We made it back to the hotel as quickly as we could, the two of us speed-walking the whole way. The elevator was slow, so we raced up the stairs together, hands clutched, giggling like girls. Amelia fiddled with the key for a while and then flung the door open for us, pulling me in behind and putting the No Molestar sign on the outside of the door before closing and locking it. Then she turned toward me, grinning.
I leaped at her, and my quickness caught her off guard. I kissed her like she’d kissed me earlier, hard and brutally. She seemed too surprised to stop me and let me control her through my mouth. I pushed her into the wall behind her and heard her back slap the hard surface. Moving my lips from hers, I trailed downward onto her neck, feeling her racing heartbeat in her pulse. Her breathing was ragged and harsh, and her clear excitement made me feel powerful and sexy. She let me continue to kiss and suck on her neck for a moment, and I risked reaching up under her shirt to touch her breasts again. I was used to her resisting this move, but now, for the second time in one day, she let me touch them. Her nipples were hard under her bra, and when I touched them, she groaned with something like true yearning.
This went on for a long moment until, as if she couldn’t stand it anymore, Amelia seemed to wake out of her pleasured daze. Before I knew it, she was pushing back with her mouth and hands, maneuvering me farther into the bedroom. My legs hit the edge of the bed behind me, and then we were falling, Amelia on top of me and between my legs. We made out for several minutes, pausing to fling off various pieces of clothing, until I was naked and she was down to her underwear. Having so much of her skin against mine was different and extremely distracting. I wanted to stop her and kiss every inch of her.
Her kisses were starting to hurt, but it was exactly the kind of pain I like—mixed with pleasure. Because of Amelia, I’d finally begun to explore some of my own, long-suppressed sexual cravings, chief of which was rough sex. We’d experimented off and on with another one of my secret cravings, some elements of S&M. Our S&M, however, had no rigid rules and wasn’t implemented every time we made love. I simply liked to be teased to distraction, tied up, and spanked. We’d talked about going a bit further than the riding crop we occasionally used, but I was leaving that up to Amelia. Often, we were so overcome with desire, we didn’t have time to put many of the props we owned into our foreplay.
Today, however, Amelia was clearly in the mood for something a little different. After kissing me long enough to make my lips feel bruised and hot, she sat up and then got out of bed, walking toward her suitcase. I knew without speaking about it that she was getting something to use on me, and I took the opportunity to climb farther onto the bed, away from the edge. She turned around, holding two pairs of metal handcuffs, a set of metal ankle shackles, and something black and plastic. We’d used scarves and silks to tie me up before, but never anything so rough and menacing. I couldn’t help but flush dark with desire. I gave Amelia a slight nod to let her know I approved, and she walked toward me, slowly, her expression sly and mischievous.
She reached the foot of the bed and held out one of her hands, and I lifted one foot obediently. She locked my foot into one of the shackles, and the chill of the metal on my skin intoxicated me. A moment later she held her hand out for the other foot, and I raised it for her. She locked my other ankle in the second bracket, and my feet were very effectively locked together. I could spread my legs a little—slightly more than shoulder width, but no farther. The metal, unlike the silks we normally used, had absolutely no give, and the idea that my legs were locked in place was so exciting, my skin prickled with heat.
“You like that?” Amelia asked me, one eyebrow raised.
I could only nod.
“Good. I’m going to fasten the chain between your ankles to the bed. You won’t be able to move. Is that okay?”
Again, I nodded.
Ankles chained together and to the bed, I was effectively pinned from the waist down. I could still twist and move my upper body, but not for long. A moment later, Amelia was slapping the handcuffs on my wrists, attaching them to the bedframe behind me. Completely chained up, I could hardly move anything except my torso.
Finally, she held up the last thing: a pair of darkened goggles.
She pointed at the lenses. “These will make it impossible for you to see.” She pointed at the sides, which had two thick pieces of cloth along the earpieces. “And these will make it hard for you to hear.”
She waited again for me to nod and then slipped the goggles on over my head. The world went dark and quiet. I could still sort of hear her moving around. I wasn’t completely deafened, but like she said, I couldn’t see a single thing. Immobilized, blind, and deaf, I was at her mercy.
She made me wait a very long time—or at least what felt like a very long time. I didn’t like to be gagged, and she liked to be able to hear my excitement, so my mouth was free, but I wasn’t supposed to talk or ask questions. If I did, she would simply extend my torture, and I was already so worked up, I was on the verge of a spontaneous orgasm. I needed her hands on me, and I needed them soon, or I was going to lose it.
