Chapter 24
CASSIE
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Pia says when she finally pushes off me after minutes and minutes of her weight on my body and her kisses in my hair.
“Kevin was flying in to see Martin. He offered for me to go with. I only have like fifteen hours and then we have to fly back.”
“Only fifteen hours?” she says, looking down at me.
Her hair is falling down around her face, and she looks so much like she did that first night we spent together in this position.
But also not. There is also something about her that is very, very different.
“You came all this way for just fifteen hours. With me.”
“Yes,” I say simply as I reach up and gather her hair into a ponytail at the base of her neck so I can look at her better. I want to figure out what exactly it is that is so very different about her.
“You’re crazy,” she tells me.
“Maybe.” I shrug, and I want to tell her it’s worth it. To see the light in her eyes. To see her unable to stop smiling. To feel the weight of her body on mine. It’s all completely worth every single second on that plane when I’d half-convinced myself she would be horrified I’d come.
“Were you at the show? Martin should have told me!”
“No, I wasn’t there. We literally landed less than an hour ago. The airport is so close to the city here, I didn’t know!”
“It’s your first time in Amsterdam?”
“Yes, and I’ve always wanted to come. It looks so beautiful in all the photos I’ve seen and—”
“Tough!” Pia says and dives down to kiss my neck. It’s instinctive, reflexive when I tip my head back to give her better access. “If we only have fifteen hours, we’re not leaving this hotel room. So no Amsterdam for you.”
Because her face is hidden, I allow myself to smile as widely as I wish.
“And how do you want to spend that time?” I ask.
Pia pushes back up. “Pardon?”
“You didn’t hear me,” I say and then frown. “How is…Is your hearing still bad?”
I regret the question immediately when it prompts her to sit up, disentangling her limbs from mine.
“I told you before. It’s been fucked for a long time,” she says as she walks across the hotel room to the cupboard. When I hear the suction of the minibar fridge opening, I hold my breath, but then she returns with a can of Coke, leaning her hip against the desk opposite the bed.
“You haven’t had it checked out?” I ask.
“For them to tell me what I already know, that it’s fucked? No. I’ve been a bit busy, you know.” She pulls the ring pull off and throws it in the bin with a perfect aim.
“They have doctors here. Everywhere,” I venture, emboldened by the way she hasn’t shut me down completely.
“I did do something,” she says after a long pause. Putting down the can, she walks over to the pile of luggage in the corner of the room and starts rummaging around in the duffel bag on top of the suitcases. She then throws something at me.
It’s a book. A Photographic Guide to American Sign Language.
I flick through the pages and see black and white photos of hands in various positions.
“You’re learning sign language?”
“Yep.” She returns to the bed, sitting next to me. “It’s kinda cool, you know.”
She holds up one hand and starts to move it. It starts with a wave and ends with her fingers moving in various combinations.
“What did you just sign?” I ask.
“I signed, ‘hello, my name is Pia.’”
“Okay.” I turn to her. “How do I say, ‘hello, my name is Cassie.’”
Reaching over me, Pia puts her drink down on the bedside table and then talks me through the signs she makes, including spelling out my name with just her long, elegant fingers.
“It is very cool,” I say, and then feel heat climb up my neck. I look away, blushing, as I tell her, “I like watching your fingers move.”
“Louder, Cassie.” She grabs my chin and turns me towards her.
“I like watching your fingers,” I say with more volume.
Her face lights up like a spotlight. “Want to know what else these fingers can do?”
“You know I do,” I say, giving up any kind of restraint I may have been holding onto.
I want her body back on mine. I want her lips on mine.
I want her fingers inside me. I want to fall asleep smelling like her arousal and her sweat and that mixed-spice scent that I have only ever smelt on Pia’s skin.
“I need to shower,” she says. “Come with me.”
“In the shower?”
She stares at me for a beat before rolling her eyes. “Of course you’ve never fucked in a shower.”
“I … It’s not…” I stumble over my words.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” she says as she gets off the bed again and reaches out a hand for me to do the same. “I like that I get to have all these firsts with you.”
“Good,” I reply, wondering what she’d say if she knew that I want her to have all my future firsts. Every single one.
