Roz's fingers curl away inside of me as she sucks gently on my clit. I'm on the edge of my bed, splayed awkwardly in front of her as she kneels on the floor, face pressed between my thighs.

I'm trying not to moan too loud—Nigel is still blasting his fucking opera bullshit, but I hate the idea of him (or anyone else) overhearing any of the tiny, pathetic little whimpering noises I can't help but make. The back of one of my hands is pressed against my mouth, clutched in a fist as I try to stop any embarrassing sounds from slipping through. The other is wrapped in Roz's hair, holding her firm against me as I try to stop myself from grinding against her face.

I normally don't last this long. Roz knows exactly how to push my buttons to get me to unwind beneath her. Hell, she's made me squirt before—something I'd always thought was fake at best, disgusting at worst (turns out, it's not) when I was with Gina. Roz knows exactly what to do to get me to writhe and moan and beg as she brings me to climax precisely when she desires it.

Which is how I know: she's enjoying this.

Her fingers change their movement, going from a teasing "come here" motion inside me to a rougher pounding that's hitting me deeper than I realized was even possible. I cry out softly despite the hand pressed to my lips, and I find my hips raising of their own accord. Roz's free hand reaches forward and presses against the bottom of my stomach, holding me down against the mattress.

"Please," I beg as my hips try to buck against her. My eyes are shut, my chin tilted up to the ceiling as I gape. My fingers wrap themselves in her hair, right at the roots, pulling her into me. "Please, Roz."

When she moves away to speak, it feels like added torture—until she lets go of my hips and uses her free hand to rub and tease and roll my clit.

"Does this feel good?" she asks. She presses a kiss against my thigh, then licks along the soft skin there, biting down softly and sucking. I know it'll leave a hickey. The very thought makes it even harder to stay quiet.

"Yes," I whisper, my hand leaving my mouth and moving to clutch my bedding. "Fuck, yes, Roz."

"You look so pretty like this, Marcella," she whispers, kissing my other thigh. "I love watching you try to keep quiet."

"Roz...." It's a groan. It's a whimper. It's a prayer.

"I need to fuck you more often," she whispers, leaning forward to lick my clit. Her tongue's warmth combined with the pressure of her thumb as the two both try to stimulate me makes me arch my back, pleading in near-silence to the ceiling.

Her thumb grinds down on my clit. I cry out sharply—my hand leaves my bedding and moves to cover my mouth again. My cheeks are hot, a likely crimson mixture of arousal and embarrassment.

"The things I want to do to you," Roz murmurs. I glance down and watch right as she leans forward to press a torturously light kiss against my folds. Her fingers haven't lost any of their tenacity—she's still fucking me roughly, her fingers hitting a spot that makes my legs shake and makes a wet, hot burn gather between my legs.

"I'm getting close." My breath is shallow. Tautness gathers. "Fuck, Roz, I'm close, I'm close."

"Do you think I'm going to let you come that easily?" she asks. Her thumb abandons my clit, and I feel its absence like an ache. My hips try to buck again—a vain attempt to call her back to me, to feel something, to feel anything—and she just chuckles, standing up slightly off her knees to finger-fuck me at a better angle. My hips follow her silent command, sinking back into the mattress. My knees spread farther, a silent request of their own. Begging her, urging her to come closer, to come deeper.

"Look at you," Roz says. "You're perfect."

She reaches forward and grabs my breast. It fits easily in her palm. There's not much there to work with, but she finds it, curling her fingers around the little amount of soft flesh that's there. Her teeth graze the inside of my thigh. I realize I want her to bite me again. Just the realization alone feels so fucking taboo that I have to fight off yet another moan.

"I–I need your tongue on me again," I manage between pants.

"You need my tongue?" She presses a deep kiss against my clit again, although this time, her thumb moves out of the way. Her fingers slow slightly. "You need my tongue where?"

"Y–you know where."

"Do I?" She withdraws her fingers, leaving me completely unstimulated. I sit up slightly, throbbing for her touch, trying not to cry. I'm taut and burning and sore and in desperate fucking need of her fingers inside me once more.

I prop myself up on my elbows and try not to pout. "Roz...."

She's sitting back on her knees, tying up her hair in a ponytail. She gives me this innocent, unknowing look. "What?"

"If you don't touch me, I think I might cry."

"Well," she says, "where do you want me to touch you?"

"Roz."

Her grin is wolfish. "Where do you 'need my tongue,' Marcella?"

Hearing her call me by my full name is doing something shameful to me. "I–I need it on me."

"On you, where?"

I know my face must be bright red. There's a heat that's worked its way up the back of my neck that currently feels all-consuming. "On my clit."

