Chapter 7 #2
He carries me. My arms around his neck, my mouth on his collarbone, my fingers undoing the top button of his shirt and then the second and the third.
He sets me on his bed—our bed, it’s becoming our bed—and stands over me in the low light, and I pull his shirt the rest of the way open and press my palms flat against his chest and the heat of his skin sends a pulse of want through me so sharp my hips lift off the mattress.
“Off,” I say, pulling at his shirt. He shrugs it off his shoulders and reaches for the zipper at the back of my dress and drags it down slow—slow enough that I feel every tooth release, every inch of skin he exposes, his fingers trailing down my spine and spreading heat everywhere they touch.
The dress falls away. His eyes travel over me—my bra, my stomach, the lace at my hips—and his expression isn’t hunger. It’s reverence. The difference between those two things is something I didn’t understand until him.
“You’re so fucking beautiful.” Not a performance. A fact stated by a man who means exactly what he says.
He unclasps my bra and his mouth covers my breast and my back arches off the bed and my hand fists in his hair. His tongue circles my nipple—slow, deliberate—and then his teeth close gently and the sound I make is loud enough that my free hand flies to my mouth.
He pulls it away. “Don’t. I want to hear you.”
His mouth moves down my ribs. My stomach.
His fingers hook into my underwear and drag them down and his breath is hot against my inner thigh and I’m shaking—not from cold, not from nerves.
From the intensity of being this seen. Of being touched by someone who treats my body like a gift instead of an obligation.
His mouth is on me and the world narrows to the pressure of his tongue against my clit—firm, rhythmic, unhurried.
He does not rush. My hips roll against him and his hands grip my thighs, holding me open, and the pleasure builds in slow, relentless waves that crest and pull back and crest higher.
My hand is in his hair and I’m saying his name and something else I can’t track because my thoughts are breaking apart.
He slides two fingers inside me and curls them and my spine lifts off the bed and the orgasm hits like a wall—a full-body clench that pulls a sound out of me I don’t recognize, raw and desperate and free.
He doesn’t stop. His mouth stays on me through the aftershocks, gentler now, easing me down until my hand loosens in his hair and my breathing comes back in ragged pulls.
He kisses my inner thigh. My hip. The dip of my waist. He works his way back up and his mouth finds mine and I can taste myself on his lips and the intimacy of it—the lack of distance, the refusal to flinch—fills my chest with something so bright it aches.
“I need you,” I tell him. Not a plea. A decision.
He reaches for the nightstand. I hear the condom wrapper tear and then he’s over me, forearms braced on either side of my head, and he pushes inside me and we both go still.
His forehead drops against mine. His breath shudders out and my hips tilt to take him deeper and the feeling of him filling me is so complete that my eyes burn.
He moves. Slow at first—deep, deliberate strokes that pull back and push forward and find a rhythm that matches my breathing.
My legs wrap around him and my heels press into his lower back and I pull him closer because there is no close enough.
His pace builds. My nails drag down his back and his jaw tightens and his hips snap harder and the bed frame protests against the wall and I don’t care.
I’m loud and present and the pleasure is climbing again, coiling tighter with every thrust, and I grip his shoulders and hold on.
“Right there—don’t stop—”
He doesn’t stop. His hand slides between us and his thumb finds my clit and presses and the orgasm tears through me with a cry I feel in my throat for hours after.
He follows—three hard thrusts, a groan against my neck, his whole body tensing and then releasing, his weight settling onto me like something I want to carry.
We lie in the dark. His arm is around me, my head on his chest, his lips against my hair.
The city is quiet twenty stories below. My heartbeat slows against his ribs and his fingers trace absent patterns on my shoulder and the silence between us is the kind that doesn’t need filling—the kind that only exists between two people who aren’t performing for each other.
“Ginny.” My name in his voice. Low. Warm.
“Mm.”
“Stay.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
His arm tightens. I press my palm flat against his chest and his heartbeat pushes back—steady, strong, real.
“I spent years with a man who made me feel like I was too much and not enough at the same time,” I say. The words come out quiet and certain and they don’t hurt anymore. “Too loud, too ambitious, too needy—and never enough to hold his attention. Never enough to be the one he chose.”
His hand stills on my shoulder. He’s listening. The way he always listens—all the way through, without interrupting, without rearranging what I’m saying into something easier to respond to.
“You make me feel like I’m exactly the right amount.”
His chest rises under my cheek. He pulls me closer—not possessive, not triumphant. Closer the way you hold something you’re grateful for. Something you know you almost didn’t find.
His lips press against my hair. He doesn’t say anything, because he doesn’t need to, because the way his body curves around mine says it clearer than language can manage.
I close my eyes. The silk robe is on the back of his door. My shoes are by the front. The woman who ironed napkins for a man who called her boring is lying in the arms of a man who thinks she’s extraordinary, and she’s not angry anymore. She’s not vengeful. She’s not proving anything.
She’s happy.
That’s enough. That’s everything.
Thank you for reading!