Something cold and thin touched my leg. Unable to see it, I had to guess, and after a moment or two, I surmised that it was our riding crop. I hadn’t realized she’d brought it. My heart, already racing, began to pound, my excitement somehow rising despite its already ridiculous heights. A moment later the riding crop was slapping my upper leg. The pain sent a jolt through me, and I couldn’t help but gasp and twist in my bindings. Nothing happened for a moment longer, and when she slapped my other leg, I let out a little shriek of painful pleasure. Part of what made this situation so delicious was not knowing what was coming. We’d used blindfolds before, but the device she’d put on me today was much, much better—I couldn’t see a thing.
I was gasping now, the air whistling in and out of my lungs, and she left me there for a long time, my frustration building with each passing second. Finally, just when I thought I’d have to start begging her to touch me, her weight shifted to the foot of the bed as she climbed up onto it. She kept her hands on either side of me, an inch or two from my skin, as she crawled up the bed on her hands and knees. I could feel her breath on my face when she finally got there, but she wasn’t actually touching or kissing me. She must have been holding herself above me with her arms and legs. We stayed that way for a long time, me gasping and her completely silent. I knew she was there, but I didn’t know what she was doing. I was tired of waiting, and I had to bite my lip to keep from begging her to do something, anything. She would drag this sweet torture out if I said anything, though. Nevertheless, a high, shaky groan started to come out of my mouth, and I felt rather than saw Amelia react.
Her weight came down on me as she sat astraddle one of my legs. She put her hands on my stomach, just resting them there, and I squirmed under her, trying to get her to do more. She pinched my nipples in response, and I stilled. That was her warning. If I didn’t let her do what she wanted, she would stop completely. I made myself go still and took a long, shaking breath. Whatever she had in store for me would be better than anything she would do if I rushed her.
Finally, as if hearing my silent assent, she began to trace her fingers up and down the skin on my chest and breasts. She would pause, playing absently with my nipples, and then continue, as if she didn’t know how good it felt for her to touch them. At last, she pulled one of my nipples into her mouth, and I let out a long, satisfied sigh, relaxing a little. She moved back and forth between them, slowly, languidly, for several long moments, and once again, my tension started to ratchet up. I wanted what she was giving me, but her kisses made me want more, and the longer she took, the more desperate I became.
Her mouth busy with my nipples, but she finally began to trace her hand up and down my upper thigh. She was still sitting on top of my right thigh, so her touches remained exclusive to the left. I spread my left leg a little more to the side, my right pinned, but I could hardly move it because of my ankle shackles. Amelia’s fingers stilled on my thigh, and then, becoming impatient, she finally touched me between my legs.
I couldn’t help it—I shrieked. I also writhed, hard, and almost bucked Amelia right off me. I could move only my torso easily, so I arched my back, wrenching against my restraints with all my strength. The feeling of being nearly immobilized and the cold sharp bite of the metal on my skin only added to my excitement. I was so overwrought, I knew I wouldn’t last long.
I didn’t. Seconds after she began to touch me, an orgasm rose from inside me. I could no sooner have stopped it from coming than stopped breathing. Amelia could apparently sense it from the tension in my body. She hesitated for a second and then, as if recognizing the futility of stopping me, sank all of her fingers deep inside me. As much as my restraints would allow, I rose to meet her hand, thrashing around as much as I could as my orgasm built.
The next twenty seconds were lost in a haze of pain and pleasure as I came. I was screaming myself hoarse, so overcome that it never occurred to me that someone might hear me. I struggled and bucked under Amelia and jerked at the chains fastening me hard enough to make the bed creak in protest.
Just as the first wave of pleasure began to wane, something almost stopped me cold. Amelia still had her fingers inside me, but her hand had gone completely still. Instead, she was writhing against my leg as I thrashed around beneath her. She’d been sitting astraddle my thigh this entire time, her body weight almost like another restraint, and now she was rubbing on my leg. She’d clearly lost sense of what she’d been doing—her hand was completely still within me. Instead, she was focused on riding my thigh. In only her damp panties, her sex on my leg felt hot and wet beneath the fabric. This went on for a while, and she pushed down harder and harder. I would have given anything to see her face right then.
Suddenly, as if realizing what she was doing, she stopped completely, stilling on my leg. A moment later, her hand continued to move inside me, and, turned on by feeling her on me, a brief, light shudder passed through me as I had a final, shallow orgasm.
