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Sullivan pulled out her favorite vibrator, the Labianator.

When she bought it, the box had promised silent, toe-curling vibrations .

In reality, it sounded like a helicopter taking off.

Quickly she rolled onto her belly, thrusting into the pillow and vibrator.

The first vibrations on her mons were exhilarating.

She stopped at a sound. Had Kia come home early?

Was that Kia opening her own bedroom door?

Going downstairs for a snack? She wouldn’t knock on Sullivan’s door and ask where Sullivan kept laundry detergent or cream of tartar, would she?

So far, they’d respected the sanctity of closed doors. No, it was just the house creaking.

She thrust into the pillow, clenching it between her thighs, chasing the muffled vibrations until she felt her whole insides contract.

Relaxation washed over her, and it should have helped her to sleep, but several hours later, she was still tossing and turning.

No deep sleep to be sure. She might as well get up and walk around for a few minutes, step out on the deck and breathe the forest air.

This time next year, there wasn’t going to be a forest. There’d be fried tursnicken air.

Maybe that thought would quell the desire that masturbating had done nothing to dispel.

Sullivan didn’t see Kia until Sullivan had taken a few steps into the kitchen.

The kitchen was dark except for a single pendant light.

Kia sat on one of the stools at the kitchen island, her arms folded next to her laptop, on which showed her U-Spin account and a browser open to RV accessories, her head pillowed on her arms. She leaned precariously, obviously asleep.

One startling dream and she’d slip off her stool.

“Kia?” Sullivan said softly.

Kia’s back rose and fell with her breath. She looked adorable with her cheek squished against her arm and her scarf unraveling from her hair. Sullivan crossed the room. She couldn’t just wake Kia with a loud Hey, there . But she also couldn’t leave her teetering on the stool.

“Kia?” Sullivan placed a gentle hand on Kia’s shoulder.

Kia woke up like she’d been caught sleeping on the job.

She listed to one side as though she’d forgotten where she was and expected the back of a chair to steady her.

She grabbed at the counter to stop her fall, then slipped off the stool, heading for a backward tumble. Sullivan caught her and held her.

“What… I…” Kia mumbled.

“You fell asleep.”

Kia slumped against Sullivan, her head resting on Sullivan’s shoulder.

“What time is it?”

“Almost three.”

“Fuck. I have to be up by five.”

Sullivan held her, gently stroking her back, trying not to notice Kia’s paper-thin T-shirt, the clasp of her bra easy to feel through the fabric.

Sullivan didn’t let her hand drift over the band.

She shouldn’t be stroking Kia’s back at all.

Kia looped her arms around Sullivan’s waist. It felt as natural as breathing and as miraculous as a bird landing on her hand.

“When was the last time you slept all night?”

“Before I won the American Fare.” Kia rubbed her eyes without stepping out of Sullivan’s embrace.

“Nothing feels like a win. There’s no end when you’re an influencer.

If you’re losing followers, you need to get them back.

If you’re getting traction, you have to get more traction.

I guess it’s like every job. You go to work on Monday, and then you go again on Tuesday. ”

“And at a regular job you have days off, and you leave at the end of the night.”

Kia should be in bed, rolled on her side with Sullivan’s arm around her.

The thought suffused Sullivan’s body before she could push it away: Kia sleeping naked, her head on Sullivan’s pillow.

When Kia finally went to bed—if she went to bed—did she long for someone’s arms around her the way Sullivan’s body yearned for that comfort?

Yearned for it even more than she yearned for sex, although the tension between her legs reminded her that she was holding a beautiful woman.

Not just a woman. Kia. Sullivan tightened her thighs as though that had ever dispelled desire.

“And you should go to bed,” Sullivan said.

Kia pulled away and looked at Sullivan, more alert than she’d been a minute ago.

“I will. I just really want to write back to some of my fans. The Love Tunnel is trending. The picture you took.” Kia slumped with an amused sigh. “That’s the gayest I’ve been online, and a lot of kids are coming out to me. One more hour. Then I’ll go to bed.”

Sullivan glanced at the clock on the fridge screen. Two fifty-nine. Kia wouldn’t go to bed at all if she stuck to her five a.m. wake-up. Sullivan felt a wave of tenderness so intense it felt like a physical ache.

“Come and crash out on the sofa for a few minutes,” Sullivan said. “You’re not answering fans if you’re sleeping in the kitchen. You might as well be comfortable.” Without waiting for an answer, Sullivan put a hand on Kia’s elbow to guide her to the sofa.

“I never had a sofa this big,” Kia said as she lay down. “Not a sofa you could stretch out on or cuddle with someone. When I tried to cuddle with Gretchen on her sofa, she said I didn’t know how.”

Kia was lying on her back, looking up at Sullivan, her eyes sleepy and bright at the same time.

“She shouldn’t have said that,” Sullivan said. “She could have showed you.”

“She wasn’t a cuddler. We were perfect for each other.” Kia gave a little snort. “That’s what she said, not what I said. Is it that hard?”

Sullivan sat down on the edge of the sofa so she wasn’t looming over Kia.

“No it’s not. You just have to enjoy being in your body and tell the other person if your arm is falling asleep.”

Sullivan should not offer to show Kia. She knew that.

“Do you want me to show you?”

Kia’s eyelids were drooping. “Yes.”

“You’ll be the little spoon.” Sullivan lay down beside Kia in the deep sofa and wrapped an arm around her. “Now I fold my other arm like this.” She tucked her arm between them. “And you just cozy up.”

“ Back that ass up ?”

“That is not how I would describe it.” Sullivan chuckled. “But basically, yeah.”

Kia snuggled her back to Sullivan’s chest.

“I like the way your hair smells.” Sullivan had not just said that out loud.

“It’s a conditioner this great hairstylist in Memphis makes. I wanted to promote her, but I couldn’t because of some contract with Ma Belle products. I just want to be real, Sullivan. I want everything I do to be for real.”

Kia took Sullivan’s hand and cupped her own hands around it. The way she cradled Sullivan’s hand made Sullivan feel like Kia held her whole body.

“Am I doing this right?” Kia brushed Sullivan’s knuckles with her lips. Such a soft touch, Sullivan wasn’t sure she’d felt it.

“As long as you’re comfortable, you’re doing it right.”

“Are you comfortable?”

The way Kia’s ass pressed against her hips turned Sullivan on.

If Kia woke up, said, Want to get naked and scissor on the couch?

Sullivan would have pressed their bodies together until every fold of her vulva kissed every fold of Kia’s, and for the ten or twelve seconds before Sullivan came, she wouldn’t think about a single consequence.

But she wanted this tender moment even more.

It was all they could allow themselves, and it was as sweet as raw honey from a field of wildflowers.

“I’m very comfortable.” Sullivan felt her own sleepless night catching up with her. “I don’t think anyone has ever cuddled on a couch better than we are.”

“Are we point six percent better than everyone else?”

Leaving aside the impending heartbreak?

“We’re more than point six percent better.”