Page 59 of Never Been Shipped

“Fuck,” she said. “You’re getting me so close.”

“You like doing this on the stage, don’t you?” he asked, his mouth close to her ear. “You like when you think someone might see.”

She moaned, rocking against him. “Yes,” she said, as if the word was torn out of her. “I do—I like it.”

“I spentyearswatching that ass move around the stage,” he said. “It drove me crazy. You in those tight pants, bending over, dancing, the way you’d roll those hips.” He slid his hands down under her ass, hitching her up on top of him, gratified by theway she arched her back, her breaths coming in short, desperate pants.

“You like thinking about me watching you, don’t you?” he asked. “You like thinking about what I might do if I saw a naked picture of you.”

He could feel the orgasm roll through her—the way her muscles clenched around him, her stomach tensed up, the way everything her body seemed to be coiled so tight and then, with a final guttural cry, she relaxed against him, breathing hard.

“Fuck,” she said again, but this time there was a different tone to her voice. It was half matter-of-fact, likeOkay, that happened, and half full of wonder, likeWhoa,thathappened. He pulled her toward him, kissing her until he felt his own orgasm edging closer, his dick still hard and aching inside her.

After a few minutes, she lifted herself off him, and even that sensation, the sudden rush of cold air on his dick, still wet fromher…When she lay on the stage and pulled him down on top of her, his moves weren’t quite as graceful as he would’ve liked, his knee bumping her thigh, his elbows on her hair, spread out on the wood floor.

“Sorry,” he said, shifting his weight after she tried to lift her head and winced a little.

“ ’Salright,” she said, wrapping her legs around his waist, her heels digging into the dip of his lower back. “You can make it up to me.”

He knew he’d never forget any of it. Not those small moments of awkwardness or humor, intimate in their own way. Not the way she looked, his black hoodie parted to show her perfect breasts, her nipples tight and wet from where he’d had his mouth on them. Not the sounds she made—high, breathygasps until he thrust harder, and then it’d be a low moan, ripped from somewhere in the back of her throat. Not the way shefelt, shuddering around him as she came again, his mouth pressed to hers in a hungry kiss, her hands tangled in his hair.

And then she was splayed out on the floor, her body loose and spent, and he reached up to encircle her wrist with his hand, as if to hold her in place. It wasn’t until she linked her fingers in his that he realized he was trembling, and she gave his hand a squeeze.

“I want you to come inside me,” she said. “Please.I want to be filled up with you.”

It was those words that did it, as much as anything else. John thrust inside her until he could feel his orgasm build at the base of his spine, bursting out of him in a series of shocks that vibrated through his entire body. John had never been particularly loud or quiet when he came—he’d never really thought about it before—but this time he couldn’t help the ragged, drawn-out expletive he half yelled as he spilled inside her.

Afterward, he lay on top of her, their bodies touching everywhere from where her breasts pressed against his chest to where she was rubbing her foot along his ankle bone. He braced himself on his forearms, not wanting to put all of his weight on her, and played with her hair that was spread out on the floor.

“You rock my world,” he said, able to keep a completely straight face until she swatted his arm, and then he couldn’t help but break.

She was laughing, too, covering her eyes with her hand. “New rules,” she said. “You can’t say any of those phrases to me during sexorfor the ten minutes afterward, especially if you’re still inside me.”

“Ten minutes? That seems harsh.”

“Five, then.” She grinned up at him. “Except the whammy bar exception, which extends for twenty-four hours in either direction around any sexual encounter.”

“Oh, so I can never say it,” John said. “Just put that into the rules if that’s what you mean.”

He was definitely being presumptuous. He was conscious of the fact that they were on borrowed time—there were less than two days left of the cruise, and then what? They lived across the country from each other. They’d discussed the past but hadn’t discussed any sort of future. He didn’t even know what a future could look like.

“I like not having too many rules,” Micah said, twining her fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck. “Except one I always follow is using the bathroom after sex—is there one in here, do you think, or do I have to go back out to the hallway?”

John knew she had a point, and they couldn’t stay like that lying on the stage forever. Still, it was with a little reluctance that he finally lifted himself off her, reaching down a hand to help her up.

“Let’s go look together.”

—

There wasn’t abathroom in the theater, but there was one right outside, so they’d both gotten dressed and made their way separately to the facilities. John made it back to the theater before Micah did, and he took a seat in the front row, staring up at their equipment still set up on the stage. He wanted to hang on to the euphoria from the last hour, the way it had felt, being with Micah. But the minute he’d started thinking about the future,his mind couldn’t seem to get off it, and now it tripped through a thousand different anxieties and doubts.

They still had to actually rehearse their song, but he wasn’t worried about that. The music part had always been easy between them, natural, a way of communicating that seemed so much less fraught than actual words. He knew that Micah had insecurities about playing guitar onstage, but it really was a fairly simple song. He had no doubt she’d be great. He was excited to see her do it.

His singing part got him a little more nervous, but even that he assumed would be fine. Micah would be able to coach him, and worst-case scenario he’d ask them to turn his mic down even more than they normally would for backing vocals. He’d be there to provide a little depth to the choruses but wouldn’t worry about his voice coming through too much.

The bit he couldn’t figure out was allthis, the stuff outside the music. After so many years of pining for Micah, of dreaming about her, of telling himself all the reasons why they couldn’t be together and it would never work…it couldn’t be this easy, could it? To simplybewith her?

And how did she feel? She got presumptuous herself, about the sex part. Helovedwhen she got presumptuous. He loved when she talked like everything they’d done had been inevitable, and it was a foregone conclusion that they’d keep doing it. But he didn’t know where she stood on anything else, if this was all fun for her, a way to relieve some tension, or if it meant something more. He didn’t know if he could trust her to be honest with him about her feelings, because he sure as hell hadn’t been honest with her about his. Lies of omission were still lies.

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