Scene 19

I fumbled with the door handle, the locking mechanism flashing red. No matter how many times I crammed the keycard into the slot, my brain turned the task of opening the hotel door into the Pythagorean Equation.

"It's not working!"

Dillon reached around me, easing the card from my shaking hand, and calmly turned it over, slipping it back into the keycard reader where the light immediately turned green.

Smooth, Kam. Note to self: things work better when you line up the arrows .

We'd booked a room at the first hotel we came to off the Embarcadero. Dillon had suggested going back for the car, uncertain if the structure permitted overnight parking, but I'd pulled her off the sidewalk, straight into the lobby.

I'd worry about the car in the morning.

The hotel was above my pay grade. A boy with metallic blue hair combed into a fauxhawk had lazily sprawled behind the front desk, listing off amenities: Top floor. Waterfront view. Balcony. Breakfast included. Complimentary high-speed wifi.

Yeah, fine, whatever. Get on with it .

One bed or two?

One .

I hadn't even had the presence of mind to be embarrassed. The limited space in my brain had been reserved for the taste of Dillon's mouth, the way she'd just kissed me down at the docks, and the knowledge that we were really doing this. Without looking at the room rate, I slid my credit card across the desk—thank you, Amex , for your liberal definition of my credit limit—and proceeded to trip over the welcome mat in my rush to the elevator.

But now that we were here, behind closed doors, my precipitancy had abruptly ended.

I wasn't sure what to do.

I don't know why I felt there should have been a manual. How To Sleep With A Woman When You're A Woman—a First Timer's Guide To Success . Had Ellen penned a handbook? Chappell Roan a song? Maybe Megan Rapinoe had posted a podcast?

I felt like such an idiot. Sex was sex, right? I hadn't needed instructions for Carter. Ryan. Diego. Matt. That one guy from Theatre 101B—whatever his name had been. And whoever the last one was I couldn't place at the moment. I don't know why I allowed myself to feel like this was different. Was it just the mental barrier—the drummed-in propensity to regard it as taboo?

I crammed the thought away. That was bullshit. The only thing that should have been tabooed were the obnoxious blue and pink robes hanging on the closet door, labeled Captain and The Missus .

Still, I stood there, frozen to the floorboards of the entryway as she relieved me of her jacket, flipped on the bathroom light, and drew the sheer curtain across the waterfront balcony window. When she returned, I tried to convince my arms to do anything other than hang useless at my sides, but they didn't get the memo.

"I, uh—I don't know what to do."

Her smile turned amused and I wanted to cover my head with the empty ice bucket from the counter.

Well done, Kam : Master of the obvious .

"It's alright. I happen to be something of an expert."

I laughed, swung back to some sense of composure by her unfailing bold-faced certainty, and applauded myself for not flinching when she reached to unclasp my opal earrings.

"Of course you are."

"Do you doubt me?" she asked, turning back from where she'd dropped the gemstones onto the entry table.

I wanted a clever repartee, but her hands had drifted to my waist, her fingers lingering at the tie of my wrap dress.

"Is this okay, Kam?"

Her playful insolence was gone, her hands stilled, waiting for permission. She meant it, I realized. She wasn't pressuring me. She wasn't pushing toward the endgame. I could have told her no and there wasn't a single particle of me that believed she would have made me feel small or met my hesitation with resentment.

I won't lie—her search for consent was an incredible turn on.

"Yes," I think I articulated. I couldn't hear my voice over the ocean of blood crashing through my arteries. Whatever I managed, she must have received the message, because her lips turned again with her arch smile as she worked loose the satin tie, allowing the wrap to fall open.

"You know," she whispered, sliding her hands to my hips, forcing my audible inhalation, "I recently heard somewhere you liked playing hard to get—so I wholeheartedly appreciate the convenience of tonight's choice of attire."

"Fucking Dani," I tried to laugh, but my body had gone into survival mode, its only focus on not imploding.

She leaned to kiss my neck, her hands sliding higher, her fingers grazing every ridge and channel of my ribcage. I closed my eyes, tilting my head back, absorbing the sensation of her palms against my breasts, her thumbs teasing my nipples to attention. The plunging neckline of my cocktail dress hadn't allowed for a bra, and despite being aware that Dani's brother and his friends had spent the entire night staring at my cleavage, I was now glad to be sans one less complication.

I felt, as her mouth traveled along my collarbone, her hands moving to slip the dress off my shoulders, that I needed to respond in turn. That I should reciprocate her actions. But at the same time, I was struggling to even breathe, and she seemed to read my mind, aware I was already beginning to panic I wasn't doing this correctly.

"Kam," she gently captured the hand I'd raised to struggle with her buttons. "Just wait. For now, let me."

She was offering the license just to experience it. The allowance to not know what to do and let it be okay.

And, to clarify—there were things I wanted to do. Things I'd been thinking about doing since she'd kissed me on a picnic table while eating take-out in front of Hana Bay. Things I would do, I didn't doubt. But for the moment, I was relieved to let her lead.

It was entirely erotic, the unabashed way she stepped back to look at me. Knowing the ways she wanted me. I should have felt self-conscious, standing there in nothing but my heels and underwear—an impractically lacy pair I'd spent a puerile amount of time selecting earlier in the morning, for exactly this purpose—but there was something about her that didn't allow me to feel uneasy at all.

