“You’ll stop me the second it’s too much.”
“I will.”
He looked up. “I mean it, Sadie.”
A breathless laugh fell out of me. How was this man real? Normally, an invitation like the one I’d just extended would never have been questioned. My previous partners would’ve used it as an opening to push my limits. But Gideon was letting me know in no uncertain terms that I was safe here. That this would only go as far as I wanted it to.
Every muscle in my body eased. Gideon felt it, his eyes skimming up to meet mine before dropping back down to my core. His thumbs spread me, stroking. Worshipping.
His finger was bigger than the dilator I’d been using. I tensed as he pushed it inside, only as far as the first knuckle. He stopped immediately.
“It’s okay,” I whispered, shaking. “Keep going.”
He hummed, unconvinced. Then his mouth was on me, sucking, licking, caressing. His finger did not move. Not until I was rolling my own hips against it. Not until I was begging.
Only then did Gideon push his finger deeper. It stretched, but not in the painful way I was used to. No, this was something different entirely. And when he thrust it in and out of me in long, slow strokes, his mouth still moving over my clit, I couldn’t help the disbelieving laugh that fell from my lips.
And then I came. My back arched as my hands gripped Gideon’s head. I rocked against his mouth and his hand as he urged me on with wordless, urgent grunts. Afterward, I was glad we were in the middle of the forest, because the noises I made were unlike anything I’d ever heard coming from my own mouth.
“Now you,” I said as soon as I could speak. My breathssawed in and out of my lungs. “And don’t say no. Let me make you feel good.”
Gideon extracted his finger from my body and huffed, pressing a kiss to my hip.
“I’m serious, Gideon. I want to.”
He straightened, amused. A wet patch stained the front of his bottoms.
I blinked, my gaze flying up to meet his. He let out a long, gusting exhale, his hand moving up to comb the hair from his face. Satisfaction was written on every line of his face and body.
“You already…?”
He caged me against the mattress with his palms on either side of my head and pressed a kiss to my lips. “You think I’m able to listen to you make those noises while you’re grabbing my hair to ride my face, and I’m not going to lose control in the process?”
I gulped, heart hammering. Words were beyond me.
Gideon chuckled, then gathered me in his arms and held me close. Eventually, I gave in and dozed.
GIDEON
I was done fighting against my desire for her. It had always been a losing battle.
Still, I wondered if her hesitation to pursue her business idea was more than just a confidence issue. What if she didn’t want to set down roots here? What if all this time, she was planning on leaving the first chance she got?
TWENTY-TWO
SADIE
The floodgates had opened. In the days that followed, Gideon and I hardly left the cottage. We ate, laughed, slept, and screwed. Ducked out for groceries and matcha lattes. Came back and fell into bed together.
I’d never had so much sex in my life. Not in a way that always felt so good. Gideon was a generous lover, and he was committed to learning my body. He read about vaginismus and asked me questions. They weren’t the questions I was used to; he never asked me how long it would take to get better, or talked about me getting better at all. He was curious and nonjudgmental. He respected my limits, and he sensed when I was pushing them out of a sense of misplaced duty. As the days passed, I began to believe him when he said he enjoyed making me climax just for the sake of it.
All was quiet on the Mr. Titty front—no new tags appeared in town. I received no threatening calls or texts. It was as if theworld outside had paused in order to allow us to have this time together.
A week passed in a haze of pleasure. We finally left the cottage to go to Sunday lunch with the family, and left as soon as the plates were cleared. I ignored the wiggling eyebrows and wolf whistles that chased us out.
That evening, with my face burning, I showed him my dilator set and watched his eyes spark with interest. He grabbed the fourth one—second-to-largest—and turned it around in his hand.
“I haven’t tried that one yet,” I admitted.
