Page 82 of Like First Love, Again

Trembling, Tori turned off the vibrator. “Get on your back,” she said, panting and desperate.

Mia dropped onto the bed sideways, not wasting a moment so Tori could scramble on top of her. Helplessly, she watched Tori grab the strap and position it inside herself, taking it completely.

Body slick with sweat, Tori rested her hands on Mia’s chest for balance. Mouth dry, Mia couldn’t speak while Tori rode her hard. Hard enough for the base of the strap to press against Mia’s tortured clit. For it to rub against her with every swing of Tori’s hips. For it to send Mia into an unexpected orgasm just as Tori announced a breathless, “I’m coming.”

Twice they both came like that, one bleeding into the next with hardly any break. Sore and aching and completely depleted, Mia matched Tori’s fast movements until Tori slumped forward, skin soaked and sweltering.

“Fuck that was good,” Tori said before she kissed her. And then she eased off Mia and rolled onto her back.

“Sex goddess,” Mia muttered the confirmation, half to herself.

Tori chuckled, still catching her breath when she reached over to the nightstand for the only bottle of water that wasn’t empty. While she rehydrated, Mia used the last drop of energy in her body to yank off the strap, leave it at the foot of the bed, and join Tori under the thin sheet.

The silence that followed wasn’t awkward. It wasn’t even quiet. It was alive with the rhythm of their breathing. The rustle of the sheet as Tori made space for Mia’s body, thrumming with the ache and sweat and wreckage of what they’d done, to mold to hers.

And then there was the enormous truth between them. The humming, pulsing truth that had been building for years.

Mia didn’t want to lose it in the quiet. Didn’t want to pretend she wasn’t cracked open and bleeding love all over the sheets.

“I love you,” Mia confessed with her head on Tori’s bare chest, heart hammering against her cheek. “I’ve always loved you. Even when I didn’t know just how deeply that love ran.”

Tori didn’t answer right away. Her hand slid into Mia’s hair, fingers threading through the sweat-damp strands, and for a horrified second, Mia thought maybe she’d said it too soon. That she’d ruined it.

But then Tori exhaled this odd little sound—part laugh, part sigh.

“I love you too,” she whispered, cupping Mia’s cheek and looking at her with sunrise in her tired eyes. “I never stopped loving you. Not for a year. A day. A moment.” Her eyes watered, making the lighter tones of brown incandescent. “If I could go back, I would never have let you go. I didn’t know that it would be like cutting out a piece of myself. That I’d be left so hollow.”

Mia blinked hard, tears stinging her eyes.

“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.” Tori brushed her thumb over Mia’s cheek. “But you’re here. You’re back, and I’ve never felt more whole in my life.”

Mia closed her eyes and let herself feel it—the weight of Tori’s body beside her, the press of her words, the truth of them. She’d spent so long grieving things she couldn’t name. So long thinking only in terms of loss.

She’d forgotten it was possible to gain.

To find something.

To come home.

Forty-One

They’d slept until the late afternoon, the sun disappearing after annoying them all day. Tori considered getting shades for the windows before wondering whether she might make a very different decision altogether.

With Mia in her arms, she ignored the ache in her neck that had woken her and the full bladder that wasn’t helping. Tori had imagined this moment so many times.

In quiet, lonely nights. On rare occasions when she’d drank too much. She’d stupidly let herself want it sometimes, but never believed it would come true.

And now here Mia was.

Curled against her chest like a second skin. Warm and soft and stirring in her arms like Tori’s change in breathing had woken her.

“Sorry,” Tori whispered, hoping Mia would go back to sleep. Hoping that they could stay in the perfect stillness forever. Stay wrapped in each other and buzzing with the freedom of not having a single thing left unsaid.

“Everything in my body hurts,” Mia groaned. “And I’m starving.”

Tori chuckled. Even half-asleep, Mia could make her laugh. She nestled against Mia’s back, taking her Big Spoon duties very seriously.

“What time is it?” Mia grumbled.

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