Page 78 of What Happens in Amsterdam

He holds my hips while I straddle him, taking my time teasing. With as much self-control as I can muster, I rub my center along his cock as he hisses out a plea.

“Need you,” he murmurs. “Please.”

“Well. Since you asked nicely.”

I sink my hips all the way down, taking his full length and drawing out a stunning groan.Oh—the instant heat of him, that exquisite pressure.I rock a few times, let out a shaky breath.Just him, nothing separating us as he stretches me in the most decadent way.

“You feel…absolutely unreal.Jesus. I think I could stay here forever,” he says as we move together. Slowly, and then a little faster. His jaw clenches, as though he’s trying to savor every inch. “This is good?”

“Yes.It’s incredible.” We exhale into each other, like this is some sweet relief we’ve been chasing for weeks. Months. With one hand he clutches my ass, fingertips brushing my lower back, and the other settles between us.

Somehow his gaze on mine is both fierce and tender.

Casual, casual, casual, I remind myself.

I need him deeper. I roll my hips up and then back down again, the fullness of him somehow a surprise every time. I love watching him like this, wholly surrendered to the sensation, content with me taking control. The sheen of sweat along his hairline and down his throat. The flex of his muscles.

“You just—you look so good at every angle,” I say. “Like a fucking Michelangelo sculpture or something.”

A choked laugh. “You’re thinking about art right now?”

I move my hips faster, even as I’m biting out a gasp. “Just the most basic kind. Just for you.”

Some part of me still can’t believe this is happening. That this is the same boy who gave me my first orgasms with curious, determined fingers.

Still curious. Still determined.

His hand finds my sunflowers again, and for a second he looks like he wants to say something, but then he changes course and flips us around. His arms bracket my shoulders, my knees at his hips. Nails digging into shower-fresh skin.

I barely have a moment to ache for him before he’s filling me again, perfect thrusts that have me spreading my legs wider and wider. Arching my back against the mattress. The sight of where we’re joined, that primal smack of his body against mine—it’s almost too much.

Casual. Casual.

“Can you come for me again?” he asks, licking his fingertips before dropping them back to my clit. Realizing the effect those words have on me, he continues: “Can you come on my cock?”

Andgod, I’m already almost there. I can tell he is, too, the way he tightens and lets out a rough exhale.

“Don’t hold back,” I beg. We couldn’t be loud all those years ago, but nothing’s stopping us now. “I want to hear everything.”

The moment he finally lets himself go, his features struck with golden lamplight, the purest ecstasy on his face—thatis the work of art.

Twenty-one

“I’m going to ask youa very serious question,” my sister says, and I sit up a little straighter, preparing for an interrogation. “Is he hot, or is he just tall?”

“Both. And that is part of the problem.”

We’re at a café in De Pijp, not too far from my first apartment—which, I saw when I pointed it out to her, had been completely boarded up.

It’s so indescribably wonderful to see her that I can’t stop touching her, as though needing to make sure she’s real. I rested my head on her shoulder when I rode the train back with her and Maya from the airport, linked my arm with hers as we walked the streets, and even now, I have a hand on her elbow. Today she’s in her indestructible patchwork cardigan, her dark hair in its usual messy bun, and she even managed to unearth that bracelet I made her years ago during my short-lived jewelry phase, with its blocky wooden beads. I could cry over how familiar these details are, this relief that she hasn’t dramatically changed since I’ve been gone. There’s an elementof the surreal to it, my sister with Amsterdam’s canal houses in the background. This merging of my two separate lives.

Maya returns to our table with a tray of pastries. I’m still getting used to the sight of her this pregnant, an empire-waist dress emphasizing her six-month bump, auburn curls hanging down her back. It’s a staggering visual reminder of all I’ve missed since I moved here.

I couldn’t help everything from spilling out as soon as they settled in a bit, at a hotel a couple blocks from the Prinsengracht, after they’d met Wouter and George and confirmed that my current living situation is far from dungeon-esque.

When Phoebe saw Wouter again, she dropped her purse, mouth falling open before she enveloped him in a fierce hug. Then, once she picked up her bag, she gave him a gentle thwack with it.

“I had to,” she said with a shrug. “For the breakup. Sister loyalties.”

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