"I can do that," she whispers, winking and sinking down to my clit. She starts off slow this time—no more hard, no more fast, no more rough. Her tongue swirls around my sensitive, swollen hood, eliciting breathy moans and light gasps with each intentional swipe.

"Is that good?" she asks, moving back and spreading me open with her fingers. Her thumb takes over playing with my clit. I never knew before her how much I love being stretched out—it drives me fucking crazy. Of course, she knows this. She also knows I love hearing about it.

"You look so pretty like this," she whispers, because she knows I moan despite myself about everytime she says it. "Do you like it when I spread you open like this?"

It might be a whisper. I might not even say it aloud, just think it. Yes. Yes. Yes.

"What was that, lovely?"

"I–I like it."

"That's good," she whispers. "I'll have to do it more often."

I can't even vocalize it. Yes. Please. Yes.

Somewhere within the span of minutes to eternity, I've come, writhing and unclenching and squeezing around her fingers as her tongue continues with its strong, firm movements.

She lies next to me on the bed, watching quietly as I ride out the rest of my orgasm. When I'm finally done—still gasping for breath—she pokes my cheek, grinning.

"Soooo," she says, "personally, I think I killed that."

"You... are..."—I'm panting between words, like Stevie Kenarban— "a veritable... sex god." Then, unable to take how suddenly exposed I feel lying naked on my back, I grab the end of my comforter and wrap it around me, turning onto my side to face her eye-to-eye.

Her smile is infectious, but that's not what makes me laugh. There's a slight wet spot on her cheek. I reach forward (my limbs are weighted; I feel like I just had a full-body workout, holy shit) and swipe it away with the side of my thumb.

"What?" she asks, still smiling like she's the one who just came.

"You had ... bodily fluids on your face."

"Oh." She blinks. "I wonder how that got there?"

I groan and shove her shoulder. "Shut uuup."

She laughs, rolling onto her back, and sighs. Then she addresses the ceiling: "Everything's coming up Milhouse."

"Do you want me to return the favor?" I ask. Normally, where I can only take a round or two of pleasure back-to-back, Roz's stamina is seemingly limitless.

Ottilie's voice tings somewhere in the back of my head—What eligible bachelorettes haven't shared a bed with Roz?

Roz scooches closer and presses a soft kiss to my forehead. "I'm good," she says. "Don't worry about me."

"Are you sure?" I ask, sitting up. The comforter falls from around my shoulders. The temperature in my bedroom suddenly feels too warm. Stale. I need air movement—something, anything. I should get, like, a rotating fan for in here.

"Darling," she says, reaching up and running a hand along the arm currently propping me up, "yes. I'm fine."

"Really, I'd like to return the favor," I say, tucking my frizzy hair behind my ear and trying to smile in a way I'm praying is pretty. I've never seen Roz not raring to go immediately after she finishes me. She hasn't finished with anyone else, has she? Someone like Ottilie?

I try to push the twin wine glasses left in Roz's sink out of my mind.

"I'd really like for you to, too," Roz says, sitting up alongside me. "I'm on my period, though, and I don't want us to make a mess. It's ... it's crime scene day. It's just not worth it."

"Oh." My shoulders deflate, but—even through my embarrassment—breathing feels a little bit easier. Until that embarrassment, viscous and dark, crawls up over my shoulders, an invisible, chokingly-tight shroud. "Sorry."

"No," she says, intertwining our fingers, "it's okay. I like that you like reciprocating."

"Yeah." I give her hand a squeeze. "Sorry. I got, like, really in my head for a minute there."

"That's okay," she says softly. "Do you wanna talk about it and eat Pad Thai, or do you wanna eat Pad Thai after we talk about it?"

"Pad Thai after?"

She squeezes my hand back. "Okay. What's up?"

"I've been having some ... I guess, like, insecure thoughts?" I wait for her to say something, but when I look at her, she just nods me forward. "Ottilie kinda said some stuff about, um ... how she didn't think you could be loyal with me."

Something in her eyes flashes—something dark, something I don't know that I've seen from her before—and her lips purse, but she remains silent.

"I don't doubt you whatsoever," I say quickly. "I know that you're loyal. I have absolutely one hundred percent faith in you. A hundred-fifty percent. Hundred-sixty."

She pulls her hand back, still silent.

I wrap my arms around my knees, squeezing my hands together. "I wasn't feeling insecure because I thought you would ever cheat on me." Except for just now, I realize, and my stomach twists in around itself. "I love you. I know you love me. Just, sometimes ... I don't know. Us being around Ottilie all the time doesn't help."

"We don't have to go on set," Roz says. Her hands remain steepled together on her lap, but she doesn't seem angry. "If that would make you feel better."

