Page 81 of Cut Off
“Fuck me, Jonah. Before I die.”
That cracks him. His head tips back against the couch and he laughs—silent, shaking, his whole chest moving under my palms—and then his hands tighten on my hips and hedrives up into me hard enough that I lose the thread of the argument entirely.
“Fine,” he says, rough. “I’ll do it.”
“Do it harder.”
He thrusts up. I grind down. His thumb is back where it belongs. His other hand splays across my lower back, holding me to him, and I lean forward and bury my face in his shoulder and bite down on the white cotton of his shirt to keep from shouting, and he says my name, just once, low and ragged, and that’s it. That’s all I needed.
I shatter on top of him, crying out. The leather creaks. His hips stutter, lose their rhythm, lose everything, and he follows me a beat later with a sound he muffles against my hair. His whole body locks up under me. His fingers dig in. I feel him pulse inside me, shuddering, and I ride every aftershock with him, slower now, helpless, both of us trembling, both of us soaked, both of us reduced to whatever this is.
For a second after, neither of us move.
I am draped over him like a fainting Victorian. My face is against his neck. His arms are around me. His heart’s going at a pace that should concern a team doctor.
“Jesus,” he says, finally, to the ceiling.
“Yeah.”
“Zoe.”
“Yeah.”
“That was—”
“Yeah.”
I lift my head. I look at him. He looks at me. His hair is a disaster. His shirt is sticking to him. There is, I notice with a slow, horrified delight, a lipstick mark on the side of his jaw.
“Holt. We have to leave this room.”
“Mm.”
“There are people out there.”
“Mm.”
“Move.”
He doesn’t move. He pulls me down and kisses me. This is a slow one, a patient one, one that takes its time and means something.
He breaks the kiss. Sets his forehead against mine.
“Okay,” he says. “Okay. Up.”
I climb off him. My legs don’t work. He steadies me with one hand at my waist while he deals with the condom, his pants, and the rest of his clothing situation, and I bend down and gather the silk puddle off the carpet, and there is an undignified moment where I am hopping on one foot trying to step back into a dress while also trying to find my underwear, which is somewhere under the coffee table. He spots them first. Hands them over with a smug grin.
“Zip me up.”
He does, his knuckles brushing the line of my spine all the way to the top. I shiver, and he laughs against the back of my neck, and presses a kiss there.
I find the bra and stuff it into my clutch, which has popped open and ejected three business cards onto the carpet, which I scrabble to pick up. He buttons his shirt with the calm of a man who has not just done what he’s just done. Smooths the suit jacket. Runs a hand through his hair.
I catch my reflection in the dark glass of the bar mirror behind him.
Oh, no. I look like a woman who has just been thoroughly and athletically ruined in a hotel lounge. Hair flat on one side, voluminous on the other. Lipstick smudged. At least the dress is fine.
He licks his thumb and works on the lipstick mark on his jaw, head tilted. I fluff my hair with my fingers. Smooth the dress. Reapply lipstick. Blot on the back of mywrist.
