Page 83 of The Love We Make

“I haven’t yet,” I joke.

Nora smiles, and the whole room lights up. “Okay.” She sinks her teeth into her bottom lip. “Let’s make that happen, then.”

I rake my gaze over Nora. As usual, she’s in jeans and a tank top and her shoulder line looks even more impressive than I remember. Her biceps curve deliciously. Her skin is so smooth, it glows. I can’t wait to hoist up that tank top, to reveal the six-pack that hides underneath. But I’m not here for Nora’s body—I’ve seen what it costs her. Or no, I shouldn’t think like that. I’ve seen what it would cost me, or any other mere mortal, to have a body like that. Two hours every day with No-Mercy Marcy.

Nora makes her own choices and it’s her choice to look like this and do what she needs to in order to do so. It’s her choice to eat the food she chooses and she should be able to do it without me judging her for it, no matter what her reasons might be, or what I might guess them to be—or how I feel about that.

Nora gets to be whoever she wants to be, and she can do whatever she likes. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t be Nora Levine. I’m not talking about the Nora my kids adore, that hybrid of how Nora looks and herHigh Lifecharacter’s chirpy personality. I’m talking about the real Nora. The one who danced so freely with my kids, but also the one who’s so scared of something real, something that touches all that she’s been hiding deep inside herself for so long, that she had to kick me out of her house for fear of where it might lead.

I’m here for all the parts that make up Nora, for all that she has already revealed to me and the many aspects of her that are still hidden. For the force for good she is in the life of people who need help, for the joy she has brought to millions by being irresistible to a camera, but most of all, for the impossibility of her letting me in. Of her wanting to try. Of her being responsive to the gut instinct I had when I laid eyes on her again. For her letting me kiss her lips and knowing, in her soul, that this might be the way through for us.

I might not be here for her body, but that doesn’t mean I’m not insanely attracted to it. It’s a great perk of being with Nora Levine. Because I love running my fingertips over her rock-hard abs—I’m not above shallowness like that. I love seeing her tank top ride up and slowly revealing her perfectly sculpted belly. My clit pulses when I hoist her top over her head. My breath stalls when I free her breasts and her nipples perk up. Heat thunders through my flesh when I kiss her collarbone. When my lips trace up her neck. When she opens her mouth to me. My knees buckle when our tongues dance.

By the time we tumble onto the bed, I’m wild with lust. Maybe this is a time to take things slowly, to run my hands over her body deliberately and thoughtfully, but I can’t. Because my body’s reacting, too, and it’s telling me, loud and clear, that I made the right choice coming here.

Before I do what I’m about to do, what I so desperately need, I have to check in with her. I have to make sure she’s right there with me.

When I look into Nora’s eyes, all I see reflecting back at me is the same lust that’s rolling through my veins, the same heat that’s coursing through my blood. Maybe this is how Nora does her best communicating. Maybe this isn’t just the only conversation we can have, but also the one we need to have.

Her fingernails scrape over my skin. Her lips latch onto my nipple, but I want them somewhere else.

“Nora, please,” I beg. “Touch me.”

She lets my nipple drop from her mouth and grins up at me. Then she does something wholly unpredictable again, but in the best possible way. She cups my ass cheeks and pulls me to her. My knees shuffle along the sheet as I straddle her. I maneuver until she has me right where she wants me—and where I relish being. The anticipation is almost too much. I swear I could come right there and then, with myself on offer to Nora like that, my legs wide in front of her face. My clit pulses as I hold on to the headboard of the bed. I have a feeling I’m going to need the support. I glance down at Nora and most of her face is obscured by my thighs, but that grin she must have plastered across her lips has reached her eyes. They beam back at me with devilish delight.

Whatever she has failed to say with words, she can tell me now. I brace for the contact of her tongue on my clit. She licks along my center first, tasting, teasing me. When her tongue finally touches down on my raging clit, it’s restrained more than intentional, as though she wants to drag this out a good long while.

I push myself toward her. In response, Nora digs her fingertips deeper into my ass cheeks. I might have dreamed of this in an unguarded moment, might have wished it to happen in a few split seconds of foolishness, but I could never have dreamed up this scenario—that I would find myself clasped to Nora’s lips like this—because I was ready to walk away. I was steeling myself to accept her one-sided decision of kicking me to the curb. To let her fear seal our fate.

I’m thrilled that things turned out differently. That her friends came to her—to our—rescue because they wanted this for Nora. Maybe not specifically what Nora’s doing right now, though—she’s teasing me with the tip of her tongue, licking me as though she has all the time in the world. But I don’t. I need to come. I need to release this tension. I need it expelled from my body, cleansed from my muscles, so we can start again at the other side of this.

“Fuck,” I groan, hoping it’s enough. Hoping that she gets it, although this is, for once, not a matter of Nora not getting it. She knows exactly what she’s doing. Driving me utterly insane. Taking me to the edge and not letting me fall. Maybe she doesn’t want this to end because she’s afraid of what might happen after. But no, in this bed, in this room, there’s no space for fear. It’s not welcome here.

My body doesn’t wait for Nora. My arousal needs a way out and is finding it against her tongue, no matter how softly she swirls it around my clit. She can try to drive me insane all she wants, I won’t let her.

Once the first tremor thunders through me, Nora catches up. She latches on to me, flicks her tongue with the purpose I wanted from her all along, and she lets me come. I shudder against her, my muscles releasing everything I’ve been holding onto the past week. I steady myself against the headboard, gasping for air.

“Fuck,” I sigh. I roll my head back and take a breath, fill my lungs with some much-needed air, before I clamber off her.

“Again,” Nora says, a smug grin on her face, “thanks for coming.”

It feels so good to laugh with her, to just let it all go, to let our bodies do the talking.

“Just wait until I catch my breath.”

Nora shakes her head, then slides on top of me. “I’ve waited long enough,” she says.

CHAPTER37

NORA

“I’m all over your face,” Mimi says, but kisses me regardless.

“Right where I want you,” I whisper in her ear. Because we can’t stop now. I won’t stop. Not because I’m chasing a climax—though I am pretty desperate for some release—but because I don’t want this to end. Here, in my bed, is where Mimi made me feel the safest I’ve ever felt, and I want to hold onto that feeling. I’m trying not to think about what might happen after we leave this room, when the sun comes up tomorrow and we face each other in the light of day. I want to stay wrapped up in her, under the cover of darkness, forever.

If only I could feel like this all the time. If only I could, for once and for all, shake the unease that lives under my skin, ready to swamp me whenever it pleases, whenever I’m not careful enough. That’s what Mimi does for me: she takes it away. She makes me dream of a life without it. Without the constant second-guessing and the self-doubt and the always there feeling that the real Nora Levine isn’t good enough for the outside world.

Here, with Mimi, there’s none of that. There’s only one version of me. There’s only me and her, what we have between us, and this love we make. This love that makes everything else go away. This love that replaces a million apologies and a thousand sorries that she doesn’t need me to say—because I don’t need to apologize for being who I am. For this person I’ve become, this random sum of my genetic material and the odd, extraordinary life I’ve lived so far. This person who is the consequence of the choices she made, good and bad. Wise or unwise. At least I had the wisdom to allow her in. To not let the urgency of my desire be hijacked by some negative thought spiral again. To just let it go. To just be—be with her. Because if this isn’t heaven on earth, I don’t know what is.

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