She climbed off me a few seconds later, and we lay there together, her head on my stomach as we caught our breath. What was she thinking about? Was she, as it seemed a few moments ago, as turned on as she’d felt riding me? A moment later, she was scooting away, and I waited patiently for her to return and release me. She unlocked my handcuffs first, then my ankles. I pulled off the goggles to smile at her, but she was distracted and her face was troubled. Then, sensing my gaze, she met my eyes and smiled back.
We rested for a while, lying on the bed as far away from each other as possible again. I was so hot, sweat was pooling on my stomach. I was aware of the heat, of my sweat, of my exhaustion, but most of me was basking in the memory of Amelia’s excitement. I’d felt her pleasure before she seemed to realize what she was doing. I had to find a way to capitalize on the moment. She had slipped and enjoyed herself for the first time since we’d been together. This vacation, with all the time we’d get to spend together, might give us an opportunity to experiment and push her boundaries a little more.
I knew better than to talk about or even allude to what had just happened, however, as she would undoubtedly shy away from the conversation and become uncomfortable. Strong and stoic as she almost always was, she didn’t like to discuss her sexual problems, and this was the last place on earth I wanted to make her uncomfortable. Something about being here on our own was seeming to make her body insist on what it wanted: me. Now it was just a matter of waiting to let her desire defeat whatever was stopping her from taking what she craved.
* * *
Amelia crashed hard and fast—falling asleep earlier than I did for one of the first times since I’d known her. As I watched her sleep, I knew she must have been faking most of her vigor earlier. I knew then that I should have insisted on staying in today and resting. Still, her face was clear and peaceful for the first time in weeks.
Back in New Orleans, on the rare occasion when I woke up earlier or stayed up later than she did, her face was clouded with anxiety and worry, even as she slept. It often seemed as if running her business was a bit much for her. She could easily delegate a lot of the tasks she took on to me or to other employees, but she seemed to want to do just about everything herself. I knew she was passionate about the Winters Corporation, but I’d never stopped to wonder before if she actually liked running it. She was very, very good at what she did, but it was too much work for one person. Imagining her slowing down, keeping normal hours, and sleeping every night like this made me a little sad, as I knew she would never do it. With Amelia, it was all or nothing.
We both slept very late the next day, and after a quick shower and a ridiculously delicious room-service breakfast, we both donned clean clothes and headed out to explore and shop. After the third or fourth boutique, I realized that Amelia was dead-set on buying me anything that even momentarily caught my interest. The storekeepers were delighted with her, but I found the extravagance tiresome, to say the least. To me, it’s one thing to buy things that you truly like, but even if you have more than enough money to buy anything, it doesn’t make sense to me to shop for its own sake. After the fifth store, Amelia began to sense my growing impatience, and I saw her put her credit card away with some reluctance. In the same way that I had problems accepting her largesse, she had problems keeping it to herself. All I could think about that morning and afternoon, however, were the late nights, early mornings, and anxious days it took for her to earn her money. I would rather have a happy, considerably less-wealthy girlfriend than a burned-out zombie.
Amelia had all of our purchases shipped home or sent back to our hotel, so we walked unencumbered up and down every street in the Old Town. Having never taken this kind of trip with her, I was surprised to see that Amelia was the kind of person who needed to take a picture of nearly everything and everyone she saw. I’d seen some of her photography before and knew she had talent for it, but I’d never anticipated that she was such an enthusiastic photographer. She took my picture several times until I objected, but I’m pretty sure she still managed to snap a few candid photos of me.
Eventually, we crossed onto the cute little island in the middle of the Río Cuale, famous for its art galleries. I could see Amelia struggling to simply look at the art rather than buy it all, but she knew the rules about this trip—no work or work talk allowed. I knew I would have to relent eventually, as some of the art we viewed was spectacular and just the kind of thing some of our clients would love. But for now, we were simply tourists, and I wanted to keep it that way a while longer.
We had a light lunch in a café by Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, the large cathedral just beyond the river from our hotel. After lunch, we toured the cathedral, and I was surprised to see it decked out for Mardi Gras, much like St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans this time of year. After I saw the decorations in the cathedral, I realized there were decorations all over Old Town. I’d simply overlooked them. It seemed that our attempt to escape Mardi Gras season would be a failure after all. Speaking in fluent Spanish, Amelia learned from a group of locals that the holiday, while a smaller celebration in comparison to the one in New Orleans, was still quite lavish. There were a few balls and a parade with throws, just like at home. Amelia and I laughed to think we wouldn’t have to go a whole Mardi Gras season without plastic beads.
