He came back not two minutes later, curling in at my side, resting his face in the crook of my neck, his arm reaching out to my hip, half-curling my lower body toward his where he slid one of his thighs between my legs, then his hand settled behind me.
On my butt.
And, incredibly, I didn't have the almost frantic urge to push it away.
I drifted off to sleep a while later, realizing with a falling sensation inside that it was over. Our perfect long weekend would be gone when we woke as we frantically packed bags so we could check-out and catch the train in time to be back in Navesink Bank for the meal prep for Sunday dinner.
I wasn't sure the last time I felt a sadness as I did right then nagging at me.
It wasn't the end, of course.
We were just getting started.
But it was the end of something.
The end to one of the few times where real life wouldn't interrupt us, when there were no places to be, no one to call, no one to answer to but each other.
But then Cyrus shifted in his sleep, his hand squeezing my butt, and I somehow had a smile on my face as I drifted off to sleep.FOURTEENCyrusReese was not, apparently, the kind of woman who woke up early unless she had an alarm set. I figured this was likely due to her staying up late, too lost in fictional worlds to realize the real one she existed within was getting closer to morning than night.
That was alright, though, I realized as the young, bright yellow rays streaked in from the floor-to-ceiling windows behind me, casting little rainbows over Reese's belly and hip. Her sleeping meant I got a few minutes to myself to think, to reflect, to plan. Real life would be calling again far too soon, so I was going to take the opportunity to bask while I had it.
Lucky.
That was the one word that came to mind as I looked up at Reese's face, always soft, but even more so in sleep, her thick, dark lashes resting softly on the skin of her cheek. Her hair was a wavy mess around her even though she hadn't been tossing or turning to make it so; it apparently had a mind of its own.
She hadn't, I realized with a non-orgasm-sated brain, insisted on covering up after we had been together. I had been mostly sure that when I came back from the bathroom, I would have found her in fresh panties and a tee at least.
It was maybe the first time I realized that shyness didn't always equate to modesty. She might not have been able to really hold a conversation the first time or two we hung out, but she had absolutely no problems with me seeing her body. Hell, she hadn't slapped me away when I grabbed her ass either.
Progress.
Though I knew it would be a slow-moving project, the plan was to get her to appreciate every inch of herself.
It would be worth it in the end.
And as for the sex? Yeah, that needed some major fucking reflection. Every single second of that needed to be gone over on a loop in my head for an hour even as my fingers traced chastely across the skin of her belly, her side, her hip, the outside of her thigh.
Now, we've established that I had fucked a lot. I got around. I enjoyed myself more than my fair share.
So it meant something when I said that what I did with Reese, yeah, it fucking topped it all.
It topped the no-strings nights after the bar.
It topped the quick and dirty up against the wall of the compound with a fuck-buddy when I was on watch at night.
It topped the wild, over the top, kinky fucking some of the women from the fetish clubs had been into.
In fact, it put all of those, all of those empty, meaningless nights to absolute shame.
I remember once, back when Reeve was still the Reeve I grew up with, claiming to me that sex was different when it was with someone you cared about or loved.
Barely in my twenties, I had scoffed, calling him a pussy, thinking he was just soft, just sappy.
It was crazy how many years it took to realize he was absolutely right.
It didn't take taboo, risqué, kinky, or dirty to be the best sex of my life.
It took connection. It took this soul-deep desire to please her. It took the amazement as she seemed to have the same desire to please me. Then, fuck, it took being inside her. It took her warm, tight walls around me. It took her eyes looking at me like she could feel it too, could feel the strange almost aching rightness at being connected like that.