"You're really beautiful, Kameryn," she said, finding my gaze again as she stepped forward to entwine her hands in mine, drawing me backward toward the bed.

I didn't say anything. I couldn't. Not as she bent, sliding the lace material down my hips, trailing her knuckles along the bare skin of my legs as she knelt to slip off my heels. The grazing touch sent my heart on an expedition, drubbing a hole through my chest. I had to reach back to steady myself against the pillow-top mattress, wondering what the statistics were of dying from anticipation? I was only twenty-three. If I was found dead in the morning, no one would believe my obituary when it read died peacefully in her sleep .

Slowly, leisurely, she rose, kissing the curve of my calf, the tender skin at the crook of my knee, the inside of my thigh. Impatience gnawed at me, and before her lips had grazed their slow path up the plane of my stomach, I'd laced my fingers through her hair, pulling her upright, anxious to find her mouth.

I loved the way she kissed me. I loved the fullness of her lips, unlike any boy I'd ever kissed, the brush of her eyelashes, the inebriating smell of salt and sea that belonged to her and only her. I think I surprised her with my fervency, with the urgency of my need, because when at last she drew away, I wasn't the only one fighting for breath.

" Amynedd piau hi , Kam-Kameryn," she laughed, the musical rhythm of the unfamiliar words filling the silence in between my heartbeats. "Patience in all things."

I doubted, somehow, that she was prone to follow the same advice, given the competitiveness of her nature, but whatever retort I sought to return was stifled as she pressed me back against the quilted comforter, and moved to kneel above me.

My mind was turned to other things.

Things like her fingertips—the way they teased, giving and retreating with their unhurried, deliberate exploration. Or her mouth that followed suit, retracing every inch of skin with the same prolonged reiteration.

My body ached. Ached in ways I didn't know it could, vulnerable with wanting.

I gave in to closing my eyes, my fingers grappling for purchase on the varnished wooden planks of the headboard, allowing myself to fall into the intensity of every heightened sensation.

Nothing in my life had ever been like this. As out of control. As intolerable as it was intoxicating.

I felt torn apart—and then pieced back together again.

It felt like an eternity before I recovered sentience, though I imagine in reality it was probably only a few seconds. I could feel her hovering above me, the brush of her untucked blouse against my naked belly. When I opened my eyes, she was smiling.

"You alright, Kam-Kameryn?"

Was I alright? Did alright mean something different in Wales than it did in the land of Uncle Sam? Was it the plain old "a-okay" but nothing outstanding? Because if that was the case—no, I wasn't alright .

I was top-shelf, Versace-clutch, Michelin 5-star restaurant living. I was Dodgers-won-the-World Series and Kings-took-home-the-Stanley-Cup winning.

In other words: I was pretty sure I'd just transcended my body.

So, yeah, I guess I was alright. But, maybe even a little better.

"Is it still the twenty-first century?" I asked, slipping an arm around her neck and drawing her to me.

I hated that she was still dressed. I hated that there was fabric between us. But I wasn't quite ready to move yet and just wanted to revel in the weight of her against me.

"Hate to break it to you," she smiled, "but you're still stuck in an era without robot butlers."

I laughed, bringing my hand up to trace her jaw. "No BB8s or R2D2s? How disappointing."

Her smile turned wry. "I'm not going to pretend like I know what that means, but I will say—you didn't seem terribly disappointed."

God. I don't think such a simple look should have turned my entire body into liquid. Into lava. Into whatever it was I was feeling. I knew my flush gave me away, broadcasting my sharp U-turn from the space-age future, back to the present.

Still, I tried to play it off like she hadn't just hand-delivered—mouth-delivered— whatever —the best orgasm of the decade… century… millennia… and I'm only stopping there because I don't know what word represents the length of time that comes after. Epoch? Eon?

"What if I said the verdict was still out?" I teased, handing back her taunt from the night before, unwilling to feed the monster of her ego—though, if I'm honest, she deserved her own ticker-tape parade. Because, the way she made me feel… I hadn't even known that was possible.

"Is that so?" She was still braced on her elbows, my hand casually toying with the short hair at the back of her neck. "Are you requiring further physical evidence to make a final ruling? Because I assure you," her smile broadened, "I can provide more in-depth testimony for your consideration."

She started to push herself upright, but I caught her arm, pulling her down beside me. I'd started to resurface from my post-climax bliss, and there was no way I was letting her move forward without my active participation.

"Excuse me, but I believe it's my turn for cross-examination."

I loved her laugh. I loved the retort that never reached the tip of her tongue when I bent to kiss her throat. I loved the way her breath hitched as my hands found their way under the hem of her shirt, her shudder when my palms reached her skin. I loved the way she tried to keep up her blasé demeanor as I clumsily undressed her, and the way her shallow breathing sold her out. I loved her patience with my tentative explorations, discovering every line and plane, curve and angle. The way she had to close her eyes. The way her fingers pressed into my hips, dragging me closer, closing the space between us. I loved knowing just how much of an effect I had on her by the quickening cadence of her pulse pounding in her chest.

And more than anything, I loved this world she had shown me—this piece of myself I hadn't even known was missing. This feeling of being found. This feeling of being completed.