We’d intended to go to the beach before our Valentine’s Day dinner, but by the time we headed back to the hotel, both of us were too exhausted and overheated to change and sit in the sun, beach umbrella or no beach umbrella. Instead, I ordered a carafe of iced coffee sent to our room and took my book out onto the balcony, appreciating a few hours of quiet nothing ahead of us. Amelia joined me a while later and promptly fell asleep again. For once, instead of her usual uptight, refined persona, she was a graceless, limp thing next to me, her mouth open and her hair unkempt. I loved it. It was like seeing a new person.
After a while, I dozed off, rising only when I heard the shower running inside the room. A little thrill of mischief and excitement raced through me at the sound. Yesterday, Amelia had joined me in the shower and then invited me in. Today, I decided to risk joining her without asking her permission. I’d never done that—had never even conceived of it—but after yesterday, it seemed like a risk worth taking. I shucked off my sweaty clothes and crept as quietly as I could to the bathroom, wanting to watch her for a moment before coming in. The door to the bathroom was partially closed, as if it hadn’t quite latched, but I didn’t know if that meant that Amelia had closed it to prevent me from coming in or if she’d closed it to keep the sound of the shower from waking me. I pushed it open as silently as I could and peered inside.
Amelia would likely have seen me if she’d been looking, but her eyes were sealed shut. She’d left the lights off, but plenty of sunlight was streaming in through the skylight in the middle of the room. I could see everything. Her chin was tilted upward, head thrown back, and water coursed down her tight, lithe body. She was biting her lip and her face was flushed. Her left hand clutched her breast, and I saw her squeeze and twist her own nipple. Her right hand was between her legs. She was sliding her fingers in and out of herself, pausing and teasing her body before speeding up again, only to stop once more to build tension. Eventually, her body simply wouldn’t let her stop. She threw her head back farther, and her hand sped up, faster and faster. She came quickly, silently, her body hitching and shuddering, her face contorted in pleasure.
Her hands finally dropped, and a few seconds later her eyes flickered open. Vision blurred with her orgasm; it seemed to take her a moment to realize who I was, and she blinked at me, still stupefied. Seconds later, I saw her realize what I had just witnessed, and her whole body actually seemed to flinch. Her face crumpled and she burst into tears, turning away from me and covering her face with her hands.
I didn’t hesitate. I rushed into the shower with her and embraced her from behind. A moment later she turned and grabbed me, burying her face in my neck. The strength of her arms bespoke a clear sense of desperation, as if she clung to me for life. All I could do was hold her, running my hands up and down her back. I spoke some quiet nothings in her ear as she cried, but for the most part, I was reeling. I’d never seen Amelia so upset or so vulnerable. She held me so tight, I think she was afraid she might fall apart.
We stayed under the water long enough for it to start to turn cold, and, Amelia’s arms now a little looser, I reached back behind her and turned it off. The sudden silence seemed to jolt her, and she pulled away from me and covered her face once more with her hands. She was racked with quiet sobs, and I rubbed her shoulders. Finally, she took several snuffling, deep breaths and let her hands drop. She still wouldn’t meet my eyes, however, and she kept her face lowered.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said, grabbing one of her hands.
She followed me without comment, clearly too deflated to resist. I handed her a bathrobe and grabbed one for myself, then led her over to the little divan in the corner of the bedroom. Her gaze was rooted to the floor, and silent tears dripped from her eyes. I knew that I needed to wait—that pushing her would ruin whatever was about to happen. I grabbed one of her hands and held it in mine. We sat that way for a long time.
Finally, she took a shuddering breath and let it out. Her eyes flickered up to mine, and then she looked away from me. Then, in a voice so quiet and defeated it was barely audible, she said, “I’m so sorry, Chloé.”
This whole time, her face had a strange expression, and with these words, I finally recognized the expression as guilty shame. I grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at me. “There’s nothing to be sorry about, Amelia.”
The flicker of hope in her eyes was replaced a moment later, again with doubt and guilt. She’d glanced away again, and once more I moved her face to make her look at me.
“Damn it, Amelia. Listen to me.” She looked surprised at the anger in my tone, but she finally met my gaze and held it. “You have nothing to be sorry about. I swear to God.”
