Page 151 of The Difference Between

He gestures for me to raise my arms—I do. He peels off my shirt, tosses it on the floor next to his, then I’m on my back and my underwear come next. He looks at me—my body, my face, my soul—and says, “You’re beautiful, Reese.”

I feel his words all over me. Down to my bones. My marrow. The cells bouncing around my marrow. I’m naked—more naked than I’ve ever been—and afraid. Afraid this beautiful feeling won’t last.

Tears prick the back of my eyes that I fight to blink away.

Gavin leans down and kisses me gently, whispering, “You should know, I’ve been waiting for this since I was seven.”

It turns the tears in my eyes to a laugh on my lips. “Gross.”

He hums against my cheek, lying on his side next to me, his hands roaming with a gentle touch of his finger. From the divot of my throat, down my sternum, to my low belly. Lower. His touch isn’t reserved nor confident, it’s exploratory.

“Tell me what to do,” he says, low.

I laugh a little. “You like being bossed around in the bedroom?”

“Hm.” He kisses my shoulder. “I just want to make you happy.”

That truth warms me and pulls me to him. Makes me want to fall so deep into him I get lost there or stuck there or die there.

He starts to stroke and I nod. “That.”

His fingers move with my guidance, but he doesn’t need much, then his mouth is back on mine. Then my neck, then my chest. His teeth scrape my nipples, his tongue rounds the curve of my breasts. His hand leaves the spot screaming for more to toss me around the bed like a plaything.

“That makes me very happy,” I say through a breathy laugh.

He chuckles, then with my knees over his shoulders, his blessed face is between my thighs, and my fingers are tangled in his hair. The same mouth that eats community snacks like a barbarian tastes me like I’m caviar.

Gavin is a man of many, many talents, but “Yes” is all I can manage. Over and over. Yes, yes, yes.

He’s about to eat me to oblivion when it’s me who moves. Off the bed to unzip his jeans and slide them and his boxers off. At his look, I grin. “I can’t feel this good alone again.”

He chuckles darkly but doesn’t argue. Then he’s naked and I’m naked and I want my mouth and hands all over him. I want to read him like a book written in him-flavored braille.

From the foot of the bed, I take him in my mouth—I can’t not—and his moan hits my skin like a flame to paper. But it’s his gruff “Spin around” and hands maneuvering my body that nearly makes me combust. We find a rhythm of tasting and licking and muttering the dirtiest promises against each other.

I’m close, and this time I can’t stop it. With his face between my legs and mine between his, I am sideswiped by ecstasy, crying out and wrapping my hands around the backs of his thighs while pressing myself deeper into his mouth as it hits me. Wave after wave after wave of it.

I might black out from the pleasure—it’s so intense, I don’t know—but in a euphoric daze, I pry my hips from his face and position myself so I’m on all fours, looking up the delicious landscape of his body while he looks down at me. Our eyes connect, and like a lock clicked into place, they stay.

“I need you,” His voice is a whisper and plea as his hands reach for me. And there, mixed with all the lust and want, is his need in his eyes. And I can’t look away from it. Not as I take him in my mouth once more, him swearing with my suck as his salt hits my tongue. Not as I work my way up the expanse of him, licking from his V line of muscles to the column of his throat. And not as I straddle him, and his hands find my face.

He looks at me while I look at him, eyes burning each other up and echoing everything we need. We’re panting and reaching with mouths and I’m about to come again without him even being inside me.

This is a true eye fucking, and the intensity of it makes my chest ache.

“I don’t have a condom,” he whispers.

We still. Because I don’t have a condom either—at least not one that’s less than twenty years old—but we also don’t have a prayer of walking away from this. And if I end up pregnant…

“Okay,” I say.

The rain roars against the roof and window, and his serious “You sure?” is barely audible.

I laugh, breathy. “You asked what makes me happy, Gavin.” I lean down to ghost his lips with a kiss. “And that sure as hell isn’t you not being inside me.”

Then he’s at my entrance and I’m pulling him in. Every inch hurting so good.

I adjust to the stretch; he grips my hips. Now I’m grinding, folding over him so his mouth is on my skin while I’m gasping with every movement.