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"You're staring," he says.

"I'm appreciating. There's a difference." I wrap my hand around him and his whole body goes taut as a bowstring. "You appreciated me for a very long time. I'm owed."

"I guess that's fair." His voice already sounds like he’s taking strain. "I'm not going to survive it, but it's fair."

I explore at my leisure, employing all my senses. The weight of him in my hand, the feel of the silky soft skin over all that hardness, listening to the way his breathing changes when I wrap my hand around him and give it a few gentle strokes. When I finally bend down and take him in my mouth to taste, the sound he makes is low and punched-out and completely helpless.

"Vanessa." One hand comes to rest on my hair. "God."

I've thought about this more times than I would ever admit to a jury of my peers. The real thing is better. I don’t try to take all of him in at once. He’s big and I want to make this last the way he made it last for me.

My hand wraps around the base while I trace each vein slowly with my tongue, before wrapping my lips around the crown and sucking down the salty pre-cum like I’m starving for it. Then my mouth starts working, slow and deliberate, sliding down over his heat and back up again, hand pumping in the same rhythm.

I watch him the whole time. The muscles standing out in his forearms, his head tipped back, his jaw slack while he groans delectably. Seeing the way I’m undoing him is a rush like nothing I’ve felt before. My blood fizzes with it. My own arousal climbing furiously just from his reactions.

He's watching me now, propped on his elbows, eyes dark and breath coming out in short, sharp pants. I pull my mouth off his cock for a second, hand continuing to pump him, while I lap at his plump, swollen balls, the thin skin stretched tight with weeks of built-up need.

He breathes out harshly, “You need to stop."

"I really don't."

"You do."

He sits up, catches me under the arms, and hauls me up his body. "Because I'm not finishing anywhere except inside you, and I need to say something first, and I can't say anything at all with your mouth on me."

We end up kneeling on the bed face to face, his hands resting on my hips. He's breathing hard. So am I.

"The previous times I knew you were on the pill and there was no need for protection. Until the office apparently. And if something comes of that, if it already has, I want that. I want it more than I've wanted anything in my life, except you. I want to take you bare again, knowing you’re not on birth control. If you’re not ready for that, tell me and I’ll get a condom. I want you to know the truth about my feelings on the matter, but I’ll respect your wishes."

Every single thing in me goes still and bright.

"Whether you say yes or no, this morning stays exactly as good as it already is."

"Yes." It comes out instantly, no thought required, because there's nothing left to think about. "Yes to all of it. I want it too."

He kisses me like the yes broke something open in him, tongue languidly fucking into my mouth, stroking mine until I’m shaking and moaning just from a kiss. Then he lays us down on our sides, face to face, and draws my leg up over his hip, and pushes into me while we stare into each other’s eyes the whole time.

Neither of us moves for a moment. "This," he says quietly. "This is everything I want in the world, right here."

When he starts thrusting it's slow and deep, his hand splayed across my lower back, pulling me closer. My leg hooked over him changes to angle, every stroke unhurried and deliberate and hitting places that make my breath come apart. We're eye to eye. There's nowhere to hide and neither of us is trying to find one.

"I love you," I tell him, because I can now. Because I get to just say it, mid-act, whenever I want. "I love you. This is unreal."

"It's real." He drives in all the way and stays there, grinding, pelvis rubbing against my clit, and my vision sparkles at the edges. "It's the realest thing I've ever done. I love you. I loved you when I was furious at you, which I intend to hold over you forever."

The laugh sneaks out of me again, and this time he grins in a way that makes him look wolfish and young, before he does the slow grind again on purpose, turning my laugh into a moan halfway through. He likes that. He does it a third time.

"Aiden." My nails find his shoulder. "More."

"Ask me properly."

"Give me more. Now. Please."

He rolls me under him without ever leaving my body, takes my hands, presses them into the pillow on either side of my head with his fingers laced through mine, and gives me more. Deeper, harder, still unhurried, the weight of him everywhere, the whole bed moving with us. The heat starts climbing up through my belly and down my thighs, gathering with every stroke.

"I can feel you getting close," he says against my mouth. "You go tight around me. Everywhere. It's the best thing I've ever felt in my life."

"Then don't you dare change a thing." My voice barely works. "Right there. Stay right there."