Page 120 of Ascension

“Grab my hair,” I said, pulling back just enough to speak. “Fuck my throat. I want you to feel the back of it.”

He moaned low, hands fisting in my curls. He started slow, then faster, his hips snapping forward as I relaxed and let him take what he needed. My saliva coated him, dripping from the corners of my mouth, messy and obscene, just the way he liked it.

Amiyah moaned louder beneath me, the sound vibrating into my core. Her lips wrapped around my clit and sucked gently as she pressed two fingers inside me, curling them just right.

The pleasure twisted tight in my belly, hot and pulsing. I could barely breathe, barely hold on.

James was close too. I could feel it in the way his grip tightened, the way his thrusts grew more erratic.

Then it hit.

I came hard against Amiyah’s mouth, crying out around James' dick as the waves rolled through me, stars bursting behind my eyes.

That was enough to send him over the edge. He pulled out just in time, his hand pumping fast as he came across my lips and chin, gasping my name.

I leaned back, breathless, still pulsing, and let myself collapse onto the bed beside Amiyah. She looked up at me with glassy eyes, lips swollen and slick.

I reached for her, pulled her close, and kissed her deeply. “You’re so fucking beautiful,” I murmured. “Even more now than before. After Phoenix, yourbody changed in all the best ways. You kept every curve that makes us lose our minds.”

James chuckled as he dropped beside us. “We literally can’t keep our hands, our mouths, or my dick out of you.”

Amiyah smirked. “Good. I prefer it that way. Wouldn’t be surprised if I end up pregnant again soon.”

We all laughed at that, but there was truth in it.

“As soon as she got cleared, she tried to get fucked in the car on the way to dinner,” I said, shaking my head with a smile. “We ended up turning around and coming to the condo.”

“This place is our sanctuary now,” James added. “Where we come to reset, to play, to just be.”

And it was true. My condo had become our escape. Our haven for scenes, for reconnecting, for reminding ourselves who we were beyond the world outside.

Sometimes our families argued over who got to babysit Phoenix, which always made me laugh. I chuckled now, quietly, and they both looked over at me.

“If someone had told me this would be my life a year ago,” I said, brushing a hand over Amiyah’s soft stomach, “I would’ve laughed in their face.”

I sat up slowly, the moment turning tender. “But I’ve learned that sexual liberation, real, deep, soul-level freedom, is transcendence. It’s more than pleasure. It’s a release of all the chains society wrapped around us. All the shame, the rules, the noise.”

I looked between them, my voice lower now. “To be free is to strip away everything that was never yours to carry. The expectations, the limits, the fear. And in that freedom, we rise. We touch something divine. Mind, body, soul, completely unlocked.”

They didn’t speak. They didn’t need to.

The love in their eyes said everything.

We lay there tangled, still slick with sweat and want, but wrapped in something more substantial.

Truth and the kind of love you earn when you’ve bled for it.

I had them.

And they had me.

As the heat of the moment faded, the air between us thickened with something softer, something unspoken. I reached over the edge of the bed and pulled the soft throw blanket across our tangled legs. The silence wasn't awkward; it was calming—the kind that followed release, not just of the body, but of the soul.

James traced slow circles on my hip, his fingers warm and grounding. Amiyah leaned into me with a contented sigh, her eyes already drifting closed, but I could feel the question lingering between us.

“I’ve been thinking,” I said finally, my voice low but sure. “I want to retire The Black Dahlia.”

James looked up first. “Retire her?”