Page 72 of Never Been Shipped

His fingers dug into her hips as he slammed her back against him, and then he was fucking her fast and hard just the way she’d wanted it. Eventually he reached down between her legs, pressing against her clit as he continued to rail her from behind.

“Come for me, honey,” he said. “Just let go.”

The way it was building inside her, it was almost painful, too much sensation, too much pressure, too muchhim, too much, too much. When it finally ripped through her body, she couldn’t stop the guttural scream that was torn from her mouth at the same time, the way she could feel everything clench and spasm and release, leaving her boneless and weak as she felt John holding her up, his own body shuddering as he came inside her.

“Fuck,” he said.

And then she started to cry. She had no idea why—she was embarrassed by the suddenness of it, theforceof it, the way there was no hiding it. She cried harder than she’d cried in years.

“Hey,” John said, wrapping his arm around her. “Hey. Oh god, Micah, I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

She shook her head, unable to say anything more, even though she wanted to assure him that he definitely hadn’t hurt her. She knew this was a disproportionate response to sex—she didn’t even know exactly what it was a responseto, if it was a by-product of having the best orgasm of her life, all those chemicals coursing through her body, or if there was more to it than that. She reached up to grab his hand and gave it a squeeze.

He’d been stretched out over her back, and there was something comforting about the weight of him like that, holding her down. But her knees were still tucked beneath her, and she had to shift to stretch out her legs, which felt wobbly and tingly andincapable of anything remotely close to walking. He rolled off her until he was lying next to her, their bodies pressed together as he rubbed circles on her back.

“What is it?” he asked as she started to calm down, her tears mostly stopped, only the occasional sniffle to remind her of that wave of emotion. “Talk to me.”

She was still lying on her stomach, and she turned her head on the pillow, so she’d be able to look him in the eyes if it weren’t so dark that she couldn’t see. She imagined that she’d see his love for her there, that maybe she could’ve always seen it, if she’d only thought to look. He hadn’t hurt her, but she was worried she’d hurthim, because she’d never seemed to figure out how to do the romantic stuff. She wanted to be better at it for him, wanted to be better at itwithhim, but she was scared that she didn’t know how.

“I’m good,” she said. “It’s all good. It’s just…”

She didn’t know how to finish that sentence, how to even put everything into words. She didn’t know if therewerewords. She was grateful when this time he did step in to try to give her some.

“A lot?”

“A fuckton of a lot,” she agreed, and she could feel his smile, knew that he caught her reference back to what he’d said after their first show on the cruise. His hand was resting on her back now, no longer moving, just a steady, warm reminder that he was there.

“I don’t want to break any of your rules,” he said. “Do you need me to carry you to the bathroom?”

She laughed, but it only reminded her of what a mess herface must be, tears still wet on her cheeks, her nose starting to run. “I can do it,” she said. “Just give me a second.”

He touched her temple, his fingers finding the hair that had stuck to her face in the dark, carefully combing it away until he could cup her cheek. There was such tenderness to the gesture she almost started crying all over again.

“Take your time,” he said.

Chapter

Thirty-One

When they wokeup for the second time, it was well into the last full day of the cruise, and suddenly the event that had seemed so far away now felt like it was coming up too fast, before they had the chance to get ready.

Micah went back to her room to start her own preparations—apparently some designer she knew had supplied the dress for her to wear, and it was being held somewhere else on the ship where it would be steamed and altered in any way she needed it to be.

And John had his own things to do to get ready, which helped keep him occupied so his nerves couldn’t get to him. No matter how much he’d assured Micah that they were good, that their performance was going to go off without a hitch, he couldn’t help the butterflies in his own stomach when he thought about that night.

He also was very conscious that no matter how close he’d felt with Micah, no matter how easy they’d left things whenthey’d parted to meet up later at prom…he’d told her that he loved her and she hadn’t said it back.

He wasn’t sorry that he’d told her. It was past time, and it had felt good to get it off his chest, to know that everything was out in the open. He’d been prepared for the possibility that she wouldn’t feel the same way, and had told himself it was still worth it to say the words even if they only ever went in one direction.

John finished his last errand and decided to stroll the deck of the ship, already feeling a bit of that painful nostalgia that hits when you haven’t yet left a place you know you’re going to miss. He’d spent the past four days on a cruise and had barely had the chance to scrape the surface of what it offered. He hadn’t hit up the soft serve machine once. Maybe he should book himself on another cruise, once this was all over, one where he could just sit by the pool and stare out at the ocean and sit in the back row of the Starlight Theater to watch someone else put on a show.

“How late did y’all sleep?” Frankie asked, coming up on him. They’d ended up at the shuffleboard court, he realized, although nobody was playing.

“I don’t even want to admit to it,” he said. He realized that he’d probably already admitted to something, just by responding in that way to their query. But he’d gotten the impression last night that Frankie already knew about him and Micah, and that they weren’t bothered.

“Piece of shit o’clock?” Frankie said, grinning at him. It’s what they’d used to call it, when they slept past noon while on tour, even though there was almost no way around a fucked-upsleep schedule in those kinds of conditions. With Micah, especially. She’d always been able to stay up the latest of any of them, and he’d always wanted to hang right there with her.

“Piece of shit thirty,” he said. “What about you? Did you head to bed right after you left?”

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