Page 57 of What Happens in Amsterdam

Maybe I want him to know exactly what I’m doing.

The next sound I hear is his. A low groan comes from somewhere deep in his throat, and I swear it makes my bed tremble. It’s so fucking sexy, that sound. Raw. Needy. He must be beautiful when he’s touching himself, no inhibitions as he surrenders to his basest instincts. I want to know if his free arm is triangled behind his head or resting on his chest. If his mouth is open, if his eyes are shut. If he likes it fast and rough or prefers to draw it out, making the pleasure last as long as possible. Just like the way he massaged me, stretching and stretching until I was right up against the edge.

I don’t hold myself back as I picture him picturing me. I cup my breasts harder, tease myself with wet, insistent strokes. In his head, I hope I’ve never looked filthier. My panties are lost somewhere in the sheets and my thighs are shaking, a tight bundle of nerves slowly unfurling.

With every shred of self-control I can muster, I force myself to pause—I don’t want it to be over just yet. It’s the headiest surprise to hear his breaths slow down, too. His strokes must have turned languid, sweat glistening on his chest.

I’m not sure if he’s waiting for my signal or I’m waiting on his, but when we start back up again, we keep pace with each other. There’s a frantic slap of skin from the other side of the wall as hematches me breath for breath. Gasp for gasp. This is the only way he’ll let himself have me, and right now that’s enough.

He urges me faster. Shallow breaths now, neither of us shy about the noise we’re making. My mind loops through all the ways I wish he would fuck me, with his hands and with his mouth and with his cock buried deep inside me. Until I’m begging for it. Until he is, too.

I’m dizzy and drenched, bucking against my hand like I’ve never wanted anything more. Back arched, chest heaving, that sweet release only seconds away. A whimper of bedsprings. Gritted teeth and hands fisted in sheets. We’re so close—so close—

Then, two desperate syllables in the dark:

“Dani.”

Oh—oh fuck.

I collapse into stardust the moment he does, loud and unapologetic as a gorgeous moan tears from his chest. That sound alone might be enough to push me over again, but there’s nothing left in my body.

I am utterly, blissfully spent.

We’re still breathing in sync, softer and slower—until we fall asleep, together, with the world’s thinnest wall in between.

Fifteen

Roos van Leeuwen is waitingfor me at a café—still not a coffeeshop—on a narrow street tucked behind a kitschy tulip museum in the Jordaan, Amsterdam’s most picturesque neighborhood, where every canal looks plucked from a dream.

“I’m so glad you could do this,” she says after we order. She’s adorable in a blue plaid overcoat and short gray boots, a hip bag casually slung across her chest. “Your job was fine with you taking the afternoon off?”

I’m still wearing a turtleneck under my wool jacket in March, and I’m not even mad about it. Cold-weather clothing is simply superior. “It’s a startup, you know. Weird hours sometimes.” Then I force a smile, trying my best to brush it off. “I’m happy to be a tourist. As long as I don’t have to get a T-shirt with, like, an anthropomorphic penis holding a joint on it.” Unfortunately, this is something I’ve seen at numerous souvenir shops.

Roos feigns offense at this. “But that’s our national uniform.”

We exchanged numbers in Culemborg, but I hadn’t expected her to reach out so soon. She was working on a list of Amsterdam’snumerous canal cruise options, she said, and wanted to know if I’d like to try one out with her. I leapt at the chance to get out of the apartment, away from the monotony of job hunting.

Away from Wouter.

After that night of bad decisions, I woke up with a throbbing headache. On the counter was a spread of remedies for a hangover, orkater, according to a new Post-it note. A bottle of aspirin, a loaf of bread, a whole ginger root he’d peeled and chopped for me.

And then what I could only assume wasn’t for the hangover but to combat the homesickness I mentioned at the museum: inside a bag from an American expat shop, a box of frosted cherry Pop-Tarts.

It was unfair that he could make me soft for him even when I felt this complicated.

That was only three days ago. Barely half a week since we kissed, since he tucked me in, since we did…god, I don’t even know what to call it. And that’s part of the problem. I have no idea where he’s at with it or if he wants to forget it ever happened. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know where I’m at with it, either—only that I don’t regret it.

How could I, when it was one of the most intimate, freeing moments of my life?

So I’ve been avoiding him, taking my laptop to the library in the afternoon, “missing” dinner and texting him that I’m studying for class. Based on his early mornings and late evenings at work, he’s been doing the same.

I just wish I couldn’t hear him growl my name whenever I close my eyes.

Roos and I pick up our coffees and venture back outside. It isn’t lost on me, the strangeness of getting space from Wouter by spending time with his sister. The area is mobbed with tourists, some of them dawdling in the streets, people with giant backpacks forcingthe cyclists to dodge them. I envy their confidence—I’ve been too nervous to get back on a bike.

“None of this ever gets old?” I ask as we pass a tour group, a dozen white-haired people following a guide speaking in rapid Spanish. “The tourists, the bachelor parties, how busy it always is?”

“Never.” Roos takes a sip of coffee. “Some Amsterdammers hate it, but I’m addicted to the energy. I don’t know if I ever appreciated it until my twenties, though. I used to complain about the tourists as much as everyone else, but once I started traveling on my own, I realized—I was that tourist who gets in the way sometimes, too. I was the person wanting to get the perfect picture. Now every time I see a girl taking a photo of her friend in front of a canal, I can’t help smiling. Even if it’s the same shot as everyone else here on vacation.” With a knowing look, she nods toward a couple doing this exact thing on the opposite side of the canal. “I’m like, ‘Yes, you go for it, and do you want me to take one for you?’ Because this city is beautiful, and I don’t want to miss a moment of it.”

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