Chapter 28
The drive home is no more than three kilometers, but we might as well be driving to Spain for how long it seems to take.
The anticipation between us is charged and heavy.
Darcy’s palm on my thigh. My fingers laced with hers.
A kiss to my knuckles before she grabs the steering wheel with both hands for a sharp turn, veering out of habit into the left lane instead of the right.
We’re breathless and giggling at the angry car horn and the way our bodies sling against the opposite side as Darcy overcorrects.
It’s dangerous and intoxicating and matches everything storming inside me.
When we finally pull into the drive, Darcy doesn’t even wait until we’re inside, doesn’t bother to turn the car off, throwing herself across the center console the second the car is in park, kissing me like her life depends on it.
I laugh into the kiss, pushing against her until she’s back in the driver’s seat and I’m straddling her lap.
My mouth is sore but I don’t care. I’ve been pumping myself full of ibuprofen and, quite honestly, this painful degree of want beats out any other possible sensation.
With clumsy fingers and my lips still locked with hers, I fiddle behind me with the keys until the engine cuts, then I open the car door.
We tumble out in a knot, crawling over each other and barely managing to shut the door as we race inside.
In the hallway, we’re a mess of lips and hands and limbs until we finally tip onto the couch, bodies flush and grinding together.
“I love you.” Darcy kisses along my jaw. My collarbones. The center of my chest after she rips off my damp T-shirt.
“I love you,” I moan, hands tangled in her hair, skimming down her neck, her back, gripping an appreciative handful of her hips.
“I need you so much I can barely stand it,” she rasps into the shell of my ear, and my head tips back as I get dizzy from the pleasure, her teeth and lips trailing down the column of my throat.
“I’m all yours.”
She cups my breasts; my hands are only a second behind in the same discovery, thumbs brushing over her hard nipples. We both groan, and I give her more pressure, the slightest pinch.
Her gasp sends such a bolt of pleasure through my center, my thighs instinctively try to squeeze together to alleviate the building, needy ache.
But she’s between me, her pelvis bearing down against mine, a jerky rhythm as she lightly writhes against me.
My hands abandon her breasts to grip her hips, pulling her firmly where I need her the most.
“Cubby,” she says between clenched teeth, face flushed and eyes hazed as she looks at me. “I need—”
“Me too,” I pant out as she rolls her hips in a way that has stars blinking in my vision. “B-bed. We need a bed.”
With absolutely no grace, we break apart and roll off the sofa, sprinting like wild things into the closest bedroom. My room.
It takes all of point-two seconds for us to tangle on top of the sheets, our remaining layers of clothing stripped in the process.
We kiss and touch and devour each other until we’re both a shaking, sweaty mess.
When we did this before, we were outside of ourselves, the comforting wrap of darkness stunting the sensations, giving us a layer of protection.
Now I’m a raw nerve, so fully in my body, the good feelings are barbed with pain, like there’s so much joy—beauty—that it almost hurts for my frame to hold it all, muscles and joints stretching with its magnitude.
I know her lips better than my own, their every smile, every frown. I know the corner she bites when she’s upset and the spot in the center when she’s holding back a laugh. I know how she purses them when she’s frustrated and how they get cracked in the winter.
And now I know how they feel against mine when we’re both so lost in these feelings that kissing is the only anchor we have.
She holds me as she kisses me, touches me with so much reckless tenderness, that I know I’m forever ruined for others.
I’ve always belonged to Darcy in some gauzy, shadowy way, but this feels so solid, as inevitable as magnets colliding, as fundamental as the Earth spinning on its axis. Darcy is my sun and I’m lucky to be captive to her pull.
“Can I touch you?” she murmurs against my breasts before sucking my nipple into her mouth.
I arch into her, babbling something close to yes, fucking hell, please and don’t you dare stop.
She snakes her hand down my body to where I’m aching, groaning out “Fuck” when she feels the wetness already soaking my thighs. I go to mirror her movements, desperate to feel her too, but she stops me with a shake of her head and a bite to my breast.
