Page 52 of The Best Worst Thing

Nicole whimpered, nodding. He licked his lips, kissed her neck, and then—like it was the most delicate, deliberate task he’d ever taken on—slipped a single finger alongside her and watched with irises wide as her eyes softened and her breathing slowed and her fingers tightened into clutched fists.

She grabbed his pillow, bit into it, and moaned.

It smelled just like him—simple and good; like August, like drugstore shampoo, like nothing fancy.

“This okay?”

“It’s … yeah. Yes.”

He started slow. Gentle, soft strokes that grew and built and bent to her, that explored her everywhere.

And as her hips continued to rock and rise—as they synced to his touch and curved to his hands—he worked his mouth down her stirring skin, from her collarbone to her ribs to the slopes of her stomach, and then finally, to high between her legs, where another slew of impossibly light kisses sent Nicole’s boiling body rolling away from him and onto her side, knees closed.

“Logan!”

“Where’d you go?” he said, laughing on all fours. “You okay up there?”

“No!” She crawled toward his headboard, giggling as he swam through his sheets after her. “You’re, like, really good at this, and I have a lot of thoughts, and I don’t know what to do with my hands, and I feel like you’re going to want to do it forever, and …”

“Do you want me to do it forever?”

She nodded, squawking, covering her face. He grinned, then pinned her back down and parted her knees with his chin. Her inhale caught.

“I’m going to try to get away,” she said. “I’m going to tell you to stop. But don’t listen. Don’t stop.”

“That”—a smirk—“won’t be a problem.”

She groaned, kicking him in the shoulder.

He swatted her foot away. And then, for the next five, ten, fifteen minutes—every time she wriggled or writhed or tried to worm her way out from under him—he held her down that much tighter, kissed her that much closer, and made her beg for him that much louder.

“Logan,” she said, yanking at his hair, peeling him off her for the hundredth time. She couldn’t keep her hips down or her hands to herself. She had to have him. She had to have him now. “Come up here and fuck me. Please, I can’t take it anymore. It’s too good, I won’t last, I …”

“Nicole,” he said. “I’m very busy. Please stop thinking. Relax.”

“I can’t!”

“Fine.” He reached across her body to his bedside table, rifled through a drawer, then tossed a paperback at her. “Read a book for all I care.”

“Logan Milgram! This is Persuasion!”

“We aim to please, Missouri.”

“Logan!”

“You were right—a hot read, for sure.” More kisses. More shrieking. “I particularly enjoyed all the sex.”

“If you don’t get up here right now,” she said, “I’ll murder you. I’m serious, okay? I need you. I’m ready. Please, I … I don’t want to do this alone.”

He nodded, then kissed her one last time before floating his body over hers, pulling her into his arms, and rolling them both onto their sides so they lay there, heads on pillows, foreheads touching, bodies intertwined.

He tugged the sheets over their shoulders, then kissed her for a very long time.

“Hey, gorgeous.”

“Hey, dingbat.”

“You good?”

“I’m perfect,” she said.

“You’re perfect,” he said, one, two, three more times. He tangled his hands in her hair. “You know that, right? You are exactly what I’ve always wanted.”

“So are you,” she said, pushing the hair out of his eyes. He peeled away what little was left on her body, and she did the same, taking him in, memorizing the shape of him, trying to breathe. Trying to slow the moment down. Trying to stay right in it.

“In my drawer, behind you, there’s a …”

She shook her head. “I got tested, last week. I trust you.”

“Me too,” he said. “You sure, though? It’s no big deal. I—”

“I’m sure,” she said, and then she kissed him, she kissed him like she had nothing left to lose, and his arms were wrapped around her, and his tongue was twisting into hers, and she could taste his heartbeat in her lungs, and she could not remember being anywhere but here, or doing anything but this, or being anyone’s but his, and his hands were everywhere, they were all over her, they were skimming the bare skin on her shoulders, they were circling the faint little stretch marks on the sides of her stomach, they were sliding down every link and bump and bone in her slinking spine, they were showing her all the things they’d never had a chance to say—they were tracing her wrist at the bar of that holiday party, they were tasting her lips on the cold, hard floor of that copy room, they were tearing themselves off the frame of that hotel door, throwing her against the wall, telling her to open her eyes, telling her to burn it all down, telling her it wasn’t too late to start all over, to turn back time.

“Nicole,” he said, and she was just nodding, she was just kissing him, she was just pulling him closer, and she could feel him, she could finally, finally feel him, he was right there, right at the edge of her, looking into her eyes, whispering into her neck, and her skin was hot and her heart was loud and the space between them was nothing now, and he was pushing himself into her, and she was helping him do it, inch by inch, slow and easy and hard, and the room was a blur, a whirl, two quick, deep breaths—her gasp, his groan—and it was effortless. He fit her perfectly.

“Oh my god.”

“Holy fucking shit.”

Nicole pressed her fingers against her eyelids. Logan laughed into her mouth.

Hips rolled. Hands wandered.

Mouths hung open. Bodies hovered, tangled, and turned.

Time twisted, and they were everywhere.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” Logan said, his mouth glued to hers.

They were sitting on the edge of his bed, clinging to each other—her legs locked around his waist, his arms fixed around the small of her back, her hands sealed to his shoulders, his chest, his face.

Sweat was dripping down his brow. Nicole was licking it off her lips.

“In your requisite IKEA bed?”

“Yes, Nicole, in my shitty bed. In my arms. In my life.”

“Me neither,” she said.

And then, smiling, she pushed him down onto his back, tightened her legs around his hips, and nudged him toward the top of his mattress.

He shoved a couple of pillows behind his neck as she clamped her hands onto his headboard, as he touched her, kissed her, talked to her, and she was telling him what she wanted, she was showing him what she needed, and he was listening, he was figuring her out, and she bore into him and he bent into her and her body began to beg for it, brace for it—to clench, to clamor, to tremble.

Her eyes floated.

Her lips parted.

“I’m … I’m going to come, I think.”

“Fuck,” he said. “Okay, good. That’s— that’s great.”

She laughed, then sunk deeper into him, and the pleasure—already peaking, but no, not yet, she wasn’t even halfway there—began to build, began to grow, stretching from her curling toes to her tightening calves to her roaring ribs to her throbbing throat.

It swept across her whole body—a long, lush, perfect tug; a rusty, delirious ache that grew stronger and stronger until she couldn’t take it anymore, until she was pounding her fist onto his headboard, until she was hitting his shoulder, until she was falling apart, and he was holding her close, so careful to change nothing, so careful to stay right there, and Nicole—eyes closed, mouth moving—thought, for the first time in a long time, that maybe she would like to die.

“Nicole,” he said. “Look at me.”

And Nicole, unraveling in his hands, didn’t even put up a fight.

She simply opened her eyes. And there it was—that look.

Two and a half years later, it was exactly the same.

Except this time, it didn’t hurt a bit. This time, there was nothing to misinterpret or repress or explain away.

There was nothing to run from. It was just him, looking right through her.

It was just her, looking right back. And when she touched his face, when she glued her open mouth to his lips and called out his name, his jaw slackened and his eyes scrunched and his body shuddered and his lips softened and Nicole—light as air—kissed him, kissed him, kissed him.

And then, after, they lay there, laughing. Because it was ridiculous, wasn’t it? But it was also the truth. That they’d done it—and that it had been perfect.

And when they’d finally caught their breaths, a few minutes before she’d climbed back on top of him to see if maybe he’d like to give the whole thing another go, she tucked her buzzing, satisfied, decidedly unbroken body under his arm and kissed his chest.

“I’m so glad we waited,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said. “Me too.”