Page 42 of Anatomy of Us

“It's just... it's not like before, I guess,” I admit.

I don't finish. I don't have to. She knows what I mean. Tessa used to spend hours tracing my abs with her fingertips, kissing them like she could live there. I didn't lose them completely, but before pregnancy it was different. Now faint stretch marks cross my belly. My hips are a little wider. My breasts are different after months of nursing.

Tessa looks at me, rolls her eyes like I'm ridiculous, and smiles. Then she kisses a stretch mark.

Slow.

With a careful tenderness that makes my throat burn.

“You made life, Zoe,” she whispers against my skin. “This body did something extraordinary.”

I run my fingers through her hair while she kisses me.

It feels different from the other times.

Slower. More aware. Tonight Tessa maps my skin like it's the first time. Every curve. Every change. The places that shift and the places that stay the same.

Her mouth moves from my throat to my collarbone to the soft valley between my breasts. Each kiss feels like a question. Each small sound I make is an answer.

“Tessa. Please,” I breathe.

“Please, what?”

“I'm soaked.”

Her fingertips glide over my stomach. She draws circles around my belly button, gets close, doesn't quite touch where I need her. Teasing. Testing me. Making me shake.

And when her right hand slides between my legs and she feels how wet I am, the world drops out.

It's exactly how I remember. Wilder than the last few days. The same intensity. The same fire. The same hunger.

She moves her fingers inside me in a rhythm my body knows even if my mind tries to pretend it forgot, and every time she pushes, her palm brushes my clit, and my back arches off the couch.

“Look at me,” she orders.

I open my eyes. I don't even realize they're closed.

Her gaze holds me while the pleasure builds. Slow. Certain. Like a wave that's going to break any second.

“I love you,” I choke out.

I bite my lip and clutch the blanket draped over the couch to keep from screaming, but a long, rough breath spills from my throat.

Tessa doesn't pull her fingers out. Not until I stop shaking. Not until my body loosens, spent and satisfied.

Then she kisses my forehead. Soft. Careful. Like we just did something sacred.

**

Morning shows up too fast.

Wesley fusses through the monitor at six-thirty. I groan into the pillow, half asleep, wrecked in the best way.

“I've got him,” Tessa says.

“No, you don't have to—”

She's already out of bed, grabbing my T-shirt off the floor to cover herself.