Page 51 of The Break-Up Pact

I barrel past the question. “I don’t want you to have to wait on it, or think it has anything to do with you if it doesn’t work.”

“Do you like it?” Levi asks, this time slower, closer to my ear.

“Yeah,” I breathe.

And he picks up the pace again and says, “Then let me.”

He slides a finger in and I’m already so wet that I barely feel it happening until he curls against me and my hips buck at the slight pressure, every part of me already aching for more. He settles his other hand on the back of my neck, bracing me, catching every tremor between his fingers. I lean in, desperate for any part of him I can taste—I breathe deeply into his neck, leaving a gentle, sucking kiss that makes him let out a low groan I can feel humming in my own lips. He slides in another finger and I gasp at the surge that follows, the demand, my body sinking into his hand as deep as it will go.

Every inch, every steady, rhythmic bend of his fingers feels so dizzying that I’m already breathless, like I’ve been sprinting for miles and never want to stop. It almost feels illegal to feel this good. Like I’ve accessed some part of the world I’m not supposed to know exists, because now that I do, there won’t be any going back. There won’t be any forgetting that I can come apart like this, that there are places all over my body I’ve never even thought could burn this bright.

“Levi,” I say, and then I surprise myself: “I need you inside me.”

It’s the first time I’ve ever been so direct in bed. The first time I’ve ever actually said the word need and meant it. Everything before has felt so performative, like I’ve been going through the motions, but now everything else is moving me—like I’m in a tide that’s pulling me along, dipping and rolling and cresting.

“You’re sure?” Levi asks into my ear.

I press my hand against his jeans, feeling the hard length of him through the denim, relishing the quick gasp that leaves his throat. “I got screened after the breakup. So both my IUD and I are very sure,” I tell him.

His lip quirks, something devilish in it. “I did, too. And good,” he says, deliberately curling his fingers even deeper. “Because I could keep doing this all night.”

I let out a keening noise, but I know what I want. I know myself. It’s not that I’m worried this will take too long, or that Levi won’t want to take his time. It’s that I really, truly need it—it feels like some part of me is so open, so ready, that if it isn’t full of him now, I’m going to burst.

“Please, Levi,” I say.

He pulls his fingers out slowly, watching me the entire time, watching my mouth drop open at the loss of pressure. I ease myself up to work on the waistband of his jeans, trying to be like him—trying to take my time, trying to savor every moment of this. But I’m greedy. Almost desperate. Glad that Levi promised all of him, because anything less isn’t going to be enough.

Once he’s down to his boxer briefs, I press my lips just above them, threading the tip of one finger under the waistband and tracing the edges of it, feeling him shiver under my touch. I hook my finger and pull down slowly, releasing the length of him, and oh. My mouth is actually salivating, my heart thrumming with an anticipation so wild it doesn’t know what to do with itself. My lips find the tip of it, licking softly, savoring the salty, bittersweet taste.

“Jesus,” Levi murmurs.

He shifts so he can press his thumb between my legs again, continuing with those slow, tantalizing circles. I give another slow, exploratory lick up and down the length of him, digging my hands into his hips, anchoring myself as they sink lower.

“Okay, okay,” says Levi, his voice barely more than a breath, “that feels—so good that you’re going to have to—stop, if the two of us are going to…”

I take my mouth off him, using it to aim a wicked grin into his face. He responds to it in kind by pulling me farther up onto the bed again, then maneuvering himself until he’s sitting upright and staring down at me, the blue of his eyes uncharacteristically dark as he roams every curve and dip like he’s making a map of me.

My hips shift up in silent protest at the loss of his touch, and Levi only smiles softly and says, “Let me look at you.”

There’s too much colliding in me at once. This feeling of being seen without any other feeling accompanying it—without wondering if I deserve it, or if he really means it. Of letting myself enjoy this moment of being appreciated, of being cherished, and letting the feeling settle in my bones.

But my entire body feels like a live wire. If I can’t touch Levi again, I’m going to implode.

“All right,” I say, “you’ve looked.”

And then I pull myself up and grab him by the shoulders, pushing him to the other side of the mattress, using the momentum to straddle him between my knees. Levi’s pinned under me, all of him deliciously on display—the rise and fall of his chest, the planes of his torso, the open want glinting dark in his eyes. I push my fingers into his hair, pinning his head to the pillow, saying, “My turn.”

It’s a strange thing, to feel this present. This powerful in my own body. And this used to it, like this was in me the entire time, just waiting for the right person to bring it out.

And here he is—staring up at me, equal parts awe and appreciation, like he’s never felt anything like this before, either. Like we’ve both been waiting to feel it for a long, long time.

I lean down, meeting his lips and deepening the kiss until we’re chest to chest, skin to skin. I can feel the warm, pulsing length of him teasing my entrance, the first ripple of pleasure before a breaking storm. I sink farther down, easing him into me slowly, relishing the hum of his groan into my mouth, and then the sound of my name, “June, June,” like it’s something precious, something holy.

I take the full length of him and the feeling of it is so complete, so overwhelming that for a moment, I don’t even breathe—for a moment, I’m not fully a person. Like basic biology doesn’t apply to me anymore. There’s just this feeling, this abstract feeling from a dream now made so sharply, beautifully real that already, I feel it knocking everything I thought I knew out of order. Already, I feel it burning the ground of all the lesser experiences I’ve had in its path.

I press my hands to his chest, steadying myself as I rock forward and back, adjusting to the fullness. To the sensation of wanting this to last and last and last, in a way I never thought I would. Levi murmurs my name as he cups my face, stroking my cheeks, my jaw, and when I pick up the pace, I let out a gasp, the two of us shuddering so in sync I can’t tell whose body it began in or where it ended.

“I had no idea,” I say out loud without meaning to. “I had no idea it could feel like this.”

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