Page 39 of Hidden with a Rockstar
In my bed, she's more nervous than her texts suggested. Her hands are confident on my body—the same confidence she brings to the fretboard—but there's a hesitation in her movements that wasn't there before. She stops to check in.
"This good?"
"Yes," I tell her.
"Tell me if?—"
"I will. I promise."
She nods and then her mouth finds my throat, my collarbone, the soft space between my breasts.
Her hands are everywhere—on my ribs, along my sides, across the inside of my thigh. She’s watching me, listening to my breaths, adjusting the pressure, angle, and speed.
"There," I say. "Like that."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
“There, like that, more. “
She's gentle where I didn't know I needed gentleness—on my throat, on the inside of my wrist, on the vulnerable part of my shoulder where the nerve endings are too close to the surface. She's demanding where I wanted to be wanted, and the demands come with questions.
"More?"
"Yes."
"Like this?"
"Yes."
"You can tell me to stop anytime."
"I know."
She's inside me and I'm gasping and she's asking "okay?" and I'm saying "yes, yes, don't stop" and she's listening to everything my body is saying.
The rhythm builds. Her mouth on my neck. Her hand holding my face. Her body moving against mine.
I come with my name caught in her mouth, with her hand still holding my face, with the knowledge that she came with me or just after or we came at the same moment.
Afterward, we're both trembling. She pulls me close and I lean into her.
She lies next to me with her arm across my waist, and I lie still and let myself have this.
“So,” she says into the dark, her arm across my waist. “Is this a thing now? Are we—” She stops. “I don’t have the vocabulary for whatever I want to call this.”
“Girlfriends,” I say. “The word is girlfriends. If you want it.”
“I want it.” She says it fast, like she’s scared I’ll take it back. “I want to be able to call you that. Even if it’s only ever in this room for now.”
“Only in this room,” I agree—and I don’t let myself think too hard about the for now.
The room is dark and warm. Her breathing is evening out into something deeper. I can feel the rise and fall of her ribs against my back, the press of her arm specific and present and real.
I don't sleep for a long time, I lie there feeling the weight of her arm, the warmth of her breath.
The streetlight moves across her face, and she's asleep now, her hand curled against my ribs like she's afraid I'll disappear in the night.
