After the Party

Everyone else had left. Rohan was helping Aisha collect glasses from the living room when she turned around and they were suddenly much closer than the task required. The music had stopped. The apartment was very quiet. "You've been looking at me all night," Aisha said. She wasn't accusing him. She was watching him the same way. "I know," Rohan said. He set the glasses down. She was wearing a dark green kurta, her hair loose, a little wine-flushed and beautiful in the amber lamp light. He'd been friends with her for eight months — careful, considered friendship in which he'd told himself repeatedly that she wasn't interested, that he wasn't her type, that he should leave it alone. Looking at her now, he couldn't remember why any of that had felt convincing. "Aisha," he said. "Stop overthinking," she said, and stepped forward and kissed him. It went through him like voltage. He brought his hands up to her face, tilting her head, kissing her back harder than she'd started it, and she made a small noise of surprise and pleasure and pressed herself against him. He could feel her heart beating fast against his chest. His own was going faster. They made it to her bedroom without turning any lights on, navigating by the glow from the window, shedding clothes along the way. He took his time once she was beneath him — he'd imagined this too many times to rush it now. He kissed her collarbone, her breasts, the soft curve of her stomach, listening to the way her breathing changed, learning what made her grip the bedsheet and what made her say his name. She was spectacular: responsive and warm and completely herself, not performing or self-conscious, just present with him in a way that made his chest ache. When he finally settled between her thighs, she looked up at him with her hair spread across the pillow and her eyes dark and intent. "I've been thinking about this for a while," she admitted. "So have I," he said, and slid inside her. She arched up to meet him with a breathless sound, and he held still for a moment feeling the tight warmth of her, the way she clenched around him like she was trying to pull him deeper. Then he started moving — slow at first, watching her face, learning her rhythm — and her hands gripped his shoulders and her hips rolled up against his and somewhere in the next few minutes the slow rhythm became something much more urgent. She came with her thighs locked around him and her nails dragging down his back, shaking, and the sound she made — low and helpless and completely abandoned — undid him completely. He followed her over the edge with her name on his lips. Afterwards they lay in the dark, her head on his chest, his hand in her hair. "We probably should have done that months ago," Aisha said into his collarbone. Rohan laughed. "I know." "Don't tell me how long you've been thinking about it." "Eight months," he said. She propped herself up to look at him. Then she smiled — slow and a little wicked. "Me too," she said, and kissed him again.