“Pearl?” I pant when she doesn’t move. She doesn’t say anything. She’s frozen on top of me.
Finally, she says, “I’ll get something. A towel or some clothes. Uh, did you want to…do you need time to… Holy. Shit. You’re still hard.”
I bite down hard on my bottom lip and the inside of my cheek. It’s a lethal combination that somehow keeps me from laughing and crying all at once.
“I know. I’m good. Well, whatever you want to do. If you want to call it a night—”
“I don’t want to call it a night! I want to, well, do another position. I mean position, not place. Just to clarify.”
“I get that.” My dick throbs inside her, and she lets out a little surprised gasp.
Pearl is tiny. At least, in comparison to me. I gently grip her by the waist and easily swing her around, so now she’s on the bottom with her legs wrapped around my waist. Then I flex inside her again, just to watch the bewilderment, wonder, and amazement reflected on her face.
“How many more times are you good for?” she gasps.
I arch a brow. “I don’t know. Should we try it out and see?”
“Definitely,” she breathes. Her hips jack up into mine, her heels tighten on my ass, and she tangles her fingers in my hair and drags my mouth down to hers.
CHAPTER 18
Pearl
Wow. That was…just…wow.
I could get into all the things I’m thinking and feeling, tangled up in Gabriel’s arms and legs, our skin still sticky together, his even, deep breaths telling me he did the typical thing after a really long day and some crazy good sex and passed out. I could get into it, but the truth is, I don’t even know where to begin when it comes to sorting it out. Compartmentalizing. Whatever.
I know we said this was no strings. I know Gabriel wants to say single, and so do I. At least, on paper. I thought I did. Ever since I met him, though, I’ve started to have these crazy doubts. Crazy thoughts. Crazy everything. I’ve started to think that maybe things are possible. Things, meaning this. Relationships, giving it another chance. Just because I dated a few assholes doesn’t mean everyone is an asshole. And clearly, things don’t always go to shit. Take my parents and my grandparents. They’re all still together. Sometimes things last.
Then again, sometimes they don’t.
But still. Does it mean I should just give up? I have no idea what Gabriel would say if I told him about what I was thinking and feeling right now, and I’m glad he’s asleep. That way, I won’t wake him up. And I’ll have time to think.
Thinking is usually best done with a cup of tea, so I carefully slip out from beneath Gabriel’s arm and untangle myself from his legs. It sucks to leave him, and I don’t want to. I want to stay right beside him, wrapped up in his warmth and strength. I want to bask in the afterglow I didn’t expect. Savor the orgasms I didn’t really expect either. Bask in the delicious, strange soreness of my body in all the places I’m not used to being sore in at all.
I want to stay here, but I know I have too much going on upstairs in the brain department to be able to sleep anytime soon. I need a cup of tea, and I need my phone. I need to relax and figure out what the heck is going on with my head. And my heart.
That might be cheesy and sappy and corny and all the things I don’t do, but whatever. I’m feeling it, and not just because I’m kind of blissed-out at the moment. I’m feeling it because I’m sure it’s real. I never felt this way with anyone, even though I dated some of them for years. I don’t think that time is a good indicator of whether feelings are true and real or not. Or maybe it is to prove they aren’t real, but I think things can be real from the start and stay real too.
I know. Whoa. Whoa there. These are very un-Pearl-like thoughts. My mind is changing faster than I can keep up, doing a one-eighty, and no, not just because I got laid, and it was good. That’s not the reason.
I slip quietly downstairs. It’s only just after eleven, and my parents probably won’t be home for hours yet. I’d feel bad for ditching if I didn’t know clean up will probably be tomorrow morning, not tonight.
I make myself a cup of mint tea and take it to the kitchen table. I sit down heavily and pull out my phone. I threw on a set of leggings and a t-shirt, my go-to for evening loungewear, and, more often than not, what I also usually end up wearing to bed. I can’t count how many times over the years I’ve sat in this exact spot, late at night, thinking about shit down here because I couldn’t fall asleep. The guest room is actually my old room, but my parents renovated after I left the house, so now it looks completely different. But still. The double bed? It was mine while I was growing up. The dressers in there? My set from when I was a kid. There are so many memories here.