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Without giving it another thought, I close the distance between us before I can talk myself out of it. Throw my arms around her. She stiffens for half a second then folds into me like she belongs there.

“Your take is the best thing anyone has written about me in thirty years.” My voice warbles. “I stopped believing anybody I didn’t already know could find my truth.” I pull back enough to make her meet my eyes. “Please know, Elodie. I may be confused about what’s happening between us but spending time with you is the best part of my life right now. I want to take you to Canlis so we can get a good bottle of wine and celebrate.”

She shakes her head. “No. I don’t want to sit across a public table from you being careful about what people will think.” Her chin juts up, some of the confidence coming back. “Teriyaki. My apartment. We’ll sit on my terrible futon and talk about the things we’ve been not-saying. We need to figure out what this is, Beau. I’m done pretending we don’t.”

She’s right. I owe her a conversation. It’s overdue and I’ve spent weeks being a coward about it. “Okay. Teriyaki. Talk.”

Her apartment is one room and a kitchenette. The futon in question is actually her bed. The ceiling is decorated with ropes of string lights, the rest of the place is basically secondhand everything.

Somehow, it feels more like home than my mausoleum of a house does these days.

Without warning, she crosses the room, jumps, and I catch her on instinct. Her legs lock around my waist and everything I want to say dies in my throat because she’s kissing me like she has been starving for two weeks too.

Any remaining good intentions go out a window she doesn’t own a curtain for.

I rip her shirt off between kisses. She tears at mine and it turns into a contest, greedy and clumsy, hands grabbing with too much fabric in the way.

Finally, I press Elodie down onto the futon and follow, taking one second to look at her. Flushed and half-bare, staring at me like I’m her destiny.

I quit looking and start tasting.

Her tits are small and perfect. I close my mouth over one, rolling her nipple with my tongue until it’s tight and dark and she’s arching off the mattress. I move to the other and give it the same treatment.

The sounds she makes go straight through me.

Working down Elodie’s body, I kiss the freckles she doesn’t know are a map I’m following. I hook her leggings and underwear off in one pull, and Christ. Her pink pussy is swollen and slick. There’s no choice. I need another taste.

I take my time, working her clit with my tongue, slow and then frenzied. When she’s gushing, I slide two fingers into her, curling against the spot she only recently discovered existed because of me. She fists my hair, making loud, keening, desperate sounds.

Loving how responsive and uninhibited she is, I take her to the edge and hold her there until she’s begging, then suck her clit as I rub her inner spot. She comes apart, thighs clamped around my head, screaming my name.

My cock is weeping. I’m so hard it’s uncomfortable. Nevertheless, I have to ask before I lose the last of my mind. “Elodie, are you on birth control? I promise I’m clean.”

“IUD.” Breathless, yearning, reaching for me. “Clean, too, I got tested after Owen. Please, Beau. I need you to fuck me. Please.”

“I know the feeling.” I kiss her forehead. “Let’s take it easy, though.”

Rolling beneath her, I settle Elodie over my hips. My cock is trapped between us, thick and rigid against her open pussy. Her slick lips cradle my shaft as she shifts, sliding the head from her entrance to her swollen clit.

She needs control of this. I’m too big to push into her all at once. One careless thrust could turn pleasure into pain, and hurting her would fucking destroy me.

I reach between us and circle her nub, slow enough to keep her hovering, while my other hand closes around one breast. Her nipple hardens between my fingers. I roll it, pinch, and watch her head fall back as her pussy pulses against the head of my cock, spilling heat down my shaft until we’re both soaked.

Now she might be ready.

“Take me at your own speed.” I grip the base of my cock and hold myself dead still at her entrance.

Elodie lines herself up and I feel the head press inside her heat. She sinks a bit more, gasps and stops, her whole body working to adjust around the stretch. “Oh, God. Beau. Will you fit?”

“Yes, sweetheart. Breathe. Let yourself relax.” I palm under her ass to give her more support.

Her palms flatten against my chest, fingers spread as if she needs the leverage. Her eyes stay fixed on mine while she lowers herself another inch. Heat closes around me, slick and impossibly tight, every small movement dragging along nerves I’m fighting not to surrender to. My thighs lock beneath her. If I move now, I’ll hurt her or come. Possibly both.

From beneath her, the soft curve of her stomach gathers as she leans over me. Her breasts hang above my chest, swaying with every inch she takes, dusky nipples tight and close enough to pull into my mouth. I’ve imagined her naked so many times I thought I knew what she’d do to me.

I wasn’t even fucking close.

All at once, her body yields around the widest part of me. She sinks the rest of the way with a broken gasp, swallowing my cock until her ass settles against my thighs. The pressure steals every coherent thought from my head. I grip her hips and hold us both still while her pussy clenches, adjusts, then clenches again.