24
I wake up slowly, floating back into consciousness.
There’s a bright streak of sun across my face, and a warm chest pressed against my own.
Even in sleep, our bodies demand to be intertwined.
Andy’s arm is wrapped under my waist, holding me tight.
The other cradles the back of my neck with the gentlest touch, letting my cheek rest on his chest.
Our legs twist together like vines, trapping me exactly where I want to be.
It crosses my mind to check the time, but the moment I start to roll over Andy pulls me back with a low, “Mmm not yet.” I’m powerless to argue, nestling back into him and raising a hand to his jaw, feeling the slight prickles of morning stubble there for the first time.
Andy’s eyes crack open, with an expression that’s half dream and half awake. “Good morning.”
My smile bursts out of me. “Good morning.”
“How’d you sleep?” he asks, brushing a piece of hair from my face.
“Amazing.” My hand trails from his jaw down to his shoulder, ultimately resting against his chest. He feels warm and strong and I’ve never felt safer than I do lying here wrapped up in him. “How’d you sleep?”
“Amazing,” he replies, then dips his head to kiss me softly.
I pull back half-heartedly. “I haven’t brushed my teeth yet.”
“I don’t care,” he says as he brings my lips back to his. The kiss deepens until he starts to move down my neck, then farther, pulling the sheet back to cherish every curve and freckle I’ve ever questioned on myself with his lips and tongue.
A prickle of shyness emerges in the back of my mind, watching him slowly move down my body in the warm light of day. But Andy’s touch is worshipful, and I can’t help but give in to it. He makes me feel beautiful and powerful and infinite and so turned on I can barely see straight.
When his kisses reach my stomach, he looks up at me with heady desire in his eyes.
“Can I taste you?”
I feel the tension thrumming in my core.
“Andy, I—”
“I won’t if you don’t want me to. But God, Soph, I want to.”
Every nerve in my body begs me to say yes, but even so I find myself stammering “I… I…”
Andy immediately shifts back up my body, catching my lips with his. “We don’t have to.”
“No, I want to. I do. I just… I’ve never done that before.”
Andy’s gaze goes blank, like his brain is buffering too slowly to respond. Flickers of emotion pass behind his eyes—confusion, realization, disbelief—until he says, “Sophie, are you telling me that none of your exes ever… Elliot never…?”
I shake my head.
“Or Adrian…?”
“Nope.”
“Holy shit… I knew I hated those guys.”
I laugh, and his shock is the perfect antidote to my nerves. “Andy, are you going to talk about my exes all morning or are you going to eat me out?”
He laughs too, but it’s a raw, almost desperate sound. He drags his teeth over his lip. “You’re sure you want to?”
Now that the idea is in my head, I can’t think of anything else. “Yes.”
He kisses me deeply, then starts to move down my body again, savoring every taste.
When he reaches his destination, he pauses to look back up at me again—a final confirmation.
Then, with a burning fire in his half-lidded eyes, he slowly lowers his mouth to me—just as a frantic pounding starts sounding at the front door.
KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.
“Sophie! Andy! Are you home?”
Lia’s voice is shrill and shrieking and I swear to God I’m never speaking to her again after this.
Andy, however, seems like he hasn’t even noticed. His fingers press into the soft flesh of my thighs as his tongue moves over me, once, twice, and lord it feels so unbelievably good that I, too, have almost forgotten about Lia until her demonic fist pounds on the door again.
“Sophie! You better let me in right now! I’m not joking!”
“Andy—” I moan, barely able to breathe. “We have to stop.”
“Mm mm,” he dissents, not breaking his rhythm for even a moment. And you know what? That’s actually a really good point. My fingers twine into his hair as I hold him in place, needing more, aching and climbing higher.
“ANDY!” Satan screams from the hallway. “Open up right now or I’m calling the police!”
Lia would definitely not be calling the police, but the neighbors thinking she’s going to call the police would be suboptimal.
Summoning all of my willpower and then some, I gently push Andy’s shoulders back. “We have to get her.”
His mouth lingers along the inside of my thigh. “I don’t want to.”
“I know.” I shift back, putting a torturous amount of space between us before pulling his face up to mine.
I can taste myself on his lips, and it’s so unexpectedly hot that I almost forget what I was doing.
But the pounding starts up again and it has me pulling back, pressing our foreheads together as I sigh, “Will you go get her?”
