Chapter Ten
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Now
“Two more lipsticks,” Gwenn says. She slides the bright red tube of lipstick over my top lip but goes so far outside of the edges, I feel it touch my nose.
“You’re really good at this,” I say with a laugh.
We’re at Graham’s parents’ house, having dinner with his family. Graham is on the floor playing with his sister Caroline’s five-year-old daughter, Adeline. The three-year-old, Gwenn, is on the couch next to me, putting makeup on me. Graham’s parents are in the kitchen, cooking.
This is how most of our Sundays are spent. I’ve always enjoyed Sundays here, but lately they’ve become my favorite days of the month. I don’t know why things are easier here, surrounded by Graham’s family, but they are. It’s easier for me to laugh. It’s easier for me to look happy. It’s even easier for me to let Graham love me.
I’ve noticed there’s a difference with how I am toward Graham in public compared to when we’re at home. At home, when it’s just the two of us, I’m more withdrawn. I avoid his touch and his kiss because in the past, those things have always led to sex. And now that I dread sex so much, I dread the stuff that leads up to it, too.
But when we’re in a setting like this, when his affection leads to nothing, I crave it. I like it when he puts his hands on me. When he kisses me. I love snuggling up to him on the couch. I don’t know if he notices the difference in me between our house and other places. If he does, he’s never let on.
“I finish,” Gwenn says. She struggles putting the cap back on the lipstick she just applied to my mouth. I take it from her and help her close it.
Graham looks up at me from the floor. “Hot damn, Quinn. That is . . . yeah.”
I smile at Gwenn. “Did you make me pretty?”
She starts giggling.
I make my way to the bathroom and laugh when I look in the mirror. I’m convinced they only make blue eye shadow for this exact purpose. So three-year-olds can put it on adults.
I’m washing my face when Graham walks into the bathroom. He looks at me in the mirror and makes a face.
“What? You don’t like it?”
He kisses my shoulder. “You look beautiful, Quinn. Always.”
I finish washing the makeup from my face, but Graham’s lips don’t leave my shoulder. He traces a soft trail of kisses up my neck. Knowing that this kiss won’t lead to sexhopedevastation makes me enjoy it more than if this were happening in our own bathroom at our own house.
It sounds so fucked up. I don’t understand how his actions can elicit different responses from me depending on the setting. But right now, I’m not going to question it, because he doesn’t seem to be questioning it. He seems to be enjoying it.
He remains behind me, pressing me against the sink as his hand runs over my hip and slides around to the front of my thigh. I grip the sink and watch him in the mirror. He lifts his eyes and stares at my reflection as he begins to bunch up the front of my dress with his fingers, crawling it up the front of my thighs.
It’s been over a month and a half now since he’s initiated sex. The longest we’ve ever gone. I know, based on how things ended the last time we had sex, he’s waiting for me to initiate it. But I haven’t.
It’s been so long since he’s touched me, my reaction seems to be intensified.
I close my eyes when his hand slips inside my panties. I’m covered in chills from head to toe, and knowing this can’t go too far makes me want him and his mouth and his hands all over me.
The door is open and someone could walk down the hall at any moment, but that only serves as further affirmation that this make-out session will stop any second now. Which is why my mind is allowing me to enjoy it as much as I am.
He slips a finger inside of me and runs his thumb down the center of me and it’s the most I’ve felt from his touch in over a year. My head falls back against his shoulder and he tilts my mouth toward his. I moan, just as his lips cover mine. He kisses me with hunger and impatience, like he’s desperate to get all he can out of this moment before I push him away.
Graham kisses me with urgency the whole time he touches me. He kisses me until I come, and even as I whimper and tremble in his arms, he doesn’t stop kissing and touching me until the moment passes completely.
He slowly pulls his hand out of my panties, diving his tongue into my mouth one last time before pulling back. I grip the sink in front of me, breathing heavily. He kisses me on the shoulder, grinning as he walks out of the bathroom, smiling like he just conquered the world.