepish again. I pull her hand away. “I mean it,” I say softly when she looks at me.
She pulls me in and kisses me gently…but gentle doesn’t last, and in the next moment, she’s rolling us so she’s on top.
This gloriously beautiful woman with the lustrous hair and the sexy accent holds herself above me and gives me the most erotic look I’ve ever had aimed at me as she says simply, “My turn.”
“I need some water.” Marina’s voice is quiet as we lie wrapped around each other like two vines that have entwined. “You?”
“Yes, please.”
She presses a kiss to my forehead, then slides out of the bed.
I roll onto my stomach and marvel at her body as she walks naked out of the room.
The swell of her hips, the length of her legs, her tousled raven hair falling down her back, and her glorious skin.
I immediately feel a wave of loss, of longing, and I want her to come back. Like, now.
The water runs in the kitchen as I hunker down into the bedding, inhaling the scents it holds.
Marina, fabric softener, me, Marina’s perfume, us.
An intoxicating blend, to say the least. Marina returns with two glasses of water and sets them both on her nightstand, then slides back under the covers.
“Reggie is still on the chair and is snoring like a freight train,” she says with a gentle laugh.
She sits with her back against the headboard and lifts one arm so I can scoot up against her.
It’s hard to believe I haven’t been snuggled up in this spot my entire life because it feels like exactly where I’m supposed to be.
She hands me my water and I drink like I haven’t had any liquid in days.
I hand it back to her, nearly empty, and she laughs.
“Listen, you dehydrated me,” I say in defense.
She laughs softly, kisses my forehead, inhales deeply, and my body rises with hers. Her exhale is complete contentment. Don’t ask me how I know that, but I do. I’m sure of it as she squeezes me more tightly to her.
“We were pretty incredible together,” she says, almost in wonder.
“You’ll get no argument from me,” I say. “I made sounds I’ve never made before.”
She laughs again. “Tell me about your worst sexual experience.”
“Worst?”
A nod. “And we don’t count. Just in case it was terrible and you’re lying to me.” The twinkle in her eye—that I can see even in the growing darkness—tells me she’s kidding, that she knows just how mind-blowing we were.
“Hmm…” I purse my lips in thought. “I think I’d have to go with my very first girlfriend.”
“Really? Your first time was your worst?”
“Well, let me elaborate. I saw her for, I don’t know, less than a year.
Ten months? Young love, you’re all in, nothing can compare, all that.
Right?” Marina nods and I go on. “She broke up with me for one of our older, mutual friends. Because of course she did. She was my first. I was not her first. And I think she got bored with me fawning all over her.”
“Fawning?”
“Yeah. It means, like, gushing? Being mushy?”
Marina nods her understanding.
“I was kind of weak and timid, but I was in love. And hello? My first lesbian relationship. I had no idea what I was doing. But whatever. She breaks up with me. I’m devastated, like any twenty-year-old after her first lover dumps her for somebody else.
And my biggest concern was not only that I’d never love somebody like that again, but that I’d never find anybody who was that good in bed again.
” I roll my eyes at myself. “Like, what do I know about good sex at twenty, right?”
Marina laughs softly and pulls me closer. “Aw, poor little freshly out Lily.”
“Yeah, well, the next woman I slept with blew the top of my head off in bed, so I learned pretty quickly that my first girlfriend wasn’t all that.” I look up at her face, marveling at her profile—straight nose, sexy chin. “What about you?”
She narrows her eyes and seems to take a minute to think about it. When it comes to her, she drops her head against the headboard with a thunk and groans.
“Oh, I can’t wait to hear this,” I say with a grin.
“Okay.” She sits up a little straighter and meets my eyes.
“So, I need to start by saying that the sex wasn’t all that bad.
Truly. The bad part was…” She searches for the right word—the right English word.
I’ve been around her long enough now to recognize her face when she’s doing that, and it gives me a little thrill that I know her that well.
“Her response?” It’s a question because she’s clearly not sure that’s the word she wants, but she launches in.
“This was a few years ago. I met her at a food show in one of the big hotels in the city center. One of my restaurant friends took me so we could see what kind of stuff was out there, what kind of new methods were showing up, that kind of thing. And this woman was there, too. We hit it off, we all went out for drinks at the hotel bar after the show, and one by one, people left, until it was just her and me.”
“Ooh, this is like a movie,” I say, giving a happy little full-body wiggle.
She chuckles. “Well, we both realize we’re attracted to each other. She was not my usual type, but she was intriguing, and I liked her. I don’t do one-night stands very often, but I’m not against them. So, we decide to get a hotel room.”
I nod. I’m not against them either, but I’ve never had one.
“Things start off great. We’re kissing, it’s nice. We undress. She seems to like control, so I let her have that. For a while.” She shoots me a grin that has me instantly wet again, and I poke her.
“Stop that. Story.”
“Right, right. Sorry. So, she—er—takes care of me first and it’s nice. Doesn’t change my life, but it’s nice. I begin to reciprocate and, Lily, when I say she was loud, I do not exaggerate.”
I snort out a laugh. “What?”
She sits up straighter, like she’s preparing to plead her case.
“Look, I love some noise. I love knowing what I’m doing is working, yeah?
You, my love, were perfect and sexy.” She gives me a quick kiss on the lips.
“But this woman? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph”—she crosses herself—“she was so loud . Before I even did anything! I touched her breast and—” Marina moans, and her volume is comical.
I laugh.
“I run my hand over her hip and—” She does it again, louder this time, and I laugh harder.
“I even tried to make it a game.” She lowers her voice to just above a whisper.
“ ‘It’s late and there are other people in the building, so you have to be quiet.’ ” My laughter dies in my throat and Jesus Christ, I can feel the warm wetness between my legs just from the sexy pitch of her voice.
I swallow hard. “Yeah, um, that would’ve worked on me. Uh-huh.”
“Right?” She’s back to normal volume. “She said she’d try. Spoiler alert.”
“She didn’t try.”
“ She did not try . All I kept thinking was, does the entire hotel need to know we’re having sex? I couldn’t wait to be done and get out of there.”
We’re both laughing now. “Wow,” I say. “That sounds…”
“Awful? Horrendous? Sad? Yes, it was all of those things. I was mortified.” She meets my eyes. “Is that the right word?”
I nod. “Absolutely the right word. You poor thing. Did you wear a hoodie when you left and pull the hood up?”
“I wanted to!” She’s cracking up now. “I was sure everybody would know.” She points and stage whispers, “ ‘There’s the woman who was so loud last night. Does she look satisfied?’ I wanted to tell everybody that it wasn’t me.”
“I guess the takeaway would be that one of you was loud and one of you was really good in bed .”
“But which one is which?”
“That’s the downside.”
“I am not okay with that downside.”
We’re cracking up, both of us, naked in Marina’s bed and laughing our asses off at stories of our past couplings, and it’s…
it’s so crazily comfortable that I almost can’t believe it’s real.
I don’t know that I’ve ever felt this content this quickly with anybody in my life, and I don’t know what to do with that, what to think.
But it’s the best I’ve felt in a very, very long time. Not sure what to do with that either.
“I want gelato,” I blurt.
Marina blinks at me for a second. “Now?”
I sigh. “Yeah, it’s a thing. Sex makes me hungry.”
And Marina, God love her, doesn’t miss a beat. She slides out of bed and holds out her hand. “Then let’s get you some gelato.”