Page 62 of The Quiet After The Fall

She sucks in a breath and pulls the lap bar until it locks, testing it with both hands. I follow, pulling on it harder to double-check.

The attendant gives a bored wave from the booth and the car lurches forward.

“Oh, shit,” Sawyer says. She’s breathing shallow and fast. Her body locks up tight with tension beside me. I move my hand down her thigh and curl my fingers around the inside of her knee.

“Look at me.” I wait until she does. Her eyes are wide, pupils blown in the low light. “We’re okay. I’ve got you. Nothing’s going to happen.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do know that. And so do you.”

She holds my gaze for a beat, then two, and I watch her expression change. The decision not to believe me exactly, but to let herself be steadied. That’s all I’m asking for. She exhales slowly, her body loosening by a fraction, and turns back toward the track as we climb.

The park falls away beneath us. The midway lights shrink. The carousel sits lit up and still, but I’m not really looking at any of that. My eyes are on her, the perfect view. The way she’s holding herself, jaw set, chin lifted, facing this head on when every part of her wants to turn away. I have loved that about her since before I knew what love meant. Since before I understood that she was the person I looked for first in every room I walked into.

Then her hand finds mine on her knee.

She keeps her gaze ahead, wraps her fingers over the back of my hand and starts to push, slowly guiding me up the inside of her thigh inch by inch. I go still, forgetting how to breathe. Does she want? Oh, fuck, yes, she does.

The track pulls us higher and the wind picks up and she keeps pushing, slow and torturous, until my hand is under the hem of her dress. She stops with her fingers still laced over mine.

I ghost my fingers over her underwear. Damp already. Soaked, actually. Fucking hell, I’ve missed her.

She hasn’t looked at me. Maybe she thinks if she does, she’ll break whatever this spell is. Her chest is visibly rising and falling, the colored lights from the track strobing across her face. Her lips are parted, the tiniest crease between her brows like she’s concentrating.

“Sawyer,” I rasp.

“Make me forget,” she whispers. “Please.”

She opens her legs as much as the confined space allows.

I’m fucking in awe of her. I have always been in awe of her and I don’t think it will ever stop.

“Anything you need.” I pull her underwear aside and drag a finger through her wet folds. A small noise leaves her lips, like an exhale, and her fingers tighten over mine for a second before she lets go and grips the lap bar instead, giving herself over to me completely. I don’t take that lightly.

We’re near the top now. The angle is steep, the car slow, grinding toward the crest, the whole park spread out below us

“You’re so wet,” I say against her temple, circling her clit with the pad of my thumb, taking my time because I want to draw this out. I want her shaking before we hit the top. “So perfect. You have no idea.”

She takes a sharp breath through her nose. “Knox⁠—”

I press a kiss below her ear. “I’ve got you.”

Her head drops back against mine, exposing the long curve of her neck, and I drag my lips up the side of it, slow, feeling her pulse hammering under my mouth. She smells incredible. Strawberry and sunshine and her, just her. I’ve been dreaming about this for so long that being here feels like an actual dream.

We reach the crest, that moment where gravity lets go of everything, where time stops and there’s nothing but sky and the distant lights of the park below. Sawyer’s breath comes sharp and unsteady against my jaw as I rub slow circles. Her thighs press tight around my hand. Her whole body pulls taut, every muscle bracing, a moan caught behind her closed lips like she’s fighting to keep it in.

Then we fall.

I barely focus on the rush, all my focus is on her. The moan she was holding back breaks free into the wind, swallowed by the speed and the roar of the track. I angle my hand and slip a finger inside her, feeling her clench around me. The sound she makes this time is mine, only mine. No one else can hear us in the freefall. My cock is so hard it hurts.

I work her through it, through every curve and bank, every rush of air, her thighs locked around my hand and her knuckles white on the lap bar and her face tipped back, eyes shut and hips rocking in the smallest, desperate motion, chasing her release.

“That’s it,” I say against her hair. “Come for me, baby.”

“Oh, fuck,” she breathes, and I feel the clench and release of her around my finger, her hips rolling, grinding out every last wave of it. Her cunt soaking my hand and her body going liquid against mine.

We hit the final bend and her hand drops to my lap.