Page 123 of Play With Me

Jude gives a victory whoop.

I shush him, but I’m laughing too.

But he’s breathing hard, and he groans as he slides out of me. “I don’t want to get this mess on the bed.”

“Here—” There’s a box of tissues on the table between the beds and I grab as many as I can, handing them to him. He cleans both of us up and we pull on his clothes: his shorts for him, his T-shirt for me.

Then he flops backward onto the bed and opens his arms, and I lie like a rag doll on top of him.

For a moment, both of us are completely out of words.

CHAPTER30

Jude

We lie like this for a long time, Nora’s soft body fully on top of mine, my fingers stroking Nora’s spine over my T-shirt. I’m still buzzing from both the pride at making Nora come like that—still with a toy but now me knowing what she was capable of—and from my own earthquake-level orgasm.

She may never have come like that before, but I hadn’t, either. I know only part of it was due to the hotness of the situation. I was feeling things in my chest that had me flying in the moment, and even now in the afterglow, it’s like I’m bathing in some kind of celestial cloud of happiness.

It wasn’t just the sex, either. It was watching her take risks alongside me, without holding herself back. It was the way I needed her in my arms while reeling from the fear and relief of knowing my son was safe. It was this quiet girl growing loud in the safety of my arms, in heart and body.

I just wish it could feel completely right, the way I know it could be. But it’s like that perfection—that assuredness that all is well—is just out of reach. There’s a fear that still lingers, telling me I don’t get to have it all. It’s the tiniest shadow hanging onto this moment with the tiny tips of its fingers. But it’s there.

I want it gone. I want to be able to be with Nora without it inching its poison into me. But I don’t know how to do it. I don’t want to ruin this moment either, with the wind howling outside and the soft weight of Nora’s body on mine.

Nora runs a thumb along the edge of my ear, tugging gently on my lobe. It’s the kind of touch I’d craved while we sat on the couch next to each other after Cap was tucked in bed. When only our knees occasionally brushed together, and I felt the touch like a spark of electricity. A promise, I realize now.

I always wanted you to touch me.

Nora’s fingers pause, and a beat passes.

I said that out loud.

“When?” she asks.

Nerves dance across my stomach. I could play it off. But she deserves my honesty. “When we were together, back at home. When it didn’t make sense.”

She shifts on me, sliding off to the side in the space between me and the wall. She props her head on her hand.

I stare up at the ceiling. It’s lumpy plaster up there, old—a century old or more, probably.

“Maybe it would have made sense back then,” she whispers.

I shake my head. “I wouldn’t have been able to handle it, Nora. I’d have fucked it up and hurt you and we would have lost everything.”

I still will.What happens when we go back to normal, if we ever do? This is the life I never dreamed was possible. That the terrified part of me insists isn’t. But we don’t have a normal to go back to. She’s still here, and Cap and I are going home.

She draws her hand across my chest, slipping her fingers up along my collarbone in a featherlight touch that feels so good, I close my eyes.

“It’s working now,” she says softly.

She’s right; the addition of this new dimension of ushasbeen seamless, slipping in around our friendship with only a few bumps at the beginning as we felt each other out.

“But we’re not at home,” I say. “This isn’t regular life. And when this trip is over, you’re still going to be gone.”

I hate the way that wounded little boy still comes out when I say that. Like I still haven’t forgiven her for leaving.

“Jude,” Nora says. She shifts her body to a sitting position, her legs sideways along the side of my body like a landed mermaid or something. God, she’s beautiful.

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