“What?” he asks, laughing a little.
I shake my head, biting my lip. “You know what.”
His face falls as his fingers slow their motion.
I can see it—the hesitation and the fight he’s putting up. I understand it, even if I disagree.
But I don’t want to lose the piece of him that he is willing to share. So I swallow my heart, knowing it’s too late for me, and reach for him with a smile, trying my very best to ignore the ache in my chest.
Again. It’s happening again. Two heartbreaks in a handful of years.
“Hey. Stay with me.” I say it to him and to myself.
He grins, relieved, and scoots back over. He lays on his side, resting his weight on one arm while reaching between my legs with the other.
When Beau glides his fingers into my folds, I startle. The lube is still a little cold. Its wetness is different from my natural lubrication. It’s thinner and less satisfying.
“It’s all right,” I say, honoring my promise to keep talking. “Just different.”
Beau’s eyes are on my face, watching my every reaction. He swirls his fingertips over my clit, and immediately, I warm to the sensation.
“That. I like that.”
My hips are rolling now, seeking more. I tighten the muscles in my back and my legs, hoping it helps.
But my orgasm still feels too far out of reach. I’m flatlining, like I’m going the wrong way on an escalator. You keep stepping onto the same stair over and over again, never getting anywhere.
I close my eyes. Think of Beau. Think of porn. Think of his cock in my mouth.
Reading my thoughts—my body—Beau sucks on my nipple, quick and hard. He says, “Let me return the favor.”
My eyes fly open. Keeping a hand on my tit, he ducks south, settling his head between my legs.
He meets my eyes. Smirks, cocky as hell, gaze determined.
He licks me. Using the flat of his tongue, he laps at my pussy, focusing on my clit, then dips lower. He dips that tongue inside me, making me gasp.
My hands move to his shoulders. I love the feel of his breadth here. The muscles, the way they work as he eats me out. Thoroughly.
It’s the most erotic sight ever. But even though my mind is aroused to the point of eruption, my body is having a hard time catching up. It’s the strangest, most frustrating sensation ever.
He sucks my clit. I tell him I love it. He does it again. And again.
He kisses me, licks me, teases me. He goes slow with me, moves fast.
I can feel the minutes ticking by, my arousal morphing to annoyance, then panic, then embarrassment.
It’s taking too long. I’m trying too hard.
“Beau, it’s all right,” I say, taking his face in my hand. “I appreciate what you’re doing, but I don’t think I’m gonna get there tonight. I’m sorry.”
He shakes his head. “Stop worrying about me. Bel, I could go down on you for a week, and it still wouldn’t be enough. Be patient. Be selfish. I promise I don’t mind.”
Digging that hand into his hair, I fist it and tug. “You sure?”
In reply, he lifts my leg and tosses it over his shoulder, then he does it with the other. Gliding his hands underneath my ass, he grabs it and yanks me farther down on the bed, tilting my pelvis so it meets perfectly with his mouth.
It’s hard at first not to worry. But I close my eyes, and I try.
I focus on the warm, soft feel of his tongue on my slick flesh. I focus on the way my heart is beating, strong and sure, its familiar rhythm a stake in the ground amidst my swirling uncertainty.
I focus on me. It is selfish, but it’s lovely, and I can’t help but think that this is how men must feel in bed all the time. Entitled to great oral and better orgasms.
Beau’s hands keep me rooted in the moment. They knead my ass, spreading my cheeks, his thumbs toying with the crease between them.
More lewdness.
Even more when he says, voice all rumbly, “You taste fucking fantastic, honey. Prettiest, best-tasting pussy ever.”
Oh, I like that. And so does my body. It gives me just the confidence I need. The hunger between my legs winds tighter. Finally.
“Yes,” I cry, straight out of a bad porno. “Yes.”
I grab my breast and play with my nipple.
My pussy clamps down on Beau’s tongue, and the release comes with the force of a forty-foot wave. Loud. Catastrophic.
For once I’m glad Sugarhill “cottage” is as big as it is. Even with her white-noise machine going, Maisie would definitely hear me at our place back in Charlotte.
I grab onto Beau’s hair, my thighs shaking. The orgasm rips through me, a succession of smaller and smaller waves.
At that moment, I’m not an exhausted mother. I’m not lost. I’m a body, alive to sensation and pleasure. I belong to myself, and only to myself, and the sense of freedom this gives me is heady in the extreme.