"No, that's–that's not it." I shake my head. "If you want to be on set, then I want you there. I mean, this is your book baby. You've been working over a decade on it. You deserve to have a hands-on part in it. I don't like the idea of them ruining your book just because I freaked out and said you can't be there."

She purses her lips. "But, if—"

"You being around Ottilie isn't the problem. It's just the ... being around Ottilie part."

"Okay," she says. "So, is there anything you want me to change currently? Anything I can do to try and make you feel better? Aside from ripping Ottilie's head off with my bare talons and feeding it to a tank full of radioactive sharks?"

I shake my head and lean against her. "No. And, you don't have to say anything to her if you don't want to." Just, never speak to her again, is what I want to say, but refrain. "I don't want to cause drama for you guys. Just watch her go ahead and try to sabotage the movie or something out of spite."

Roz laughs. "She'd never. She's far too prideful to try and give a bad performance."

I hate that she knows her that well. "She does have that vibe."

We're quiet for a few minutes. I'm staring at the bag of Pad Thai on my dresser—I'm barely even hungry at this point. Thunder rumbles off in the distance, the first of what is supposed to be a slew of storms, per this week's weather forecast.

Finally, after the silence stretches to a point where it might become less comfortable, more awkward, Roz breaks the silence. "I'd never cheat on you, Marcie," she says quietly. "I need you to know that."

I turn into her, wrapping my arms around her and her baby pink tee. "I know."

She places a hand against the back of my head, gently massaging my scalp. I squeeze my eyes shut. "Seriously."

"I know."

"No, seriously. Even—" She pauses. "Just, I would never."

"I know." I pause in turn. "I love you."

"I love you too," she says, still massaging away at my scalp. "If Ottilie says anything else to you, you should tell me. Immediately, okay?"

"It's okay. Seriously, I can take it. I made it through the estrogen-ridden war zone that is middle school. I'm a big girl."

She snorts. "I bet Ottilie was the fucking worst when she was in middle school."

"I bet." I glance up at her. Her massaging hand pauses. "Was she this mean the whole time you guys were together?"

"Possibly?" Roz shrugs. "I was going through a lot at the time. I mean, my parents were going through this god-awful divorce, and it felt like my family was splitting apart, so I kind of didn't mind when she would be bitchy. I had someone in my corner, y'know?"

"Yeah," I say, rubbing her leg. "I get what you mean."

"I...." She pauses. "I haven't talked to my sister and brother since COVID, pretty much. Our dad is really conservative, and our mom moved back to St. Cloud during the pandemic. Moved in with my sister. I was fine with it, but she–she cheated on my dad. Like, before the move. And then my brother kind of sided with our dad during the whole thing, even though he's not a QAnon freak like my dad.

"And, honestly, it's just hard, being in the public eye like this." She resumes her massaging, but she's not looking at me. She's staring at the wall. "I came out really young. Right before gay marriage was even legalized. So my dad pretty much stopped talking to me, and initially, my mom followed suit, because she just did whatever my dad did. My siblings were both still in high school at the time, and they never—" She stops.

I squeeze my arms around her torso. She swipes away at one tear, then another. "Sorry," she says, her voice suddenly stuffy. "It's–it's my period."

"Totally," I mutter, even though I'm not entirely sure it's her period. "I get it."

She exhales slowly, trying to calm herself. "Sorry."

"Don't say sorry."

"My ... my siblings never really checked in on me," she says slowly. She doesn't bother to swipe away the last tear that slowly trickles down her cheek. "I just ... I'd initially felt so emboldened by New York. It was okay to be queer here. I came out. It was fairly big news. And then, suddenly, I was so alone. I had no close friends here, aside from Cat, and it just felt like my family completely cut me out of their lives."

"I'm so sorry, Roz."

She shakes her head slowly, sniffling once. "It's fine. Well"—she laughs, and it's thick, vaguely snotty—"it's not 'fine,' but I'm okay."

"Yeah," I say quietly. "They've never tried to talk to you?"

"Not really. We all text happy birthdays and Merry Christmas, but that's about it. We don't even text when I get a new deal anymore. Like, I don't think they've acknowledged a book sale of mine since The Wonderful Ellie Latimer was announced."

"I'm so sorry, honey."

She sighs. "It's okay. I've had time to get over it. Just, I guess Ottilie was the person that was there for me at the time. Call it young love, call it dependence, whatever. But, I think that's why I ignored everything that was wrong with her."

I squeeze her again. "I think we've all been there. It's okay."

She laughs again. "Thanks, lovely." She seems to shake her off, swiping one last time at her cheeks, eradicating any glimpse of tears freshly shed. "Okay. Well. Pad Thai time?"

I sit up and kiss her cheek lightly. "Pad Thai time."