“Me first,” she says, gently soothing the spot with a kiss. “I’ve wanted to do this for so long, I can’t have you distracting me.”
For once, I don’t argue.
She explores with sure fingers, tracing up and down, swirling at my entrance, teasing my clit until I’m panting so hard I’m scared I’ll pass out. Finally, she takes mercy on me, pressing two fingers deep inside me while the heel of her hand gives me the perfect amount of pressure.
My thighs clamp around her wrist, holding her there as she moves her fingers in a luscious, torturous rhythm that’s so damn good it feels like my cells are rearranging from the sensation. I grind against her, and she laughs, a soft, awestruck sound.
“Can I give you more?” she says into a kiss as I loop a hand around her neck and hold her to me.
I pull back the barest bit, giving her a questioning glance.
Her smile is equal parts devious and bashful. “Can I taste you?”
I’m beyond speaking, nothing but nerves and feelings and inarticulate garbles, but I manage to nod, and her smile grows like I just gave her a winning lottery ticket.
In a flash, she removes her hand, sliding down the mattress until she’s perched between my splayed legs.
She tucks her hair behind her ears, color flagging her cheeks and expression almost sheepish as she scans my body.
The enormity of the moment hits me, how special this is.
Connor never did this for me; he never did much outside of getting himself off, and he always made it seem like an outlandish request if I ever brought up him going down on me, like I was being gross and greedy for even thinking about it.
But Darcy, the way she looks at me, lips parted and hunger in her eyes, sends a throb of sharp tenderness through me. She looks at me like nothing will bring her more satisfaction than tasting my desire for her.
“I’ve never done this,” she says, voice thick, dragging her eyes up my body. I feel outrageously smug when she gets caught for a beat longer on my breasts. “With a girl, I mean.”
I giggle, for no other reason than I feel punch-drunk and giddy and so fucking special that I get to be her first. “I haven’t either.” I grab her hand that’s clutching my knee, needing to hold on to her.
“I’ve … I’ve thought about it, though. A lot,” she says, glance earnest and tinged with desperation. “With you, I mean. Have you … have you thought about it too?”
Even through my needy haze, I see with stark clarity what this is. A lifeline, a humble beg to know that she isn’t alone in how overwhelming all of this is.
Sex isn’t something I think about all that often—I can go months without giving it a second thought, and, up until recently, most times it popped into my head, it was with a sort of academic reflection of how lackluster being with Connor always was. I’ve never understood what all the fuss is about.
But being with Darcy—the way she kissed me and touched me that night that feels like a different lifetime—that’s a memory I could trace forever, memorize every corner and facet of. I don’t think about sex all that much but—
“I think about you,” I blurt out, voice rough. “I think about you all the time. It’s always you.”
With a raw look of relief, she cups my hips, tilting my pelvis slightly.
My legs are already shaking, a deep pulse radiating from my center, an ache right above where her mouth hovers as she lowers herself closer to me.
But she pauses, looking into my eyes over the planes of my body, waiting for permission.
I should say yes or please or dear god get on with it before I fucking die, thanks but instead what comes out is a hoarse, “I love you so much.”
I say it like it isn’t the most obvious thing in the world, like it isn’t written in my eyes and inked across the flush of my skin and translated in the way my hands grip her wrists where she cradles my hips, holding on to her because I can’t bear to let go.
I realize that it’s not the subtlest or sexiest thing to say, and embarrassment starts to burn through me, but it’s snuffed out at the slow, stunning curl of Darcy’s smile.
“I love you too,” she whispers, the words ghosting across my sensitive, wet flesh. Then she dips her head, and shows me how much she means it.
She’s slow at first, an agonized groan tumbling from her with the first swipe of her tongue.
The sound vibrates against me as she tastes my need, and my own cry echoes it.
She kisses me, dirty and thorough, mouth open and tongue making luxurious drags across every inch of me as she explores with growing fervor.
We’re both loud and panting, my heels digging into the mattress as my body begs for more.