I come three times in the shower. Once at the mercy of Pia’s mouth on me, my leg resting on her shoulder and water dripping down my body and onto hers.
I have no clue how she can breathe down there, let alone make me come so quickly; it’s dizzying.
The second time is with three of her fingers inside me and my mouth on her nipple.
And the final time is from her thigh between mine as she washes shampoo out of my hair.
When we’re finished, I read the shampoo bottle three times, memorising the name so I can buy a crate of it when I’m back in LA.
I tried to make Pia come too. My fingers travelled down her body several times, but they never got further than the glossy curls at the top of her thighs. She was just too busy making me orgasm, and I was too tired from my flight to stop her.
But now we’re out of the water, and even though my legs shake with the aftershocks of my orgasms and pure exhaustion, I am determined to feel her clamp around my own fingers.
She’s brushing her wet hair in the bathroom mirror when I take my towel off and press the front of my body to her back.
Her hand pauses in the air, and in the reflection, she studies me.
I kiss her shoulder blade and bring my fingers to the knot in her towel, just under her armpit.
The towel unravels and falls to the floor.
My hands cup her breasts as I kiss the knot of bone at the base of her neck, her hair now all gathered on one side of her body.
I hear Pia place the brush on the countertop, and I expect her to spin around, to grab me and take control once more.
But she doesn’t. And that in itself feels like a miracle. Or a gift.
I kiss all over her back, her shoulders.
I let my breasts press against her warm, still damp skin.
I lick up her spine, and I press my hips against the curve of her backside.
Slowly, undeniably, I feel a softness take over Pia’s body.
She relaxes. She surrenders. She simply stands there and lets me touch her, caress her and worship her.
Finally, I make my way around her body so I can see her face: eyes half-lidded, lips slightly parted and the smallest pinch of lines between her eyebrows. She looks exhausted.
“Let’s go to bed,” I say, and I take her hand and lead her there.
As we fall onto the bed and into each other, I realise that this has never happened before.
At least not like this. Sex has happened between us in a hurry, in a rush, in a tornado of limbs and kisses and desire.
But now, there’s no haste. I mean, yes, we have a limited amount of time, but we seem to have a shared understanding that we want to go slow.
We want to take whatever time we have and fill each second of it.
So while we kiss each other and tangle our legs together, we do so slowly, gently.
Pia rolls me onto my back, and she towers over me, just looking at me for a long moment before lowering down and kissing me again.
We kiss until our jaws ache, and I’m so tightly spun with desire that I think if she just moves her thigh up a little, I will come on it.
But I don’t, because Pia takes her mouth off mine and creates more space between our bodies.
She starts to kiss her way down my neck, my chest, across my soft belly.
I know where she’s going, and I know what she will do.
Immediately, I stop her. As much as I want that – again – I want something else more.
Gripping her face in both my hands, I lift her, bringing her body in line with mine again.
“Pia,” I say, and I realise neither of us has spoken in many minutes. We’ve found another way to communicate.
“Yeah?” she says, her voice raspy and rough and so fucking sexy.
“Let me” is all I say, but I am asking for a lot. I’m asking her to let me pleasure her. I’m asking for her to relax and surrender. I’m asking her to let me lead for once.
“Okay,” she says, and while I can’t be sure, I’m pretty certain she understands exactly what I’ve asked of her.
“Okay,” I repeat, and I then roll us slowly over so she’s on her back and I am raised over her, my hair falling over one shoulder.
I alternate kissing her and smiling at her as I zig-zag my way down her naked body, from her clavicle to her raised hip bone.
I lick the edge of that bone like it is laced with the last drops of the best-tasting ice cream in the world.
And then I bury my nose and mouth in her pubic hair, inhaling and kissing and sighing, over and over and over again.
Pia buries her hands in my hair, her fingers combing and scratching my scalp. It’s not urgent or pressured. It’s tender and caressing.
It’s only in that moment that I realise the first four letters in the word “caress” is another word: care.
That’s what it feels like now. It feels like Pia cares about me. I had glimpses of it on our phone call and maybe even flashes of it earlier than that – in New York, in my limo, possibly even when we worked on ‘What I Want’ together – but they were fleeting and flimsy.
The way her long, strong fingers move in my hair now is more definite. It’s more affirming. It’s impossible to ignore.