Chapter 18

He knows what he’s doing with that tongue of his, swirling it down my thick length, licking over my balls, sucking on me until I gasp his name, “Ricky,” a litany that erases the memory of this afternoon, the past, everything that isn’t this moment in time, this man before me, these lips on me. “Ricky,” and “God,” as I push up into him, over and over again, until I come in a rush of relief that washes through me, cleansing me in a way the alcohol couldn’t. I stutter his name in the same staccato way the salt hits the window outside. “Ricky, Ricky, rickyrickyricky yes. God, yes.”

He kisses me, his lips warm and tender on mine. I stroke his cheeks, the faint hair along his jaw rasping beneath my nails. He keeps kissing me with the same mindless intensity that made me down the whiskey. His hands are on my arms, my shoulders, massaging my neck. “Ricky.”

“I’m staying here tonight,” he says.