Chapter 13
Lyrix
We were tipsy, full, and grinning like we’d just stolen something from the city.
Because maybe we had.
We stole moments and memories. A night that we’d both carry in our bones long after the beads stopped swinging and the music went quiet.
We made it back to the hotel, giggling over the way that last slow dance at the club turned into a whole performance. Maison was tipsy too, but still composed, still that smooth-ass man with the deep voice and warm hands that knew exactly where to guide me.
He walked me to my room, and I don’t know what came over me, but I couldn’t stop looking at him like he was dessert.
Not just any dessert. The kind you keep saying you’re too full for, but somehow your fork still finds its way back into the plate.
The moment the door shut behind us… We were on each other.
No hesitation.
No slow build.
Just lips. Hands. Breath. Tongue. Fire.
He picked me up and sat me on the dresser, kissing my neck like he knew every tender spot.
My legs wrapped around his waist, his hands slid up under my dress, and I swear I saw stars.
Not from the wine. From him. The way he touched me, like he’d studied me.
Like his hands had been there in a past life.
Clothes peeled off slow. We didn’t even make it to the bed, so he bent me over the dresser, whispering filthy promises in my ear.
We made it to the bed eventually.
Then the wall.
Then the shower.
Then back to the bed.
It was nasty.
The kind that makes your soul arch, not just your back. The kind where your body says things your mouth is too scared to admit. The kind that feels like therapy.
Maison didn’t just make love to me. It was like his body was trying to etch me into memory before time ran out. It started slow and he laid me out like I was something sacred. Like the city had given me to him as a gift, and he didn’t want to rush unwrapping me.
My fingers tangled in the sheets, then in his hair. He moved like he wasn’t just trying to please me. He was trying to rewrite something in me.
And he did. He rewrote the part of me that thought intimacy only came after commitment. Because what we had didn’t have a title. Didn’t need years. It was just something we both needed now.
He came up to kiss me, and I could taste myself on his tongue. The moment he slid into me, I felt like I could cry.
It wasn’t just sex. It was release. From grief. From control. From every damn wall I had up when I first arrived in New Orleans. He whispered things into my ear while he moved inside me. Things that were real. Things like:
“I hope you remember what it feels like to be wanted like this.”
“I hope you stop second-guessing how magical you are.”
“Don’t shrink for nobody.”
His hands roamed all over my body. I opened for him in every way. We went slow. We went fast. I rode him until I was shaking, and then he flipped me over like he couldn’t take it anymore.
At one point, we were laughing and breathless, him still inside me, and I said, “We gone fuck around and end up in love one day.”
He looked at me, deep and serious. “That won’t be the worst thing.”
Then he kissed me again.
And again.
And again.
Until it was morning.
Until we were wrapped in sheets and silence, skin stuck together, hearts beating like second lines in the streets outside.
Until we were both too spent to speak, but somehow everything had been said.