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“Fuck,” she breathes. “You’re so big.”

She’s so tight, so wet, her inner muscles gripping me as she begins to move. Her hands brace against my shoulders, her hips rocking in a rhythm that has me seeing stars. The firelight paints her skin gold, shadows moving across her breasts, her throat, the curve of her jaw as she tilts her head back.

I want to come inside her. The thought hits me with sudden, visceral force—pulling out of her, tearing off the condom, pushing back in bare and filling her with my cum. Watching it drip out of her. Marking her that way, making her mine in the most primitive sense. My cock throbs at the fantasy, and I have to close my eyes and breathe through it.

Not yet. Not today.

I grip her hips and fuck up into her, hard and deep, and her pussy clenches around me, getting wetter and tighter. She’s already getting close. I slide one hand between us and find her clit, circling it with my thumb, as her hips start to rock against my hand. She’s moaning now, her head thrown back, her throat exposed, and she’s tightening around me, her inner muscles gripping my cock in rhythmic pulses. I press harder, faster, matching the rhythm of my thrusts to the movement of my thumb, and she cries out, her nails digging into my shoulders.

“That’s it,” I growl. “Let go for me. Give it to me.”

Her whole body goes rigid, her back arching, and then she’s coming, her body shuddering, her inner muscles pulsing around my cock.

Fuck. I thrust up once, twice, hard, and follow her with a groan, my hips lifting off the couch.

The thought hits me again—fucking her unprotected, feeling her pussy walls against my shaft, pouring my load into her. The fantasy feeds my orgasm, makes it hotter, and I’m groaning her name as I pulse inside her. When it’s over, I collapse back against the couch, my head falling against the cushions, my chest heaving, and Sophie folds herself against me, burying her face in the crook of my neck. We stay like that until our breathing slows.

Eventually Sophie sits up and lifts herself off me carefully.

“I think we lost some puzzle pieces,” she says, as she stands and looks at the coffee table.

I follow her eyes to see that the half-assembled border is intact, but the loose pieces have been scattered across the surface, several knocked onto the floor.

“Worth it,” I say with a smile.

“Definitely.”

I throw out the condom, and then we get dressed while Sophie gathers puzzle pieces from the floor.

She catches me looking and smiles. “What?”

“Nothing,” I say. “Just you.”

She rolls her eyes, but smiles back, dropping the pieces into the appropriate color-coded piles.

After dinner, we curl up on the couch to watch a movie, Sophie tucked against my side with her head resting on my shoulder. There’s a bowl of popcorn between us, and I’m enjoying the simple pleasure of having her close, with nowhere else we need to be.

My phone vibrates on the arm of the couch.

Camille.

I’d almost forgotten about our dinner on the twenty-eighth.

Hey Vince. Just confirming dinner on the 28th. Should I bring a bottle of wine? Let me know. Hope you had a nice Christmas.

I read the message twice.

It’s a perfectly reasonable question. We made plans, and she’s checking that they’re still on. But it feels like a shard of ice pierced through my heart.

I should tell her our plans aren’t still on. How could they be.

But then what?

I glance down at Sophie, absorbed in the movie. We’ve spent the last two days together, barely giving the outside world a thought. I’ve told her how happy I am, and I meant every word. But what happens when Christmas is over? When Sophie goes back to college? When the divorce is finalized and people start asking questions? I look at her message again. Cancelling would be fairer to Camille. She’s done nothing to deserve being kept on the hook while I try to make sense of my life.

My thumb hovers over the keyboard. I could tell her I’ve had a change of plans. She’d probably be disappointed, but she’d understand. It would be the decent thing to do, and I know it.

But cancelling dinner feels like making a decision I’m not quite ready to make. I’ve only just admitted to Sophie how I feel about her. I meant everything I said, but there’s a difference between wanting her and building a life together. How could we, when what we have is unthinkably taboo?