She lengthens on me, thudding her forehead on my chest with a long rough groan as I slide out of her. “Chance. Chance, baby.” She crawls up my body and slides to my side, onto her back, pulls me over and onto her, pressing my face into her breasts and cradling me there, wrapping her arms as far around my shoulders as they’ll go. “It’s okay, it’s okay. Feel it, Chance. Let me have this, too.”
“So…so fucking—embarrassing,” I grit out through clenched teeth. “I don’t know why I’m fucking—" I’m so embarrassed I can’t say the word.
“Yes, you do. Tell me why you’re crying.” She trails her fingers through my hair. Seems not to mind the fact that I’m wetting her chest.
“Because I’m a big fuckin’ baby.”
She laughs. “Nah, that’s not it.” She cups my jaw and tilts my face up to hers, but I resist. “Let me see you, Chance. Show me your eyes, baby.”
I shake my head, everything burning, and rest my forehead on hers. “Can’t. Too—too hard. Too embarrassed.”
“No, no, no,” she says, her voice a soft coo, like a mourning dove. Musical, gentle. “No embarrassment, honey. It’s beautiful.”
“That I’m blubbering?”
“That you’re trusting me with this part of you.” She cups my cheek. Brushes her thumb under my eye.
“Ruining…the—fuck.” I clear my throat. “Feel like I’m ruining the moment, what we just had.”
“You’re not, I promise you’re not. You’re making it even more beautiful.”
I shake my head. “How? God, you’re crazy.”
“I’ll tell you, but it’s gotta be an exchange.”
“Exchange for what?”
“Well, one, you look at me. Two, you tell me what you’re feeling.” She shimmies down, so she’s lower than me, and looks up into my eyes through her thick eyelashes. Her smile is exquisitely tender, achingly accepting. “There you are. Hi.”
I choke, laughing and half sobbing. “Where did you come from? God.”
She blinks in confusion. “What? What do you mean?”
“This…you. The sweetness.” I swallow hard, breathe out a slow shudder. “Like…the others.”
Her green eyes dance. “Youdid this.Youmade me safe. You’ve given me space to…” A shake of her head as she hunts for the right words. “To become this version of me. You made it possible. By…just being you. Everything that’s happened. Everything you’ve done for me.”
“What did I do? Kicked Alvin’s ass. He’s fuckin’ lint out of my belly button, Nik. He’s nothing.” I shake my head. “What did I do to deserve you?”
“You brought me out of my shell,” she whispers. “You showed me that it was okay to live again.Howto live again. You gave me safety to be myself again. I don’t really recognize this me, but honestly? I freakingloveher. And you made it possible. So I’ll do anything and everything I can to show you how much I appreciate it—how much I appreciateyou.”
I cover my eyes again, with both hands this time. “I’m feelingso fuckin’ much, mama. Like all this shit that I’ve been ignoring and pushing down my whole life is just…boiling up. More than that. It’s…you. It’s us.” I breathe out again, slow, through pursed lips. “Being with you. Making love with you—god, I never thought I’d call it that…I never fuckingdreamedit could be like that. That I could ever just…let goand just be…me. For the first time in my entire goddamn life, you’ve made me feel…accepted. Not too much, too big, too…everything. You took all of me, and you…” I trail off.
She lies diagonally across me, breasts squashed on my ribs, pillowing her chin on her stacked hands, gazing at me with fierce yet soft eyes like summer grass in the noonday sun. “You make me feel fulfilled. Sated. More than that. Good god, Chance, I can’t explain it, how you made me feel just now.” A soft sigh. “You make me feel beautiful and sexy and feminine and…safe.”
I shake my head. “I’ve never felt this way. Didn’t know it was possible.” I look down at her, rubbing at my eyes. “I didn’t…I honestly thought I’d never find someone who could…I dunno how to put it.”
“Bluntly, that’s how. Just tell me the truth.”
“I never thought I could have sex like that. Fully into it. Letting go. Not thinking. Not holding back, not worried about anything. I’ve always, always been so, so careful. Always had to hold back, be gentle, be cautious.”
She just smiles at me. “We fit each other. Matched perfectly. I thought it was rom-com bullshit, but…I really feel like we were made for each other.”
I wrap my arms around her and crush her in a bear hug until she laughs with a fake groan, and I release her, but just enough to hold her as close as two people can be, wrapped up, tangled together.
We drift together, then. Breathe, float, relax.
The wind sighs.
