17. Brittney #2
He works me through it with his mouth and his hands until I come hard enough that I have to clap a hand over my own mouth to keep from crying out. My body bows. My legs tremble around his shoulders. He stays with me through every pulse, gentling only when I tug his hair, oversensitive and shaking.
When he stands, his mouth is slick and his eyes are dark and he looks at me like I’m the only real thing in the world.
I reach for him with unsteady hands. He catches my wrists - not stopping me, just grounding me.
“You don’t have to-”
“I want to.” I hold his gaze. “I want you. Not the apology version. You.”
Something in his face cracks open.
He pushes off his clothes. I wrap my hand around him and watch his eyes flutter shut, watch the muscle in his jaw jump. When I stroke him once, he makes a sound like he’s been punched.
“Counter or couch,” he rasps. “I won’t last if you keep-”
“Counter. Now.”
He hooks my knees over his hips. The head of him nudges against me - hot, blunt, perfect - and he freezes there, forehead pressed to mine, both of us breathing like we’ve run miles.
“Look at me,” he whispers.
I do.
He pushes inside in one slow, endless slide.
The stretch steals my breath.
The fullness. The unbearable rightness of it. I haven’t been touched like this in so long - haven’t been chosen like this - and my body remembers him even when my heart is still learning how to trust the memory.
I clench around him without meaning to; he curses softly and goes still, buried to the hilt, giving me time.
“Okay?” His voice shakes.
“Okay.” I wrap my legs tighter around him. “Move. Please move.”
He moves.
Long strokes at first. Deep. Controlled. Like he’s afraid if he lets go he’ll break something sacred. Each thrust drags over every sensitive place he just mapped with his mouth. The counter edge bites into my thighs. I don’t care. I lock my ankles at the small of his back and pull him deeper.
“Harder,” I breathe.
His control frays.
He drives into me harder, the wet sound of it obscene and perfect in the quiet kitchen. One hand braces beside my hip. The other slides up my spine to cradle the back of my head so I won’t knock against the cabinet. Even lost in it, he’s still protecting me. The realization makes my throat tight.
“I love you.” He says it against my mouth, my cheek, my temple - punctuating every thrust. “I love you. I love you. I’m so sorry it took me this long to show you-”
“Show me,” I gasp. “Don’t say it. Show me.”
He hooks an arm under my knee and opens me wider, changing the angle until he hits a place that makes stars burst behind my eyes. I cry out. He does it again. And again. His hips snap. The careful worship turns into something rawer - need, relief, years of silence breaking open between our bodies.
“Come for me,” he begs. “Please, Britt - I need to feel you - I need-”
His thumb finds my clit, circling in tight, perfect pressure, and I shatter.
The orgasm tears through me harder than the first - longer, deeper, my whole body clenching around him as I sob his name into his shoulder.
He follows with a broken groan, thrusting through it, spilling inside me in hot pulses while he holds me like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he loosens his grip.
We stay like that. Joined. Shaking.
His face buried in my neck. My fingers in his hair. The pot roast cooling forgotten on the stove.
When he finally lifts his head, his eyes are wet.
“Hi,” he whispers.
“Hi.”
He eases out of me carefully. I hiss at the loss; he makes a low sympathetic sound and presses a kiss to the inside of my knee before cleaning us both up with gentle hands.
Then he gathers me off the counter and carries me to the too-small couch, pulling a throw blanket over both of us. I end up half on his chest, one leg thrown over his, his heartbeat thudding under my ear.
“This doesn’t fix everything,” I whisper.
“I know.” He kisses my hair. “But it’s the first true thing I’ve done in years. I’ll keep showing up until you believe me.”
“I’m starting to.”
He exhales. Like he’s been holding his breath for months.
“That’s enough. That’s more than enough.”
***
I wake alone.
The sheets are still warm where Shawn was. The bathroom door is closed. Water running.
I stretch, lazy and satisfied, and let my eyes wander around the small apartment. He’s made it surprisingly livable. Books stacked on the nightstand. A coffee maker that actually works. Photos of us - old ones, from before - tucked into the mirror frame.
And in the corner, turned toward the wall, a canvas on a makeshift easel.
I shouldn’t look. It’s obviously hidden for a reason. Probably something from class. One of Margaret’s assignments. A bowl of fruit. A landscape.
I look anyway.
The first thing I see is color. Warm ochre. The specific shade of brown I mix for skin that’s been kissed by summer. My shade.
I stop breathing and take a step closer. Then another. My bare feet are silent on the hardwood, and the bathroom fan is loud enough that he won’t hear me, won’t stop me, won’t have a chance to explain before I see-
It’s me.
I press my hand to my mouth.
It’s me, but not any version of me I’ve ever seen in a mirror.
Not the me who smiles for photos or checks her reflection before walking into a room.
This is the me who forgets anyone else exists.
Pencil behind my ear. Eyes narrowed at something just off-canvas.
Lips slightly parted, caught mid-thought.
That furrow between my brows I’ve always hated but couldn’t train myself to stop making.
He painted me working.
He painted me in the moment I feel most invisible - the moment I disappear into creation and forget to perform for anyone. The moment I always assumed no one noticed because no one ever had.
My knees give out.
I sink to the floor in front of the easel, still staring. The background is rough, the colors are muddy in places. The proportions are slightly off in a way that makes it obvious this wasn’t traced, wasn’t copied from a photograph.
Someone did this from memory.
Someone sat in Margaret’s community center classroom and tried to remember the exact angle of my jaw. The way my hair falls when I’m too focused to push it back. The specific distance between my eyes - too wide, he’s made them, but somehow that makes it more real. More him.
I can see where he struggled. There are layers of paint around my eyes - six layers, maybe more, each one scraped back and tried again. He couldn’t get them right. He kept trying anyway.
He kept trying anyway.
A sound escapes me. Half laugh, half sob.
On the floor beside the easel: a worn sketchbook. My hands shake when I pick it up.
The first page is a disaster. A hand that looks more like a claw. In the margin, his handwriting: How does she make this look easy? Gave up after 40 minutes. Hand cramping.
I flip forward.