The circling motion of Lou’s finger became more insistent and Mia had trouble keeping her eyes from screwing shut because the intensity was too much to bear open-eyed. Was this it then? She asked herself in those moments when all went dark before her eyes, before it all blazed into an expanse of white as another jolt of about-to-be-met lust shot through her. Was this the beginning of love? Was she falling in love with the most unlikely person? Was she showing herself a way she had never followed before? Thoughts like these spurred her on to keep her eyes open and to meet Lou’s gaze as her climax approached, searching for the answers in the expressions of Lou’s face.

But then Lou’s finger abruptly stopped circling and slipped inside Mia, making her cry out in a heartfelt moan.

Lou’s smile widened and it was the kind of smile that connected with every fiber in Mia’s body, that ignited a fire in her every cell. To see Lou smile like that. To be the source of it.

Lou fucked her slowly, staying away from her clit, but it didn’t matter, because Mia was already well on her way to orgasm. She’d been waiting and the points of her body that were now graced by Lou’s touch reacted much more excessively, because they marked the spot where Mia’s physical pleasure was originating. They could have been any spot that Lou touched inside her, they might just as well have been Mia’s lips as they drew into a smile, or her knee that stood up straight, or her hair that kept falling into her eyes. None of it mattered, because Lou’s finger was doing exactly what it had entered Mia for. It was delivering her from any last thought, any last belief that the old Mia might still exist. Because the Mia with Lou’s finger inside of her, and with Lou’s intentions connected to hers through that very finger, could only be the person she already knew she had become. The person she had always been.

Mia bucked her hips to meet the last of Lou’s strokes as the fire inside her swelled. Mia cried out again and Lou took it down a notch. But Mia kept bucking, wanting to feel Lou’s finger inside of her, wanting to ride out this climax and prolong the meaning it imprinted on her brain.

When she finally allowed Lou to withdraw her finger, tears streamed down Mia’s cheeks and, as she let her legs fall shut, she buried her face in Lou’s long hair.

Lou threw an arm around her and held her close. She didn’t say anything. Didn’t ask if Mia was all right. They were still in the space of wordless atonement, of their bodies speaking the ultimate truth. Mia knew her tears said more than her words ever could.