Page 52 of The Goode Girls of Maple Lane
“Is it too much?” he asks, breathless, and withso much wantlacing his voice.
“It’s perfect,” I say. “I love the way you feel inside me.”
“It’s fucking amazing,” he says. “But I want to watch.”
With a quick jerk backward, he pulls out, rolls me from my side onto my stomach, and yanks my hips up so I’m on my knees with my face nestled in the pillows and my hands fisting the sheets. I barely have time to part my legs before he’s easing himself inside me again, gripping me by the hips as he guides me over his length, slowly at first, like he’s testing how far he can push into me from this angle. It definitely feels different, deeper, fuller, but as our bodies adjust and I relax into his rhythm, guiding becomes rocking, then thrusting, gasping, gripping, bruising fingers in soft flesh, and hard, fast friction, two bodies pounding together, chasing sensation like it’s the only thing that matters, racing after every new pulse. Every spark.
I squeeze my eyes shut.
I cling to the sheets.
I ride the waves of pleasure that overtake me slowly, and then so suddenly I cry out. The noise I make is garbled and incomprehensible, but there’s ayes, and there’s anEverett, and the rest is as irrelevant as whatever he says behind me when his release comes a few seconds later and he shudders against me, still clinging tightlyto my hips, holding me against him as we pulse together, riding this incredible feeling we made with only our bodies and our trust.
The word reverberates in my mind, every iteration more powerful than the last. It’s what makes the sex so good, and everything else between us. I don’t know how Everett managed it, or maybe we managed it together, but somewhere along the way, I stopped bracing for something to go wrong. I tore down the walls I’ve learned to put up, dismantled the barricades, and left my squishy, beating heart open to whatever’s in store.
I trust Everett. I trust us. I trust this.
I let my body go limp and we collapse together, lying flat against the sheets with him on top of me, both of us panting from exertion. While I catch my breath, he plucks a few sweaty strands of long hair off my face, and I blink my eyes open to find him smiling down at me.
“You really are absolutely hideous first thing in the morning,” he teases.
“I hope you kept your eyes closed,” I play along.
“And miss the sight of your ass quivering as my dick disappeared inside you? God, no.”
I fight a smile at that. He really does like to watch, which took some getting used to since I’ve never been comfortable in my body, but I’ve never felt this good before, either.
Everett inhales deeply, resting his cheek against mine as he finds my hands on either side of my head and laces his fingers through mine, gently, sweetly, like he’s resetting our connection from the incendiary heat of lust to the gentle warmth of mutual care. For several seconds, we breathe together, his front to my back, spent and happy. And then, perfectly timed, in the quiet of our postcoital bliss, the tiniest, faintest, high-pitched hint of a squeak peals from Aggie’s bed.
Neither of us can hold in a laugh this time.
“She gave us our five minutes,” I tell Everett. “Belly rubs will be expected.”
“Worth it.” He plants several kisses on the side of my face. “C’mon. Let’s give her what she wants. And get that video shot before the snow gets trampled and gross.”
I squeeze his hands like I might hold him against me forever, but we can come to back to this, a thought that makes me glow inside as I rally to start the day.
THE SNOW ISgorgeous, newly blanketed with a few inches that fell overnight. We bundle up and head to the park, where the big scarlet oak under which Aggie took her first shaky steps with me is now barren of leaves, but no less beautiful in its winter attire. Aggie’s in her new coat and booties, which she’s getting used to, though I don’t think she’ll ever be a big fan. I’m in my usual bland all-weather coat, with its flannel lining zipped in for winter, and the plain wool scarf I’ve had since I was a kid, plus a black beanie Tegan thrust on me when I told her I lost my hat last month and she informed me she had spares. Everett’s in a vintage peacoat with an adorable striped scarf and puff-ball hat that are recent handmade Christmas gifts from his sister Charlotte. We take one look at each other once we’re settled by the snow-covered lawn and do a swap. If we’re going to depict an idyllic winter outing, Aggie can’t be the only one to look cute.
Playing in the snow with Aggie is ridiculously fun. She loves to roll in the soft, powdery areas with her feet in the air and her tail carving arcs like a windshield wiper. She also loves to bury her entire face, following mystery scents until she emerges with her nose,ears, and lashes flecked in white. She catches snowballs that break apart in her mouth. She barks at a teetering snowman someone made overnight. Then she pulls out the carrot nose and trots away to a snow mound where she attempts to eat the carrot, realizes she doesn’t like it, and lets me take it from her so I can perform an embarrassing and ineffective snowman rhinoplasty. She’s joyful, she’s silly, and she has the time of her life, which means I have the time of mine.
However, it doesn’t take long for me to recognize the differences between filming with an eye toward marketing and filming entirely for fun. If I didn’t agree to highlight the booties, I could post our first shot, in which Aggie takes two steps into the snow and promptly lies down to tug off a bootie and flick it aside. It’s funny and it’s her being herself. No filters. No faking. And while she’s walking on her own now, she’s still carrying a lot of excess weight on bones that’ve been overstressed for years, so she has a tendency to lie down after a minute or two if I’m not walking with her on a leash or she’s not chasing a ball. We try the ball and it helps, but we end up with several shots of her out of frame or turning away or distracted by footprints to sniff or with her feet too deep in the snow for the booties to show up clearly on camera. Also, I’m not an actress by even the farthest stretch of the word, so when Aggie grows tired, I grow tired. It shows, and even the world’s cutest colorful puff-ball hat can’t save us.
“Anything?” I ask as Everett scrolls his phone while Aggie rests in her wagon.
“Maybe?” He attempts a smile, but his brows are pinched together behind his glasses and his attention stays on his phone. He’s in work mode, which I can recognize pretty quickly now.
“It doesn’t need to be professional standard,” I remind him.
“I know. But we still want to sell a story here.”
I hide a wince while he’s not looking.Sella story. Nottella story. I know they might mean the same thing to him in this context, they probably should, and I’m so grateful for his marketing eye, but the longer we struggle to get usable video, the more I miss the time I spent with Aggie yesterday, just the two of us, slowly walking to the corner and back while she sniffed footprints and I watched giant snowflakes collect on her eyelashes, and none of this mattered.
“Sorry,” Everett says without looking up. “I just want to make this good for you. I want it to reflect you, Aggie,andthe product. If we can do that, and continue to build your engagement and follower count, you can make more money from the same amount of work.”
“I know,” I tell him, and I do, even though my heart’s not in it.
“Give me another minute,” he says. “Let me make sure we have something.”
