Page 108 of Plus One

“Monique…” He moaned her name as she aligned him with her entrance and sank down.

She gasped at the completion. A surrender to this desire, to this moment, this life with him.

“Let me see you,” Maurice said.

She took him into herself slowly. Ten years out of practice, but her body still knew what to do. Where they were joined stretched, making her breath catch. Too much and not enough. When their hips met, she went still. Assessing. Adjusting. He was still too.

“I… this feels…” he started.

Her insides rippled. “Yeah,” she said on a breath. “I know.”

She started to move. Slow at first. Part to savor this experience and part to learn. To find the rhythm to a song that was just theirs.

Maurice’s hands were on her hips, her waist, her breasts, her neck, drifting over her like something delicate.

“Harder,” she moaned as she rolled her hips.

His hold on her changed as he took control. The pace changed. Deliberate. She could feel him so deep inside her.

His eyes never left hers. That’s what did it. The watching, like she was the only thing worth his attention.

“Are you gonna come for me?”

The words surprised her, and she laughed.

He meant it.

He sat up and took her nipple into his mouth. She stopped laughing.

Pressure built fast after that. On instinct, her hand moved between them. Maurice watched it all. Attentive. Learning. Adjusting. She felt the shift before she understood it. His stroke changed as he continued to pump into her. When he increased the suction on her nipple, she cried out, “Holy fuck…”

The orgasm rushed her. No warning. She screamed more words, maybe his name. Her body clenched and shuddered as she collapsed onto his chest, hips still jerking.

His movements slowed.

“No,” she said, “don’t stop, please.”

He wrapped an arm around her waist and turned them over, still connected. “You’re the loveliest when you come,” he said, kissing her deep and languid. His movements were slow. An excruciating ecstasy, extending her orgasm. He pulled nearly all the way out and slammed into her again and again until she was a boneless, whimpering mess. When she thought she’d lose her mind, he swelled and pulsed inside her, releasing his own string of incoherent sounds.

He kissed her suddenly, their hearts hammering, breaths gone. Faces wet. They weren’t only her tears.

“Hey,” she said, taking his face in her hands, his beautiful eyes bright with wetness. “What’s going on? I’m supposed to be the weepy one.”

The look in his eyes. The eyes of someone awakening from terror, she recognized it. She was awakening too. Gathering him to her, she whispered, “I gotchu,” until he calmed.

Outside, Chicago kept doing what it always did. In here, they didn’t have to.

CHAPTER 30Maurice

They’d showered and then had to shower again.

The hotel room smelled likethem. Maurice lay there on the bed in his underwear and stared at the ceiling, breathing deep.

He’d tried to benormalin the years right after his release. Thought he had to catch up to something—to prove something. So he tried a couple of times. Those encounters were so colorless that he thought that part of him was broken. Or maybe he never had it in the first place. Looking back, it had never been hard to live the way that he had. Solitary. Regimented.

What happened in this room, though, was no itch that needed scratching. What happened here, Maurice didn’t have the language for just yet. He had time.

He was more than okay with that.