Page 45

45

Our Lady of Sorrows

Dodi

I pull away. “You’re not wearing your tie,” I whisper against his cheek. “It’s kind of a problem.”

“Why?”

“I had plans for it.”

I’ve imagined two dozen scenarios involving Jake’s tie and not much else. Leading him to the bed like a leash before I push him backward and climb on. Cinched tight around my wrists. Cinched tight around his wrists. Blindfolding his eyes—

I press my nails into his chest and his breath hitches. I rake my nail tips downward, and his rib cage spasms, then his stomach clenches, and he curls up slightly as I spread one hand over the warm, bare skin of his belly. Slowly, he relaxes back into his pillow, watching me in the dim light, waiting for whatever comes next. A reprise of cat and mouse, and the mouse has been dying for it.

He lets out a little moan when I slip my hand down and wrap my fingers around him. I never actually said I disliked a good pillow princess, did I? I touch him while he lies back, helpless, eyelids fluttering, and then he rolls his hips involuntarily, his hands creeping up my thighs, his fingertips digging in—

“You said we’d follow my MO,” I remind him. I pry his hands from my hips and shrug my robe off.

It’s embarrassing how many times I’ve snuck this exact condom around with me, tucked in my purse or bra, just in case, since our trip to Las Vegas.

“What’s your MO?” he whispers, barely breathing.

So I tell him. I whisper it into his ear as I bite his earlobe, and he shudders. I whisper it against the skin of his neck and his chest, the muscles flickering in his sides as he convulses against the tickle of my breath. He smells so good. And then I whisper the final part against his lower belly. I’m silent after that for a little while, and I make sure he’s not. He twitches and trembles, and when his fingertips trace frantic nonsense patterns on my face and scalp, I pull away and climb up his body. He pants like he’s run a minute mile, and I don’t give him a chance to catch his breath. I drape myself over him, slide myself onto him, and devour his little moans with my mouth.

I hold his face between my hands—his jaw, his throat. I scratch my nails slowly across his scalp, through his thick hair, and he lets out another stifled sigh. I want to get more than a sigh out of him. I press myself against him more firmly and he kisses me then, blindly, hungrily—

And then slowly, languorously—and then he pulls away.

He licks his lips and strokes my knee with one thumb, hesitating. His breath is careful and shallow, like he’s being mindful of disturbing the poor dust motes suspended in the air.

He cups the side of my face and his thumb ghosts over my eyebrow, my nose, my lips.

I’m trying to force an MO. The texture of this moment is different from what I’d imagined a few weeks ago.

How many more times will we get to do this?

I kiss him again, slowly, deliberately, the stubble under his lower lip scratching my skin, and now I’m filing away details, itemizing memories, vacuum-packing them and numbering them already for the twisted little museum in my heart. I’m an archivist, and I want to document everything—I want to know everything—I want to rifle around until I’ve found all his hidden clasps and latches and undone them all. I want to luxuriate in all his details. He lets out another stuttering sigh, like he’d been holding his breath for too long, and even his breath tastes right. We move against each other—skin, sinew, bone, beating hearts—two fragile, perishable structures safe enough for a moment to be vulnerable with each other.

I sit up to survey him—I need to document a bird’s-eye view—but Jake’s not having any of my shit. It’s not my MO anymore. He pulls me down on top of him again, his arms roped around me tightly, possessively. Wanting me, even as he has me.

He’s always wanted me, prickly little monster that I am. I’m one of those pin impression toys, and Jake is the soft hand pressing me down. I don’t know if he has any idea how faithfully I’ll keep his imprint after he goes.