She burst into tears again and launched herself into my arms. The tears passed a little faster than before, and when she pulled back, she seemed quieter and more relaxed. She was still having trouble meeting my eyes, but she was doing so more often. She seemed to be looking at me to see if I was being honest, so I tried to smile with every bit of reassurance I had. Tears were still falling from her eyes, but she reached up to wipe them away.
“You’re so good to me, Chloé. I don’t know what I did to deserve you.”
I laughed. “What you did to deserve me? I don’t know what I did to deserve you.”
She looked troubled, and that worried line she had almost all the time appeared between her eyes. She looked up at me and met my eyes firmly for the first time since this conversation began. “You deserve better. I’m hoarding you for myself when you could be so much happier with someone else.”
It was hard not to laugh again, but I could see that she was deadly serious. I took both of her hands in mine and met her eyes. “Amelia, I’ve never been happier in my life. I couldn’t be happier.”
Worried doubt and guilt passed across her face once more, and I touched it with my fingers. “I love you, Amelia. Don’t you see? When you love someone, you accept them. You don’t have to be perfect, and I don’t expect you to be. I love you for you.”
Her face crumpled again, but she shook her head as if to clear away the tears. She seemed deep in thought, and I let her absorb my words without saying anything more. I wanted her to hear them and believe them, and nothing more I said would help.
Finally, she sighed and gazed at me again. “I love you too, Chloé. And I’m sorry I’m so fucked up. I don’t know why I did what I did. In the shower, I mean. And I don’t know why I won’t let you touch me that way. I wish I knew.”
We had finally come to it, and my heart skipped a little with anxiety. We never talked about this. We’d fought about her reluctance to be touched a couple of times when we were first together, but we’d both dropped it since then. I think she was relieved not to discuss it, and I didn’t want to cause another fight by forcing her to confront whatever it was. I’d been pushing, very gently, for months now, when we made love, but I never brought it up anymore. I realized now that something like this scene had been building for a while now. I cursed my own previous cowardice, recognizing that we should have been talking about it all along. Problems don’t go away just because you refuse to face them. In fact, they fester.
Whatever I said next would be important, so I took a deep breath before beginning. “Amelia, you don’t owe me anything. Your body is your body, understand? Of course I’d love to make you feel the way you make me feel—I want that very badly. But it might be my own selfishness, my own vanity that wants it. When you’re ready to share yourself with me, I’ll be over the moon. But it’s your body—not mine.”
We were quiet again, and I could see her weighing my words, testing them for sincerity and looking for flaws. She was staring at her hands again, but I wanted to let her talk in whatever way she needed to, so I didn’t force her gaze.
“I almost never do that, you know,” Amelia said, so quiet I almost didn’t hear her.
“Do what?”
She looked up at me again and quickly glanced away, her face clouded with shame again.
“I almost never touch myself like that,” she said, her voice a little firmer. Her expression was dark, almost livid, and I realized she was angry with herself for what she’d done.
“I wish you would, Amelia, if you want to. You should do whatever you want with your own body.”
Her tears passed more quickly this time, but they were ferocious. Once again, Amelia clung to me, but I knew this time it was from relief. After she pulled away, I brushed her tears aside with my thumbs, and then we kissed, long and gently. We were quiet after that, both of us thinking our own thoughts, processing a momentous experience. The tension, however, was beginning to get to me, and I wanted to lighten the mood.
“I touch myself all the time,” I told her.
She looked up at me, clearly shocked. “You do?”
“Of course! Especially when we’re not together. You should have seen me when you were in Montreal. I could barely keep my hands off myself. I actually strained my wrist at one point.”
Her laughter was genuine: warm and infectious. We giggled together, and my heart lifted at the sight of her joy. The tension was gone now, and we’d said what needed to be said. We could move on from here and progress—I knew it.
She wiped a couple of tears from her eyes and then paused, raising one eyebrow. “Wait a minute. You said you did it especially when we’re not together. Does that mean—?”
“That I do it when we are together? Of course!”
She barked a laugh. “When? Where?”
I paused, wondering how truthful to be. She saw my reluctance and grinned widely before shaking a finger at me. “Hey—no cheating! You brought it up, Chloé. Tell me everything.”
I held up a hand and started counting. “Well, just recently, I did it in the office at work.”
“No!”
