I do it again, touching myself exactly the way I need, and I can’t help the sound that rises from my throat. Pleasure concentrates low and sharp, irresistible.

“More,” he encourages me, moving inside me now, retreating and returning with gaining momentum.

I can’t stop. Perhaps this is what I’ve always needed without really knowing it, to love myself without shame and without reservation.

He praises me with dark words, tells me he’s proud of me, tells me what I’m doing to him. He asks me if it’s good, when he has to know. I’m crying out nonstop as I climb higher and higher, lifting my hips to meet his every thrust, clenching down uncontrollably.

“Are you with me?” he asks in between ragged breaths. “I’m close. I don’t know if—”

I pull his head down so I can kiss him, and he groans and kisses me back. Grasping my ass with both hands, he pulls me closer as he drives into me faster. It’s that touch of desperation in his actions that ruins me.

All my muscles contract as I stiffen, arching into him. At the same time, I feel myself opening wider, getting softer, trembling. I want to tell him that I’m with him, I want to tell him what’s happening, but all I can say is his name.

I call out his name as I reach the pinnacle. I call out his name as I convulse around him, raw repleted sounds trilling from my lips. I call out his name as I’m completely undone.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Quan

THERE IS NOTHING BETTER THAN ANNA COMING APART around me, crying my name over and over again. Nothing in the whole world.

She tries to kiss me, to move with me, but her convulsions are too strong. She’s lost all coordination, and I fucking love that.

I’m right on the edge, but I hold back and slow down so I can draw this out. I’m going to be the best she’s ever had. I need that. She’s never, ever going to forget tonight.

When her tight grip on my cock relaxes and she sighs and withdraws her hand from between us, I force myself to stop. Gritting my teeth, I pull free of the warm clasp of her body and turn her around onto her knees. My name is a question on her lips, and I reassure her with kisses on her neck, her shoulder. I run my palm up and down her back before tilting her hips upward, positioning myself at her entrance, and pushing slowly into her.

The feel of her taking me inch by inch, the sound of her soft moans, is almost more than I can take, and against all odds, I harden further. Sensation courses over my scalp and down my spine, and everything that I am concentrates low, clamors to rush into her. It’s pure desperation, pure need, but I refuse to give in. I follow her arm down to her hand and press it between her legs as I kiss her neck, silently demanding she touch herself.

“I don’t know if I can,” she says. “I already—”

“Just try it?” I whisper, smoothing my hands along her sides, massaging the curves of her perfect ass as I fight the urge to move. “If it’s too much, stop.”

The slippery sound of her fingers flickering over her clit reaches my ears at the same time that she gasps and locks down on my cock, making my abs clench and my hips jerk involuntarily. It feels so fucking good that I can’t resist drawing back and repeating the motion.

“Is it too much?” I ask. I try to hold still, but my hips move without my permission, stroking into her with a steady rhythm.

“No,” she says, her voice pitched high with urgency.

She rocks back sharply, meeting each of my thrusts, and our bodies slap together loudly as her cries come faster and faster. When she reaches for me and kisses me over her shoulder with wild sweeps of her tongue, moaning against my mouth with every breath, I know she’s close, and it gives me the deepest sense of satisfaction.

I cover her tits with my palms and tweak the tight points of her nipples, and her body tenses like she’s been struck by lightning. Her breath tears. She trembles in my arms, drawn so tight she’s a hairsbreadth from breaking. I keep kissing her, keep teasing her nipples, keep stroking my cock into her relentlessly, because that’s what you do when something’s working—you keep doing it. I keep doing it until I’m nearly delirious with the need to come.

And then it happens. She cries out. She comes hard, like she’s releasing a lifetime’s worth of tension, and it fills me with elation. I might not be whole, I might not be perfect, but I can be what Anna needs.

Holding her as she falls apart, I let go. I fall with her.

TWENTY-NINE

Anna

EARLY MONDAY MORNING, QUAN AND I SIT IN HIS CAR OUTSIDE my parents’ house. It’s 7:56 A.M. A good daughter, a good person, would run inside and take over for her mom, give her those extra four minutes.

Me, I want my four minutes.

My weekend away should have given me the energy to tackle this. Indeed, I slept through most of my vacation—most of Saturday and then half of Sunday as well—and when I was awake, my time with Quan was easy and relaxed.

Yesterday, we went to the pancake house by my apartment for brunch, and we took selfies with mountains of fancy pancakes in the foreground. After that, I showed him my favorite places in the city—a café with the best espresso, an art gallery where they don’t mind if you eat your lunch on the benches and admire the work, a park that presents different modern sculptures every month. Everything was within walking distance of the Davies Symphony Hall, my world is small after all, but Quan never mentioned it. He never asked me about my music. I’m grateful for that. When we got home, I promptly fell asleep on the couch and didn’t wake up until late evening. I was starving but still exhausted, so Quan ran out for takeout and we watched the documentary My Octopus Teacher as we ate. Then we cuddled, which led to kissing, which led to touching, which led to my bedroom and another night of the most glorious sex.

But even after all that, I don’t feel well rested or restored. There’s a knot in my stomach and dread in my heart.

I do not want to go into that house.

“Are you going to be okay?” Quan asks.

I put a smile on without thinking. “Yeah.” That might be the truth, so it’s not quite a lie. It feels like one, though, and I correct myself, saying, “Maybe. I don’t know.”

He considers me for a moment before saying, “I’m worried this isn’t good for you. Is there any way you guys can get help? You’re clearly not hurting for money, so—”

“It has to be me. It has to be family,” I say firmly.

“I mean, yeah. I get it. But you’re not doing well. Anna, I think you were only awake for eight hours the entire weekend.”

Wincing, I say, “I’m sorry. That wasn’t a cool thing for me to do when we were supposed to be spending time together.”

He releases a frustrated sigh. “I’m not complaining. I’m worried.”

I slump back in my seat and stare out the window at the house. “There’s nothing we can do about it. It’s hard for everyone, and I need to tough it out just like everybody else.”

He begins to reply, but the time on the clock changes to 8:00 A.M. Gathering my things from the floor by my feet, I say, “I have to go. Text me when you get to work?”

“Yeah, I’ll text you,” he says in a resigned voice.