Page 99 of Problematic Summer Romance

Then I lie there.

Most of my time is spent convincing Conor that I’m a grown woman, but right now I feel like a girl. A fluffy, insubstantial thing. Boneless and winded, with nothing to keep time save for the residues of pleasure twitching through me.

I can’t move. Not even to look him in the eye as I ask, “Let me do it to you.”

He slides my underwear back in place, and even that makes me spasm. His forehead slides against my belly, supplicant-like. Close-lipped kisses right below my navel. A silentno.

“Conor.” I pet the short hair at his nape. “I would love to suck you off.”

His voice is muffled against the skin of my stomach. “I already—”

“I know you came when I did.” His hands gotreallyrough for a while, there. His grunt filled the entire cave. “Let me do it anyway. You’ll like it.”

He chuckles. “You’re being very optimistic about my ability to get it up again so soon. I’m certainlynotin my prime.”

“Really, Harkness?” I find the strength to prop myself up on my elbow. “ED jokes?”

He shrugs, boyish. Cute. Licks his lips—not suggestive, just hungry. Happy. “They’re all the rage in my age bracket.”

“Hmm.” He won’t come to me, so I force myself to go to him. Slip back into the water. My arms loop around his neck, his arms loop around my waist. I lay my cheek on his shoulder, and we float like that, peaceful, overheated bodies cooling in the sea. The beat of the rain grows lighter, more spaced out. Golden sunrays begin creeping in. “Not to set unrealistic expectations,” I tell him, lazily, “but I think you would really enjoy having sex with me. I would make your head explode.”

“I think so, too. Since you always do.”

“Then why won’t you let me—”

“Maya.” A weary exhale. “I don’t want to take advantage of you by exploiting our age difference or power imbalance—”

“Conor?”

He stops. Looks at me, patient.

“On any given day, how much time would you estimate you think about our supposed power differential?”

I’m trying to make him laugh. Make him realize how ridiculous he is. But he doesn’t break eye contact. “Allof it,” he says, dead serious.

My heart cracks. The backs of my eyes burn, because—shit.

Shit.

“If only you—”

“Maya, just…don’t, please.”

“Don’twhat?”

“I don’t need you to go down on me, or to blow my mind, or to show me how good it would be, because I’ve already imagined all of it. All I want is…” He pulls me even closer. My chin nestles into the side of his throat. “This is enough. Just having you here for a few minutes.”

You don’t have to settle for a few minutes,I want to scream.I’m here. I’m here for you to take. You can have all of my time.

“Can I at least kiss you?”

Calmly, he says, “I’d rather you didn’t.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to keep my anger locked inside.Poor Conor,I think.My beloved control freak. So afraid to lose it.

Poor Conor, and poor me.

“Okay,” I say, tightening my embrace, feeling him do the same to me. I like to think that contact helps. That his flesh is whispering to mine. All the things he cannot say, all the things he never says, all the things he doesn’t want to say. I let myself get lost in the fantasy of his body and mine eloping together. Building the future we’ll never have. They’ll keep each other up well past their bedtimes, go antiquing during little weekend trips in rural Texas, adopt pets from the local shelter. I make myself chuckle, which is better than bursting into tears. Conor pulls back, probably to ask me what’s wrong with me.

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