Chapter 482 | Dame Dame Dame

Chapter 482: 482 | Dame Dame Dame

Jordan turned the words over while her thumb moved across his knuckles. Back in January, wanting had never felt like a choice to him. It had felt like a reflex, a card swipe at Nordstrom, an hour spent outside a sorority house waiting on a girl who answered "k" to a paragraph.

"You sound like a hostage negotiator who reads self-help books in the bath."

Chloe’s mouth twitched before she flattened it back into place.

"I sound like someone who got chosen instead of bought. Those are two separate experiences, and I’d like her to have the good one."

Kumiko stirred in his lap and mumbled something about spring rolls being a human right. She resettled with her cheek mashed against his thigh, and a damp spot began forming on his sweatpants from her open mouth. Jordan looked down at the drool, considered his options, and decided this was his life now and he was thriving.

"She’s drooling on me."

"She drools on everyone she trusts. It’s a compliment, so take it and shut up."

The light outside went from gold to purple to the bruised orange of harbor lamps. Chloe stayed curled at her end of the sectional, scrolling and frowning and occasionally typing a single furious word into some document. Jordan didn’t ask what it was. Six weeks ago he would have asked four times and then apologized for asking, so silence felt like a promotion.

Around nine, Kumiko jolted awake so hard her forehead clipped his chin.

"Ow, hey, okay, ow."

"I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I dreamed the delivery man stole my turn and then opened a Thai restaurant with it!"

She sat up on his thighs with her hair sticking out on one side and a crease from his sweatpants seam printed across her cheek. Jordan’s grey henley hung off her shoulder, and the pink ribbon on her wrist had come halfway undone. She blinked at him, then at Chloe, and her whole face went from confused to tragic in under a second.

"He did steal it, though. My turn got stolen by pad see ew."

Chloe didn’t look up from her phone, but her eyebrow moved a full centimeter.

"So take it back. Nobody’s stopping you."

"Here? On the couch? While you’re right there?"

"I was right there four hours ago. You held my hand, and you cried on my shoulder. You’re overthinking furniture."

Kumiko turned back to Jordan with her lower lip trembling and her fingers twisting the hem of his shirt. Her pulse was going so fast he could see it jumping under the faded mark on her throat. She opened her mouth to say something that would probably run three paragraphs and include a citation from Dr. Nakamura.

Jordan put his hand on her head before she could start.

Heat rolled out of his palm and down into her, and Kumiko melted like butter on a hot pan. Her shoulders sank, her eyes went half-lidded, and a long wobbly "mmmmnh" leaked out of her throat. She swayed forward until her forehead landed on his chest.

"Cheater. You’re such a cheater, Jordan-kun."

"You were about to give a speech."

"It had bullet points. Good ones."

He tilted her chin up and kissed her. She tasted like tamarind and strawberry lip balm, and she kissed him back hard and messy, her nose bumping his and her small hands fisting in his collar. Her thighs squeezed around his hips. She made a tiny "nn, nn" sound into his mouth every time his tongue moved against hers, and Jordan felt himself go from interested to fully committed in about four seconds.

Kumiko felt it too and broke the kiss with a squeak.

"You’re, um. Hello. That’s very hello."

"Yeah, that tends to happen."

"Already? You had a whole session at two o’clock. Chloe screamed so loud the building probably lost value."

From the far end of the couch, Chloe sipped her chamomile without any expression at all.

"His body doesn’t do recovery periods, Kumi. I have a spreadsheet tab about it."

Jordan pulled the henley over Kumiko’s head, and she lifted her arms to help. Her hair tumbled down around her bare shoulders, and her skin had gone pink from her collarbones down to her small breasts. She started to fold her arms across herself, caught the look Chloe gave her, and dropped them back to her sides with a shaky breath.

"Okay. Not hiding. Page thirty-seven, line one, no hiding."

Jordan kissed the freckles on her shoulder and dragged his mouth across to the old bite mark on her neck. He sucked on it until she gasped, "Hah, ahh, that’s going to be purple again," and grabbed the back of his head to hold him there. He slid his hand down the curve of her spine and into the waistband of her pink sleep shorts. She was soaked, and when his fingers found her she jerked against his palm with a high whimpering "Ahn!"

"Kumi, you’re wet already."

"I watched you and Chloe for forty minutes! I’m a person! I have nerve endings!"

He worked two fingers into her slowly. Shlk, shlk, the sounds were obscene in the quiet loft, and Kumiko’s hips started rolling against his hand all on their own. Her fingernails dug crescents into his shoulders. She babbled something in Japanese that ended in "dame, dame, dame," which Jordan was pretty sure meant the opposite of what she actually wanted.

Chloe set her mug down on the coffee table with a soft clink.

"Shorts off. You’ll ruin the cushion again, and I’m not explaining another stain to the Wayfair warranty people."

Kumiko scrambled to obey, kicking the shorts off one leg and leaving them dangling from her ankle. Jordan shoved his sweatpants down his hips. Kumiko looked down between them, and her eyes went enormous.

"The angle is still lying to me. Chloe, tell him the angle is lying."

"The angle is fine. Sit down."

She sat down.

She sank onto him an inch at a time, her mouth falling open and her breath coming out in tiny broken pieces. "Ah, ah, ahhh, Jordan, it’s so, nngh, deep, why is it always deeper than I remember?" Her walls clenched around him in hot little pulses. When her hips finally met his, she froze in place, shaking, with both palms flat against his chest.

"Breathe, Kumi."

"I am breathing! I’m breathing so hard! This is the hardest I’ve ever breathed!"

He held her waist and waited until the trembling eased. Then she started to move. Her first few rolls were shy and clumsy, but her body figured it out faster than her brain did. Within a minute she was bouncing on him, her twin tails of hair long gone and her loose black waves swinging against his collarbones. The couch springs went creak, creak, creak under them, and every time she came down there was a wet slap of skin that made her moan louder.

"Ahh, ahh, Jordan-kun, ahh, it’s hitting, it’s hitting the spot, nnngh!"

Jordan planted his feet and started meeting her on the way down. Pap, pap, pap, his hips drove up into her hard enough to jolt her whole small frame. Kumiko’s head fell back, and she grabbed his wrists for balance. Her breasts bounced with every thrust, and her mouth hung open in a long continuous "Ahhhhhh" that rose higher each time he hit bottom.

Chloe had pulled her knees up to her chest and was watching over the rim of her glasses. Her cheeks were pink. She didn’t look away once.

"Use the hand thing on her lower back. She stores her stress there from the sewing machine."