Andy growls—like a literal growl sound comes out of his mouth. It makes me burst into loud laughter.
“I can hear you in there! Open up right this second!”
Glowing with white hot frustration, Andy stands from the bed and hauls on a pair of sweatpants, then heads out into the living room. He’s completely unpresentable—shirtless, hair sticking in every direction, smoke coming out of his ears—and the sight makes me laugh even harder.
I tuck my naked body under the covers and listen for the start of his confrontation with Lia. There’s the sound of the front door opening, then a gritted, “Hello, Amelia.”
(Oooh, full name. She’s really in trouble.)
“Andrew Motherfucking Walsh,” she says at an unfathomably loud volume, “if you don’t let me in this apartment right this second—”
He must pull her inside, because I hear the door click closed before Lia continues.
“Are you shitting me, Andy? This is the thanks I get for talking you off the ledge all week? You just send a fucking crazy picture and then ignore my texts and calls? If I find out that picture was a joke I’m going to have your balls in a jar. I swear to God. I will pluck them off you myself.”
Footsteps pound inside the apartment. Another door opens—maybe the door to my room?—followed by some shuffling sounds.
“Where is she?”
Andy doesn’t reply, pissed off as he is, and I can hear Lia starting to get frantic, so I call out, “I’m in here!”
There’s a pause—no sound at all. Then someone is stomping towards Andy’s room and flinging the door open.
“Oh my god, it’s real!”
Lia is—comically—dressed for combat. Her hair is in a slickback ponytail and she’s wearing black Doc Martens, wide-leg khaki pants, and an oversized army jacket. I would stake my life on a bet that she intentionally dressed for battle today.
“Sophieeee!” she squeals, launching herself onto the bed and grappling me.
“I’m so happy for you. You have to tell me everything. Start immediately after the kiss and hit me with excruciating detail. Pretend he’s not here.”
She gestures half-heartedly in Andy’s direction—Andy who’s standing with one arm propped against the doorframe, eyes locked on me, and that same dopey smile back on his face.
He shakes his head. “I think our friendship has crossed some important lines.”
“Shut up,” Lia barks over her shoulder. “Men don’t get it.”
“Sophie is literally naked, and you’re sitting on the sheets we had sex in.”
Lia explodes backwards off the bed like a landmine.
“Ah! God! Jesus! Fuck!” She starts rubbing at her clothes like she can shake off the cooties with enough determination.
Her expletives continue as she shoves past Andy back into the living room, voice traveling with her.
“Okay well I have to go take a million showers and then jump into the Sun, but I am truly so happy for you guys. Really.”
I hear the front door open before Lia adds, “And you better be good to her, Andy. I’m serious. I love you, but she’s out of your league and I’ll kill you if you hurt her.”
He replies, “I know, Lia. Believe me, I know.”
And I would love to pause there and unpack that at length.
What does he know? That Lia will kill him if he’s mean to me?
Or that I’m out of his league? I mean, we all know I’m not actually out of his league—I’d like to paint myself generously and say we’re pretty evenly matched—but is he saying he thinks I’m out of his league?
Or is he just saying he knows he has to be nice to me or Lia will be mad?
I really hope it’s the former—if only because it’ll make me feel a little better about my mid-sex “I love you” if he’s as into this as I am.
I consider just asking him. For a few seconds I really consider it. But when I go to open my mouth I just can’t let myself be that needy this early on.
(And honestly, I’m a little scared of his answer.)
I know I always rush things, always push my partners to want too much too soon. There is no way I’m going to let myself make that mistake with Andy. No matter what happens, I won’t let myself take more than he’s ready to give.
After seeing Lia out, Andy comes back to bed, the portrait of temptation as he crawls over the covers towards me. And I feel every emotion at once—lust curling low in my belly, hope stretching its wings in my brain, nervousness sparkling like pop rocks in my chest.
“What should we do for the rest of the day?” he asks, trapping me beneath him.
“Hear me out,” I reply, twining my fingers in his hair as he starts to kiss my neck. “What if we just don’t leave the bed? We can order take out. Have a lot more sex. Maybe read our books. But the floor is lava. Everywhere but the bed is lava. We have to stay here.”
“Is there a bathroom break clause?” he mutters against my skin. “It won’t change my answer, just trying to make a hydration plan.”
“Bathroom breaks are negotiable.”
“You’re a generous overlord,” he says, then picks up right where he left off.