Daveia

“The train empties a bit. They sit down and let their knees brush. She wouldn’t have noticed it before, but now? The friction of her tights against his pants feels so…apparent.

Josh: We walk to my apartment. I take off every winter layer you have on.

She runs the knuckles of her right hand across her lips, reciting the stops in her head…Twenty-third Street, Union Square, Eighth Street… Maybe this will be a sort of freebie. A blip.

Josh: Probably in the elevator.

Even though another bead of sweat meanders down the curve of her lower back, Ari takes her crocheted rainbow scarf out of her bag and winds it around her neck, high enough to cover the lower half of her face.

Josh: You get on my bed, or my kitchen table or any surface you prefer. And I make you come all afternoon.

Ari bites down on the inside of her lower lip almost hard enough to draw blood. It would be smarter to pump the brakes right now. Give it some breathing room. But her brain is only providing one piece of data: I want you. She plays it back, trying to decide whether he’d placed the emphasis on want or you. He’s not looking at the person to her left. He’s not evaluating. He’s tugging on something—some loose thread that never quite got mended after Cass left. She swallows hard. Her thumbs say fuck breathing room and press down on the gas.

Ari: The surface I prefer is your face.”
― Kate Goldbeck, You, Again

“You have a pattern of doing things you don't enjoy for the sake of others, and I need to be sure the two of us don't fall into it. I need to know you're not initiating something with me because it's something you think I expect. And I need to be certain that you don't feel like you have to be some fantasy lay whose only focus is my pleasure. That you are in a place where you are able to acknowledge and articulate your needs.”
― Ali Hazelwood, Love, Theoretically

“Don’t fucking test me, Charley. You know you’re mine.”
“No, actually,” I whispered, cupping his jaw, and rubbing my thumb over the scruff on his cheek. “I don’t know. Because we never talked about what comes next.”
“You,” he breathed, pressing forward until I was flat against the mattress. “You’re what comes next.”
― E.L. Koslo, Accidental Abduction

“Know your worth, Daniel. I wish it had always been as easy to know mine.”
― Abby Jimenez, Part of Your World