“Literally no woman cares about this.”
“Well, don’t tell Terry. It was the one thoughtful thing he ever tried to do.”
“Leo, I swear to God.”
He sat back on his heels looking at her, running his hands up her shins and over her knees.
“I want you on me,” she said, so simple. Leo threaded his fingers with hers and lifted them over her head. She slid her legs around his thighs, pulling him close, and then, with a mind-bendingly perfect shift forward, he was there.
I want you on me, she’d said, like he could ever forget what worked so well for her. All he wanted to do was watch her come undone from above. He wondered if, looking down, the stars ever felt like falling, lovesick, onto the planets. The instinct was in him when he was over her, moving, unable to believe that she was real and her quiet sounds were real and the way she looked up at him was real. Just fall. It’s okay. She had to see this truth tattooed in his eyes and scrawled across every feature: that he had always loved her, was loving her still. Leo would love Lily Wilder forever.
He’d realized—after he’d left her, after he’d managed to pick his head up and return to class and go through the motions of finishing his education—that when he learned a new action, his brain would use spatial cues: turn left here, take these stairs, touch this, go deeper. And then a different part of the brain would take over; the movements wouldn’t be guided by the environment anymore but by the innate sense of space, of where to turn because it felt correct; left versus right was habit, directions were instinct, and muscles reacted.
I guess we never forget those, Leo thought, watching her neck flush and lips part. He slowed, pulling her leg higher, tilting. Her eyes were greedy, tracking over his face, his shoulders, between them, back to his mouth. He could notice all this because making love to Lily was hardwired.
Her neck arched, nails dug in. Leo recognized that tightness in her expression, the hope that the moment was imminent and fear that it wasn’t. He reached down, remembering, stroking her with the pad of his thumb, and witnessed the clearing of tension when pleasure hit her like a flood. The telling sound tore from her, thankful and overcome and amazed; her body beneath him was a fevered riot of shaking, clutching relief. It could have ended there, he truly meant it, with her collapsing limp and sated, but it didn’t. She wouldn’t. Lily wanted what he’d just had—the same view, but from beneath: planets staring up at the stars.
What a relief to find she was hardwired just the same, there was no left or right for her, either, just hips and rhythm and the unreal heat of her hands. Just heat and the delirious wet of her kiss until Leo was grasping at the sleeping bag under her head, clawing the ground, pushing them with desperation across the makeshift bed until they were a wrestling madness. Strong legs squeezed and she was over him, pinning him, finishing him, staring down with victory at the mess she’d made of him.
Chapter Twenty-Four
AS THEIR BREATHING calmed and their bodies cooled, they talked about everything. About Archie’s Bar and the handful of people in her life who mattered a little, and about Nicole, who mattered the most; about the little restaurant near Leo’s apartment where he and Cora would have okonomiyaki on Thursday nights because it tasted just like their mom’s. He talked about how much he loved his sister and how disorienting it was to be facing a future where she didn’t have to come first in his every waking thought.
He talked about how Cora was silly in a way he never had been, how no one made him laugh as easily or as hard, how she was wonderful with friends but terrible with money, which was entirely his fault. He described her: long black hair, a dancer’s posture, a long neck, and a surprisingly loud laugh. They talked so much that by the time they’d finally drifted to sleep Lily felt like she knew Cora, could hear her bursting giggles, could imagine Leo watching her with adoration. Lily could imagine this little sister she would take on a ride into the sagebrush-covered hills of Wyoming; she wanted to make the city girl fall in love with nature.
In reality, Lily and Cora would probably have nothing in common except for Leo, and yet somehow, she imagined that would be enough.
Consciousness came thickly, dim light hovering outside the cabin. Staring at his sleepy face, part of her knew she should be more careful. Lily’s first instinct was always to draw away and leap to the worst-case scenario, which, being honest, was usually her life. But she was tired. Couldn’t she have this? Even if only for a few more days?
Rolling over in Leo’s arms, Lily kissed the center of his chest, his cheeks, his lips. He startled a little, his smile taking shape against hers.