I nodded and held up more fingers. “I do it a lot when I’m waiting for you in the car. Or if you’re on a phone call at my place. Or if you’re in the shower, or making breakfast, or anywhere in the house when I can’t get at you.”
“Really?” she asked, looking doubtful. “You really do it so often?”
I grinned. “All the time.”
Her expression darkened. “Don’t I, I mean don’t you get enough from—”
Realizing where she was going, I held up my hands. “I get plenty from you, Amelia. That has nothing to do with it. You satisfy me in every way. I could never do what you do to me, even if I tried.”
“So why?”
She was clearly still doubtful, so I chose my next words with care. “I do it because I want to. I do it because it makes me feel naughty—dirty in a good way. It excites me to sneak around a little. A few times you almost caught me. Just recently, I was sure you knew what I was doing when you came to bed after me, but you never said anything.”
“I didn’t know at all.”
“Good,” I said. “I like that.”
She still looked confused, so I tried to think of a way to make it clearer. “I do it, Amelia, because I can and I want to. There’s nothing wrong with it, and it feels good. It gives me pleasure, and pleasure is too rare in this world to deny myself.”
I let her mull that over for a while, and I could see that she was beginning to accept my words on faith. Her expression was clearer now, her tears dry.
Finally, she looked at me, grinning. “Can I watch you sometime?”
I grinned back. “Of course. You can watch me right now, if you want to.”
Her grin widened and she nodded. Rather than moving to the bed, I opened my robe right there on the little couch. She was surprised but pleased, and she leaned forward a little as if watching something interesting on television. The experience was novel for me, too, and I found it incredibly sexy.
My excitement was there, instantly, with her eyes on me. When I snaked my fingers down between my legs, I was wet and hot. Amelia was staring at my hand, not my eyes, but I wanted to see her watching me, so I kept my eyes open. I moved my other hand between my legs, one set of fingers going in and out of me, the other toying with my clit. Amelia’s eyes were dark and hungry, and seeing her excitement made my own increase exponentially. I was slipping over the edge quickly, my breath coming faster and faster, almost in gasps, and I saw Amelia’s eyes flicker up to mine and then back down between my legs, almost as if she couldn’t help but look. I pushed my fingers inside a little deeper and couldn’t suppress a groan. At that sound, my insides began to quiver against my fingers, and I sped up the pressure on my clit as I came. My eyes closed of their own accord, the blood rushing through my head in a roar. Finally, I could hear myself moaning, and the pleasure between my legs turned to painful intensity. I stopped and opened my eyes, dropping my hands to my sides in exhaustion.
Amelia was flushed pink, her lips parted. Her pupils were dilated, and she was breathing heavily. Her robe had come open a little, and I could see one of her breasts, the nipple puckered with excitement. I leaned forward and kissed her, and her hands were on me instantly, exploring my breasts with her nimble fingers. We continued to kiss as she fondled me, her mouth hot on mine.
Finally, almost as if we were afraid of taking things too far, we both pulled away from each other, panting. I was trembling all over, a dull, aching pain between my legs. I knew it was too soon to ask her to touch me again—it would be painful for a while yet—but that didn’t stop me from wanting her with a deep, yearning hunger. We stared at each other, and her eyes seemed to mirror my longing.
“Jesus, Chloé,” she finally said. “That was the most erotic thing I’ve ever seen.”
I smiled. “I’m glad you liked it.”
“‘Liked it’ doesn’t begin to describe how much I enjoyed watching you. It was everything I could do not to jump in and take over. I had to sit on my hands there at the end to stop myself.”
“Well, maybe next time I’ll let you play, too. If you’re good.”
By mutual, unspoken agreement, we got up off the couch simply to gain a little distance from each other. I was still quaking with desire and knew I wouldn’t be able to stop myself if we sat close for much longer, pain or no pain. Amelia seemed to be having a similar experience, as she went directly to the balcony a moment later.
I decided to take a quick, cold shower, and when I came back out into the room, Amelia was still on the balcony, leaning on her elbows and looking out at the sea. She must have heard me enter the bedroom, but she didn’t turn around. I decided to let her alone for a while until she was ready to come in on her own or call me to her. She stayed out there a long time, quietly meditating, and didn’t join me until I was already dozing in bed. She seemed at peace with herself, from what I could tell, but we didn’t talk about what had happened.
In the end, we decided to stay in for dinner instead of go out again, ordering fried food and cheesecake delivered to our room. It was the best Valentine’s Day I’d ever had.