I’m startled by the sudden suction as she closes her lips around my clit.
It’s intense, almost sharp, and my stomach muscles clench, back bowing from the bed. She pulls back a few inches, eyes searching mine. “Was that bad?” she asks, her lips wet and red. Pleasure spears through me as she absentmindedly licks her lips.
“That was amazing,” I choke out. I curl up, scrambling until my palms cup her cheeks, and I give her a sloppy, hungry kiss, our moans of need harmonizing in our throats.
“And I want you to do that again. Like … many times again,” I say against her lips as we kiss some more, nipping the lower as she gasps against my mouth.
“Just … just give me a minute to get to that point. I need to ease in a bit more … God, you’re fucking amazing. ”
I feel her smile against me, one hand snaking across my ribs, fingers brushing my sensitive nipple before she splays her palm across my chest and pushes me back to the bed.
With the most sinful look I’ve ever seen, she resituates herself between my thighs like she belongs there, shoulders nudging me wider until my legs drape down her back.
She parts me with her thumbs, taking a moment to stare at me, study me, her eyes glazed with pleasure and smile growing.
I squirm, my greedy hips seeking her mouth, and the little huff of a laugh she lets out against me can only be described as triumphant.
She puts her tongue to me again, tracing up and down my slit, her eyes fixed on my face. She catalogs my every moan and whimper until I’m clawing at the sheets and crying out her name.
She returns to my clit, slowly adding more pressure as she laps at it, first with the tip of her tongue, then alternating with the flat of it. It isn’t long until I’m blinking away stars, my entire body a live wire, every cell humming like a plucked harp string.
“Faster,” I beg. “Please,” I add, not wanting to be rude to the woman with her head between my thighs. She does as I say, and I worry my muscles will snap with the tension stretching through them.
She works me harder, until I’m gasping and sweating.
The pleasure coils tight, an agonizing, beautiful thing as I spiral up, up, up to an unimaginable peak.
Darcy keeps me hovering there, no matter how much I cry and beg and pull on her hair, her lips backing away for a moment right before I topple over the edge.
It’s so good and I’m so close and she’s so beautiful with her hair splayed across my thighs and her eyes closed as she savors me that a few tears slip down my cheeks, my breaths short and sharp.
“Please,” I beg, pressing my hips against her mouth until it feels like I’ll melt into her. Finally, finally, finally, she takes mercy, giving me pressure and attention until I’m shaking and pulsing beneath her, repeating her name over and over and over as I come.
When the sensation becomes too much to bear, I pull her up my body and tangle together as I thank her over and over with messy kisses. When the world finally stops spinning, I roll us so she’s pinned beneath me.
“My turn,” I whisper into her ear before biting the lobe, tracking the shiver that runs through her frame. I kiss my way down her body, in disbelief that I can touch her like this.
Between her thighs, I’m suddenly timid—wanting so badly to make it good for her, to show her with my mouth how much I want her, need her—scared I won’t do this sacred moment justice.
But her desperate little whimper spurs me to action, and I press my tongue to her delicious heat, reveling at the taste, the outrageous pleasure of getting to love her like this.
It takes a few minutes and plenty of enthusiastic encouragements and moans, but I find a rhythm and pressure that drives her as wild as I was, becoming instantly addicted to the taste of her, the feel of her writhing against my tongue.
As she did with me, I drag it out, and it’s only when she’s pulling my hair and cursing at the ceiling that I take mercy and give her what she’s begging for.
With a victorious laugh, I kiss back up her body until our mouths meet, tasting each other and ourselves in the tangle of our tongues.
Some dam of emotion breaks—maybe for how long we hid ourselves, or how amazing this moment feels, or how overwhelming this love is—but we start crying.
We hold each other tightly, sobbing and laughing in relief and mourning for how long we denied the truth.
As I hold her to me, kissing her slowly and reverently until my heart beats itself into dizziness, I know as much as I’m hers, she’s equally mine.
And, because I can, I repeat myself. “I love you so much.”