She guides me with her hips, pushing up and silently asking for more, but I respond by cupping her cheek and consuming her mouth.
“Warner, please,” she says against me.
Her plea obliterates any shred of my remaining self-control.
Together we are intense, needy for each other. She wraps her legs around my back, and I kiss every part of her I can reach. We fuck hard, Tenley matching me even though she is beneath me, and she never indicates she wants anything less than what I’m giving. I place a hand between the top of her head and the headboard, and it’s a good thing I do because pretty soon her head presses to my palm and the headboard bangs into the wall.
Tenley grips my back, squeezing me tight, and tells me she’s close.
“Look at me,” I say, pressing my nose to hers. There is just enough light trickling into the bedroom for me to see her eyes. She looks at me, allowing me to watch her approach her climax, and then she comes apart beneath me, shuddering and clamping a hand over her mouth to muffle her cries.
She needn’t be quiet. We’re alone out here, more alone than most people, and when the tremors of my impending climax start, I thrust into her once more.
With my release comes a guttural groan of her name, and she tightens her thighs at the word.
My head drops onto her chest. “I… I…” There’s no way I can finish that sentence, and I’m so out of it I’m not sure what I’m even trying to say.
Her chest dips with her small laugh. “Same.”
We stay in this position, my cheek pressed to the swell of her breast. I feel weirdly hollow, but also like I’m a starving man who has been given a morsel of food.
Eventually it becomes clear we need to move, and we each take turns in the bathroom. I’m lying in my bed when she steps out. She looks at me, then at the scattered clothes. She moves to put on her bra, and I stop her with an outstretched arm that touches nothing but air.
“Will you stay?”
Tenley straightens. She nods and climbs in beside me. I reach for her, pulling her in close. Neither of us say anything, because what is there to say? Everything that needs to be said was spoken with our actions.
She falls asleep first, and I am not far behind her. My last thought is of how good her hair smells.
20
Tenley
In the movies, there are three types of morning after scenarios. The first is the regrettable one, where they wake up and look at one another, equally astounded and revolted to see the other person. The second is where they wake up and peek at each other, have awkward but endearing conversation, and agree to see each other again. And the third is my favorite: the belated realization that prior events were a mistake, and keeping it friendly is best. I just hope I’m not experiencing it in real life at this exact moment.
Warner is still asleep, but it’s very likely that when he wakes up, he will blame last night on a lapse in judgment. We’ve already established once that he is capable of taking one step forward and two steps back. For that matter—
“You look worried.” Warner’s voice, thickened by sleep, breaks into my negative thoughts. For the past half hour, I’ve been lying on my back, alternating between staring up at the ceiling and glancing over at him. His hand hovers over my face, two of his fingers gently pushing apart my cinched eyebrows.
I roll to my left, prop my head on my hand, and look at him. His hair is rumpled, his eyes squinty. It’s another of his looks, and just as handsome as the rest.
My finger traces an invisible design on the white flannel bedsheets between us. “It’s not easy, in my industry. Sometimes there are…expectations.”
Warner closes one eye and says, “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“People have sex with a fantasy, but wake up to reality.” The small but persistent worry has been there since I woke up, even though I can’t see it being true of Warner.
He takes a moment to process what I’ve said, then shakes his head as much as he can while it's lying on his pillow. “Wait, I’m confused. Are you famous or something?”
I bite back a smile.
“Because I thought you were just a regular person I helped on the side of the road one day. But knowing you’re famous? That changes…” Warner pauses, his grin teasing, “nothing.”
I move with the intention of playfully shoving him, but he rolls over suddenly, taking me by surprise. He pins me beneath him.
His mouth is on my neck, my collarbone, drifting down to my breasts. His words are muffled against my skin, but I understand him anyway. “You taste so good.”
I open up for him unabashedly, fully in the knowledge I’ve never been like this with anyone else. Warner makes me feel safe and cherished. There is no room in me for timidity, not when I’m so full of heat and hunger, eagerness and desire.
Warner lines himself up with me, and I swallow hard. He fills me swiftly and sets a pace similar to last night. I love that he is not careful with me. I am not fragile like hand-blown glass, and I don’t want to be treated that way.
Warner’s face is buried in my hair, his lips on my ear and his hand holding onto my hip. I reach up, pressing a palm against the headboard, bracing against it, stopping us from moving too far up the bed.
Warner groans against me. He reaches down, his hand between my legs, touching me. It’s not long before I’m rising.
Higher. Higher. Higher.
I reach the pinnacle, the muscles in my legs tensing, my toes curling around the bedsheet.
“Yes,” Warner growls. He continues for just a minute more, and when his back muscles flex, I tighten around him.
Warner presses his nose to the space behind my ear, holds on to my hip and jerks, then stills. He takes a few moments to catch his breath, and as he’s rolling off me, he says quietly, “I think you’ve ruined me.” I’m not sure I was supposed to hear it. I’m not sure he meant to say it.
He pushes hair away from my face and kisses me so tenderly, it’s hard to believe only five minutes ago he was fucking me.
Warner pulls back, staring down at me, his brown eyes warm. “I fell asleep in the shallows, and I woke up submerged.”
Oh. Oh. My hand settles on my chest to keep my heart from galloping away. Warner brings me my clothes, and I sit up.
“Are you hungry?” he asks, watching as I thread my arms through my bra straps.
“Starving.”
He grins. “Let’s make breakfast.”
“Bathroom.” I point through the open door as I say it.
“Right.” He nods. “Meet me in the kitchen.”
I’ve just finished up in the bathroom and am walking back through Warner’s room when I spot his bookshelf. I honestly don’t know how I missed it. It’s gigantic, nearly the length of one wall, and stuffed with books, not decorated with tchotchkes and books on art history like a show bookcase. This is the collection of someone who loves to read.
I walk the length of the case, running my fingers gently along spines. I recognize many of the names. Warner has a little of everything, from Atlas Shrugged (a mammoth book, something I’ve heard of but never attempted), to Where The Crawdads Sing. From what I can tell, there are classics and bestsellers, fiction and non-fiction. Warner, it appears, is well-read.