But this wasn’t any woman. This was Tessa, her blonde hair against my pillow, her blue eyes hazy with want, her skin warm against mine. She was here. She’d told me her darkest secret, the one she never told anyone, the one that lodged inside her all the time like a shard of broken glass. I knew what that felt like.
I ran my hand over her breast, my thumb brushing the nipple, and listened to her inhale. I kept my hand moving down over her ribcage, the perfect flat plane of her stomach. Everyone got to see this body, but who touched it properly? The way it deserved to be touched? Tessa hadn’t let anyone touch her the right way in a long, long time—maybe ever. That much, I knew.
But she let me now. I stroked down past her belly button, then slid my fingers under the elastic of her panties. She let out a sigh and opened her long, gorgeous legs as I moved further down, pressing my fingers into her pussy.
She moaned aloud, closing her eyes and pressing her hips up into me. I let my forehead drop to her neck and concentrated, trying to do it right, trying not to come. She smelled like vanilla and woman-sweat and sex, like smoke from the bar where she’d worked her shift and the remains of the makeup she’d washed off after her shoot. She wasn’t a dream girl or an illusion. She was just Tessa, and in that moment the only thing I wanted was to make her come.
I stroked her, pushing my fingertips into her, then up through her slick folds to her clit. Her hands dug into my biceps and her hips moved, grinding into me. “Oh, God,” she said in a helpless voice.
I moved my fingers down again, into her, further this time. If Tessa had any inhibitions left, they were quickly disappearing. She gripped my arms harder—I was going to have marks—and ground herself onto my hand. “Andrew,” she gasped.
“I like torturing you,” I said against her skin.
“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t—Oh,fuck.”
I kept going, bringing my thumb into the mix, building her higher, higher. Watching her arch against my sheets, her eyes closed, her lips parted, her lashes against her cheeks.
When she came it spiraled out for a long time, moving through her body in waves as she cried out. My muscles were locked and stiff, my cock hard and hot against my belly, my breathing shallow. Tessa having an orgasm, brought on by me, was the hottest thing I’d ever seen.
Finally, she relaxed as my hand stilled. Her eyes opened and looked up at me. A smile touched her lips, sexy and powerful. “Your turn,” she said, and her hand moved into my boxers, her fingers curling around my cock.
I made a surprised, undignified grunt. My arm gave out and I dropped to the bed, closing my eyes as sensation washed over me. Tessa put a palm against my shoulder and pushed me to my back, and it was her turn to lean over me, her hand moving up and down me.
It felt so good I thought I was going to fucking die. But first, I would come. Embarrassingly fast. I pressed my hands to the mattress and tried not to let it happen.
But it was inevitable. She stroked her hand up to the head, then down again, with just the right amount of pressure. Tessa’s hand was stroking my cock, right now. My hips pushed up into her and my hands tangled into the sheets. Fuck, this was going to be fast.
“Jesus, Tessa, I’m going to come,” I managed, because it was polite to at least warn her.
“That’s the idea,” she said. Then she bent down, the ends of her hair trailing against my stomach, pushed down the waist of my boxers, and slid her hot, wet mouth over my cock.
I came. It was almost painful, and it was certainly humiliating. I could have practically drowned her. That’s how much of a fucking mess I was.
When I finished I ran my hands over my face, which was numb. I tried to breathe. One breath, and then another. My hands, I realized, were shaking. I had no way to stop it now.
I kept my eyes closed and felt Tessa kiss her way up my stomach, my chest. I couldn’t speak. My mind was blank. I couldn’t even form a single thought.
Tessa moved one of my hands away from my face and kissed my cheek. She didn’t need me to speak; she didn’t need me to do anything. She kissed down my cheek to my jawbone, up to my temple. She let her body relax against mine, pressed to my side. I took in a shuddering breath and tried to keep it together.
I opened my eyes as she rolled away from me. I thought she was going to get up, but she was only turning out the bedside lamp. She rolled back and lay against me again.
She fit against me so perfectly. My arm went around her, curling over her back. She lay her cheek against my shoulder.
We lay there without speaking, listening to each other breathe. We didn’t seem to need words. She was right; we’d done enough talking for a while.
After a long time, I realized that we were lying in the dark, which I usually hated. But it didn’t seem so bad.
Then I realized Tessa was asleep.
I had only a minute to think about it before I was gone into oblivion.
TWENTY-ONE
Tessa
I’ve always beena deep sleeper. When I’m out, I’m all the way out until I finally come back to consciousness. That must have been how Andrew got out of bed the next morning without me noticing.
It was early—just after seven, according to my phone, which was still in the pocket of my jeans on the floor. The rain had stopped in the night, the storm passing over. I pulled on my now-dry jeans and my T-shirt, ditching the bra, and crossed the hall to use the bathroom.