Page 108 of Sizzle Reel

I pull her pants off and run my thumb roughly over her soaked underwear, right where her sweet spot is. She moans the way I did. Maybe a little more dramatically. I wonder if she’s ever thought about this before, if she’s ever brought about the same sensation with her own hands, her own plastic, thinking about this. My heart flips thinking through how our conversations about sex will change now, how excited I am to know her in a way I never thought I would.

I try not to overthink it; I try to fall into the music every time my mind starts asking questions. I do what I would do to myself, I do the kind of things that wound Valeria up. And, thank god, Romy is winding up. Hell, my own stomach tightens as I feel Romy’s muscles go taut under me.

“Baby, no underwear,” Romy says, the words barely more than a breath. “I want your fingers on my skin. Please.”

But suddenly I don’t want to use my fingers. Her soaked panties suddenly look—god—delicious. I don’t want to learn what I already know. I want to know how every part of Romy feels against every part of me. I kiss the wet spot like she did. I pull her panties off like she did mine.

And I kiss her blazing-hot slick skin like she did. Like Valeria did to me. Like legions of people have done to each other before me. I take a deep breath, relaxing into the scent of her skin, the muted saltiness. I lick her up and down, I circle around her junk, I relish her moan as I suck her most sensitive spot into my mouth and out again.

For a beautiful stretch of time, I fall into the endless void of Halsey’s voice and Romy’s squirming and moans and fucks, and I don’t think. I don’t think, I don’t think, I don’t think. I just am. I’m having sex with my partner. I’m making the person I love feelgood. I’m making the person I love feel amazing. And I enjoy it. I enjoy her reactions, I enjoy the heat and the tightness building back into the lingering throbbing in my clit.

Then Romy speaks again.

“Go inside me, Lune,” she says. “I want you to feel all of me.”

The command jolts me seconds before I remember that, shit, she said there weren’t any limits. I look down at the work I’ve already done chasing Romy’s pleasure. I slide a finger inside her the way I licked between her legs.

I know this texture, but my heart jolts feeling it here, in Romy. When she asks for another finger, I’m downright eager to feel more of her on more of me. She hums as I put my face back between her legs, my fingers thrusting. My hips, by instinct or wanton, selfish desire, thrust against her leg to the rhythm. The humming sizzles to Romy singing along to one of Halsey’s sexiest lines, crooning it at me.

And there’s a moment when I’m in euphoria. When I can’t believe I get to experience the velvet inside someone I love, when I get to live in a world where something that terrified me makes the person I love flush and shake, when I get to feel her muscles clamp and pulse around me. When Romy moans and pulls me up to bury her face into my shoulder after she comes, peace washes over me. I’m so glad I get to do this. Everything is right. This is where I was meant to be.

She pulls her lips back to mine and we taste each other once more. And then we just hold each other, lips pressed together, waiting for our heartbeats to stop sounding in our ears.

When we pull away, when I see those big pupils staring back at me, I break into a grin.

“I love you, Romy.”

“I love you, Luna.”

There are no sweeter words in the English language.

chapter twenty-seven

It’s October in L.A., which means we’re experiencing a random heat wave. The city is full of sagging pumpkins and angry adults who are praying that the heat breaks before Halloween. But I don’t mind. It’s easy enough to cool down.

“Spaceship, Aunt Val!” Valeria’s two-year-old twin niece and nephew shout from the shallow end of the pool, where they’re floating in their little striped swimsuits and water wings.

Valeria pulls them both into her arms. She’s absolutely radiant, shining with pure joy as she interacts with those kids.

“Spaceship, huh?” Valeria says. “Like this?”

She jumps into the air and splashes back into the water as the kids shriek.

Water sprays over to where Romy and I are lounging near the edge of the pool, but honestly, it feels good. It all feels so good: the sun on our exposed skin, the warmth of the concrete below us, Romy’s hand lazily intertwined with mine as she reads a YA fantasy novel that’s likely much too dark for this setting.

I lean over to her. “Those kids are so cute.”

She glances at Valeria and the kids. “Yeah, cute.” She raises a brow. “Very blond too.”

“Who knows? Maybe you’ll have a couple one day.”

She watches as Eustace, who’s wearing a bright blue life jacket with a shark fin on top, barks around the perimeter of the pool.

“Maybe,” she says, “but right now I just want, like, thirty Eustaces. In all different colors, though. A Eustace variety pack.”

Her gaze runs up and down the length of my body. I still shiver when she does it, like I’m a lovestruck teenager. The past several months have kinda felt like that. All those bubblegum pop songs make sense now. “Besides, our kids wouldn’t be blond,” she says. “Not with our genes.”

I know she’s joking. For now, we’re taking it pretty slow and not thinking too far into the future. Our physical encounters have been tender and slow and filled with communication, preparation, and boundaries. I feel safe with Romy, in every form that takes: cuddling with her while we watch the ’90s movies she loves, stealing each other’s fries at gastropub dates, wiping each other’s tears on hard work and family days, arching against each other’s hot-as-hell touch. If the future is anything like the present, there’s nothing to fret about.

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