Status Updates From Playing the Game (Neighborl...

I’m laughing already ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

“So in those three hours, you received some insufficient foreplay, some apologetic cuddling, and some small bit of pain?”

She smiled. She’d complained, later, of the same disappointments, though in more colorful terms. “Yes.”

“Ah. You deserve better than that, my dear. Much better.”

Henry is brilliant. This virginity do-over reminds me of a similar scene in Reisz’s The Rose.

Maybe it’s my autism, but I love reading scenes where the formality of kink is mixed with instinctive care and tenderness.

“You are not a bother, my dear. You are a friend. And right now, you are exhausted.” He paused, smiled gently. “Much as you will be after our evenings together. You’ll require time to recover your equilibrium before you depart.”

“I will?”

Is this a quote? It doesn’t matter, this poetic love-talk makes me melt. Both Jay and Henry are loving on her, and Henry is commenting (Jay’s mouth is busy).

“‘Love is a war of lightning, and two bodies ruined by a single sweetness. Kiss by kiss I cover your tiny infinity, your margins, your rivers…’”

Holy cow, this slow, delicious seduction. Henry (Dom) is directing the pleasure. Jay is a sub.

“Jay is making his apology, dearest. It’s only fitting he make it with his mouth, as his mouth has given the offense. Go on, Jay. You’ve practiced enough.”

Such elegant dirty talk. *swoon.* He has her bent over a table.

“Beautiful,” Henry murmured. “Slick and heavy with need. Such an intoxicating blush. You feel it, don’t you, Alice? The blood racing through you? Settling here and throbbing, aching? Waiting?”

MQ had me at this excellent discussion is art between two of the main characters.

“My aesthetic is in the form of things. The look, captured in a single moment. But for you?”

“I like it when things fit. Everything has a place, and it contributes to every other piece in the whole. The structure is disciplined and orderly. It has its own…music, I guess. Rhythm.”

I am convinced that there is going to be a late plot twist that Henry is actually a ghost from the 1700s because why else would a Mainer living in Boston talk like that

Jay(: