The only solution was to take Miss Bernice’s advice and “take what you want.” And at this particular moment, I only wanted one thing.
“Fuck,” Ricky groaned against my mouth. His hands found purchase in the flesh at the backs of my thighs, and he hitched one around his hip, grinding into me in a motion so shockingly delectable that it nearly sent my eyes rolling to the back of my head. I flattened my palms against his back, running my nails lightly down his skin and delighting in the way he shuddered against me.
It had all happened so fast. One moment, we were professing our undying love for each other, giggling as we kissed away each other’s tears, and the next, I was pressed against my front door, my whole world narrowing to Ricky’s hands on my skin, the friction of his body against mine. We’d kissed like this before, with toe-curling urgency, but always to a limit, always reining ourselves back in before we could go any further. It was almost an unspoken rule, as if sex were a Pandora’s box that neither of us felt ready to open.
But now, we were both scrabbling at its flaps.
I pulled away, dropping my head back against the door and looking down at him through my lashes. We stared at each other for several seconds, catching our breaths as we cataloged the effects we’d had on each other—Ricky’s eyelids, heavy with want, his pink, glistening lips, the press of his arousal between my legs. After a moment, he leaned into me again, skimming his nose down my cheek and nestling his head into the crook of my neck. He took a deep, lazy inhale, worrying the skin between his teeth. I sighed, arching reflexively into him, then placed my hands firmly on his shoulders.
“My neighbors,” I managed in explanation.
Ricky hummed in understanding, trailing his lips in a line up my neck to the angle of my jaw. Then he stepped back, smiling down at me tenderly. He loves me, I reminded myself, letting myself flood with warmth again. I took his hand, smiling back. Look at how he’s looking at me. He loves me so much.
My bedroom was not prepped for a visitor, the sheets askew, yesterday’s clothes thrown haphazardly across my desk chair. But Ricky’s eyes didn’t stray from mine, not until I reached for the hem of my nightgown and pulled it over my head. Only then did his gaze drift down, taking his time to survey my body like it was something to behold. He let out a slow, shuddering breath, ghosting his fingers up my sides.
“Goddamn, Angie,” he said, leaning forward to press a gentle kiss against my lips, even as his grip on my waist tightened. Then: “You sure?”
I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life, I thought, reaching for the hem of his shirt. We snickered quietly as his head got caught in the hole, then, together, tossed it disdainfully across the room.
“Why? Worried you won’t be able to handle me?” I teased against his mouth. I felt his laughter rumble into my chest, letting him coax me backward onto my bed.
“I think I’ll manage,” he said, and, with one last devastating, smirk, slid down between my legs.
*
Every romance novel I’d ever read described sex as transcendent. Transformative. At the end of a riveting romp with her billionaire/baron/rogue lover, the heroine was supposed to tilt her head back in rapture and experience la petite mort, that special moment at the height of pleasure when her consciousness leaves her body, and she ascends into a plane of pure ecstasy.
That moment had always eluded me. After my first time, I’d felt cheated. After all, I’d expected a metamorphosis, a transition into womanhood hailed with trumpets and golden confetti. But instead, there was only pressure, and a paltry amount of pleasure, and when it was all over, I was still the same Angela Appiah, just a little sorer between the legs. And after some time . . . Well, I’d assumed that it was just more storybook lore. That sex was pleasant at best, traumatic at worst, and nothing to write home about most of the time.*
But maybe what I had been missing all along was love. Maybe it was because I loved Ricky that every brush of his fingers made me bite back his name. Maybe because my body had been anticipating his from the moment he kissed me under the cover of our blanket fort that the press of him inside me made me feel whole. Or maybe it was because he was an artist, committing me to memory with the same obsessive focus that he gave to his work, that calling what we were doing “sex” felt inadequate. Because it was too different, too much more, than anything I’d done before. Gone were the days of assumptions between us; we learned each other voraciously, eliciting feedback in the form of sighs and gasps, through a whispered Here? and a breathless Yes, an uttered Like that. Practice making perfect. I felt like we were trapped in a void of sensation, my pleasure building his and vice versa, every roll of his hips into mine and lap of my tongue against his skin pushing us rapidly to a foregone conclusion.