She looked over at them, still so silent and content and innocent looking, and she held back a scream, fisting her hands in her hair.
She had had sex with London Parker for two reasons.
One: She had wanted to. She had really, really wanted to. And LA Dahlia did what she wanted.
Two: She’d had a horrible day on set, and she thought sex would make her feel better.
It had, she supposed. She certainly didn’t give a fuck about soufflés anymore.
Now Dahlia just gave far too many fucks about everything else.
When she thought of the kiss on the beach, when she thought about the way she caught London looking at her sometimes, she had thought the sex would be fast and dirty. Raw and satisfying. She hadn’t anticipated that London would kiss every single inch of her, slow and studious.
Although in hindsight, of course she should have anticipated this. She’d seen London cook. She knew how attentive, how detail-oriented they were.
And of course sex would mean a lot to London, too. They had just told her they hadn’t slept with anyone since they came out as nonbinary. The look on their face, when they got undressed in front of her. She had wanted to wrap herself around them forever. Was she even worthy of that kind of trust?
No. She wasn’t. She knew that intrinsically.
Dahlia curled up on her side, staring at her messy room. At London’s soft T-shirt, thrown across the arm of a chair. She loved London’s T-shirts.
God. She slapped a hand to her face. They were literally just plain T-shirts. They were probably nice, expensive T-shirts, not the $5 Target specials she wore, but still. What was wrong with her?
What was wrong with her was that she hadn’t expected the sex to unhinge her so completely. Just thinking about it sent a rush of heat between her legs. It was barely six a.m. and she was completely turned on. She wanted to shake sleeping angel London awake so she could jump on top of them, say “Hey, you can go down on me now,” and then bite their freckled shoulder.
She squeezed her eyes closed and tried to take a yoga breath.
Sex with David had been exciting back in high school and college. Or at least, she was sure it must have been. But ever since they got married, started jobs, jumped headlong into their adult lives . . . she couldn’t remember exactly when it had stopped being good. They were just so tired most of the time, after long days at work and long commutes. They still had sex, sometimes, although increasingly less as time went on.
For the last year especially, when their fighting was at its worst, sex almost made Dahlia cry. Because the sex wasn’t giving David what he wanted. She wondered if he even wanted it anymore, or if the act only reinforced his disappointment. It was all she could think about the last few times. I am sorry I can’t let your sperm penetrate one of my eggs and implant on my uterine wall. She began to think of her body as a vessel, full of emptiness and pain, one she had chosen to hijack from the world. It might be an empty vessel, but it was hers.
Surely she hadn’t completely forgotten that sex could simply be about pleasure, right?
There had certainly been no toe sucking with David. Or nipple pinching, or neck licking. Every second that London was touching her clit, or slipping their finger in and out of her, they were touching something else, kissing her somewhere else, and it made everything feel so much more intense, like firecrackers going off all over the place until her body lost track, and all she could think was Oh yeah, this is why people like sex and God, how can one solitary digit feel so good in there and Why is this person being so nice to me and I think I forgot I have so much skin and Fuck fuck fucking fuck.
And when London had held on to her hand while they got off, holding her to them . . . it was surprisingly sexy. David always pulled away when he came; she liked how London had leaned into her instead, pressed their foreheads together, so that she witnessed every emotion on their face, inhaled their breath. She wanted them to guide her hand all over their body so she could learn every funny spot that felt good.
Every single thing about last night had been different from anything she’d ever experienced: softer, hotter, more tender. It wasn’t just pleasure; it was . . . closeness.
Of course, it was when Dahlia was ruminating on this that London woke up.
Which they did with a throaty groan. And if Dahlia wasn’t already wet, well.
“Hello,” Dahlia said, hoping this sounded like a normal hello, and not a you-have-fucked-me-all-the-way-up hello.
London rubbed their eyes before looking at her.
“Have you been awake for a while? You look awake.”