10| Let me

10| Let me

OTTILIE

H IS MOUTH LANDS on the back of my neck, hot, open-mouthed, the scrape of teeth, a rush of breath, wet and sucking and rippling across my skin like a stone dropped in a pond, sending shockwaves in every direction.

It's not the kind of touch that eases the dizziness or cools the heat—the exact opposite. It has my breath coming frantically, hyperventilatingly fast, my abdomen rising, my hips rolling into the unhelpful press of my own fingers.

It's his I want.

His teeth graze my skin, a knife of heat slashing like a plumbline straight to my low belly, a ripply, fluttery clenching heat that says I'm so empty, empty everywhere, mind, body, and soul, and if I'd allow it, he could fill that emptiness.

He shifts, his hand finding the bottom of my shirt, rough, calloused fingers gracing the tender skin of my belly, up to palm my breast.

"Yes." I breathe, shuddering when his thumb finds my nipple.

My eyes roll backward.

Every part of me is so sensitive but uniquely tuned to him, like a hundred strangers could touch me, and I'd feel nothing, but he could stroke the bead of my nipple, and I might die of ecstasy.

He says my name, his tongue dragging up my neck, and I arch again, writhing, nonsensical, arrhythmic, just needing more.

My hips roll back against him, forward into my own hand. It's a compulsion, like a shiver or a death throe.

I couldn't stay still if I tried.

His hand leaves my breast and travels south. Hard fingers curl around my wrist, tug the arm that's connected to the hand that's down in my pants, pulling it away.

"Let me," he says.

I do.

I do it gladly, all of me opening for him, legs spreading, neck arching.

Anything.

He can have anything if it's mine to give.

Bigger, rougher, but so gentle, so slow, his fingers slide downward between my legs.

He hisses my name, lips and teeth, and tongue against the shell of my ear. "So wet. Jesus, fuck, you're so wet."

I nod, insensate, turning toward him, finding his mouth with mine over my shoulder.

I wasn't brave enough before, but I'm too far gone to worry or fear anymore. All that's left of me is burning need.

It's the first kiss I've ever initiated in my life, and it's a heady thing, our lips already parted, a hot collision, almost a clash. Not a first kiss at all, something bigger, more determined, wet and punctuated by sharp breathing. The feel of his tongue on mine, the taste of him.

His finger slides all the way inside me, too much and not enough, as he rolls me under him, settling between my parted thighs, another finger filling me, pushing deep.

He's above me now, looming over me, and we're using our feet and knees to get my pants down. I kick them off my ankles. Cold air touches my skin, our mouths still connected though we're barely kissing, more sharing air, my hands hungry and everywhere.

I've been looking at him for so long, but looking at Knox is nothing like touching him. Smooth velvet skin, hard bunching muscles, hair where I want it, in all the places it should be, coarse under my fingers.

His lips leave my mouth, slide down my neck, hot again, so hot, leaving cold that evaporates and draws goosebumps in their wake, down to my breasts, where my nipples are almost painfully contracted from the chilly air and his touch.

I've never felt this need before, but it's there. I need to get my nipple into his mouth like I need to breathe, and the relief when I do has me panting, chanting into the night.

I'm saying yes and God and please and Knox and keep going, and I need you, I need you, I need you.

Because I do.

Badly.

Dizzy, rocking, clutching, reaching into his sweatpants because there's something else I need.

I need it more than my breast in his mouth or his fingers inside me.

I need him.

I need him the way you need someone in the dark after the world ended—when he's not just the only man, he's the best man, and he's earned trust with patience and love with smiles, and he has cookies and he cleans wet guns, and he listens to me when I talk, and of all the people who ever looked at me, a woman who writes speeches that other people reads, he sees me .

He's always seen me.

More clearly.

Too clearly.

And he makes me safe, and he protects my grandmother, and he smells like life in a world gone dead, and he makes me want to live. And I hope I give him something back. I hope he knows if Gran asks him to fight, I'll be beside him.

He's so hard, hot in my hand, thick and long, and I'm pulling him closer.

But then he's gone, going lower, pressing me back, his mouth finding the sensitive place I was touching before.

"Let me," he breathes, breath fluttering over the cool skin of my quivering belly, his fingers stroking deep, tongue rolling.

At that moment, I'd let him do anything, let him have anything if he'd shove his way inside me and chase all the loneliness and fear away.

"Don't stop." My fingers slip into his hair, my calves coming up to rest on his back. "Oh god, don't stop. Knox."

The orgasm hits obliteratingly hard, like a dark curtain blocking out sight and sound and leaving me in a full body flush with twitching toes, unspeakable, incoherent.

I'm still sputtering when he's above me again, his fist wrapped around himself.

I reach for him, but I'm too late.

A wet heat splatters across my belly and thighs as he chokes out his own release, and even though I feel more sated than I've felt in my life, something about all of it leaves me empty until he drops his body over mine, covering me, and his lips find my neck, warmth and weight and the closest to rapture I've ever been.

He's sweaty.

And so am I.

My legs splay around him as I wrap my arms around his shoulders, my legs around his hips, press my lips to his temple, taste the salt on his skin.

I'd have chosen sex. I'd have chosen it and the million scary outcomes that could have come with it in a world without doctors or choices.

It's one more thing to love about him.

"We need condoms," I whisper.

He shifts, his big hand coming up to find my face, to push my hair away from where it's clinging to my cheeks. "We need a lot of things."

I nod against his lips as they find mine again. We're more patient this time, now that we're not so desperate. It's softer, more first-kiss feeling, more of a promise than a question.

"You were supposed to do it first," he says it first.

"I …" I struggle to think clearly, to comb through blurring memories. "I feel like I did."

"After I kissed your neck."

Very carefully slip my hand up his chest, behind his neck, and into his hair, pull him close, and kiss him. Once. Twice.

"Now I've instigated first sexual contact and kisses." And then I go one further. I force myself to say the most embarrassing thing I've probably ever said out loud to anyone. "And I'll add the first embarrassing admission. I think I've had a crush on you since the day we met."

And what does he say to this humbling statement?

"I know." And he's laughing, his shoulders rocking slightly against my naked body.

"You … you know?"

"Yes, I know."

"How do you know?"

"Because I've had one on you." His thumb slips along my cheek. "It's why I resigned."

"You resigned?"

‘I was only supposed to work two more months."

"Why""

"It would have been y unprofessional for a service member to make a pass at the granddaughter of the VPOTUS."

I run through that, imagine how it would have played out in an alternate history where the virus never came, where Gran continued to serve as vice president, and then ran on her own ticket. Gina would have had her surgery. Gran would have had dialysis. He would have resigned … and asked me out?

Would I have been brave enough to say yes?

I hope so.

USUALLY, IT'S STILL DARK when we wake to the smell of coffee.

But the sun is streaming through the windows when I open my eyes the next morning.

No smell of coffee.

I crane my ears for the sound of Gran moving around in the kitchen below and hear nothing.

Beside me, Knox stirs, his body stiffening as he takes in the same lack of sensory stimuli as me.

We rise from bed and creep together down the hall, me barefoot and naked, but for a big cardigan, I clutch around myself, him dressed in pants only.

Gran's door is open, her bed empty.

Down the stairs as silently as we can.

The kitchen is empty.

My laptop is gone.

The back patio is empty.

The car we've been using is gone from the driveway.

There is, however, a note left beside the coffee pot.

Ottilie and Knox,

A little old lady arriving with the gift of government supplies will be met with less umbrage than the three of us together.

You're under no obligation to follow me, but if you do—do not lie about your identity.

Our reputations must be unimpeachable.

Love,

Gran