I untwist my knotted scarf and let it fall onto the kitchen counter beside me, because I want nothing more than this woman’s lips on my neck, her mouth on my earlobe, her tongue on every inch of my skin. Jack understands the secret code of my blue scarf removal, and she dips her head to kiss the hinge of my jaw, the curve of my ear. Hot breath and careful touches and her hands, never once leaving my body.

I’ve never felt this way before. Cared for. Cherished. Her kisses are some magic combination of tender and feral, making me feel both deliciously heedless and, somehow, impossibly secure.

Like she might push me off a cliff, but she’s going to hold my hand the entire time. Like I can trust her, no matter what. It’s safe to feel this way, my brain tells my body. So my body feels.

“We don’t have to do this,” she says as she traces the tip of her nose down the length of my throat, causing a cascade of shivers to waterfall through my body.

“I know,” I say, shivering, shivering.

“We don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with.”

“That’s… um, nice,” I manage as her kisses turn wet, as her mouth finds new places to land—my clavicle, where she wanted to put a tattoo; the top of my rib cage; the peekaboo of my breasts in my oversize T-shirt.

“Seriously,” Jack insists. Hands never leaving my waist. An anchor. A life vest. “The waiting is hot.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And—” Her fingers squeeze into the soft flesh of my waist, and for some reason, I don’t feel self-conscious about it the way I have with other people, having them hold onto a part of my body I’m still learning to love. Trust, my brain says. Trust, my body echoes. Let go.

“And”—Jack tries again, mouth and tongue and teeth—“I want you to want it like I want it, and if you’re not there yet, or if you need more time, or if you just want to—”

“Jack.” She looks up, and I press my forehead to her forehead, my nose to her nose. “I want it.”

She swallows. “But… it’s only been a day.”

My fingers find the sides of her beautiful neck. “I thought we’d decided it’s been forever.”

She finally drops her hands from my waist. Jack turns her body, and I watch the twist of muscles in her stomach, in her neck, as she reaches across the counter and traces a finger along the trackpad of a laptop. She cues up her Spotify playlist and presses play and comically shatters the magic of this moment with—“ ‘Call me Maybe’? Really? This song isn’t sexy at all.”

Jack swivels back to face me, smile curling in the corner of her kiss-swollen mouth. “Who says I’m trying to be sexy?”