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I caught the back of her neck. “Then prove it.”

I kissed her before she could answer. It wasn’t tender, but it wasn’t punishment either. It was fifteen months of anger, loneliness, and hunger finally given somewhere to go. Charm met every demanding stroke of my mouth with equal force, her hands moving over my bare back while her nails dragged across my skin.

She wasn’t trying to claw her way past my defenses.

She was showing me she could handle the man behind them.

My hands moved over her with a familiarity that made the time apart feel impossible. I knew where touching her would steal her breath and where my mouth would make her arch. Her body remembered me as completely as mine remembered her, and every reaction struck with the same devastating certainty.

Nothing between us had died.

I caught her breast in my palm, watching her face as my thumb moved over the hardened peak. Her gasp entered my mouth. My other hand traveled between her thighs and found her pussy wet with the proof of how badly she wanted me.

A rough laugh escaped me. “Still get this wet for me, mami?”

Charm answered by rolling her hips into my touch.

The movement stripped away another piece of my control. I touched her the way I remembered, adjusting whenever pleasure sharpened across her face and watching for every signal she no longer needed me to translate. She held my gaze as long as she could before her head fell back against the door.

“You remember this?” I asked against her throat. “You remember exactly what I can do to you?”

“Ryan.”

My name carried need rather than fear.

I drew the sound from her again, learning everything that had changed and proving how much had not. Her fingers tightened against my shoulders while her body responded with the same honesty she had once been unable to give me anywhere else.

When I pulled my hand away, Charm made a frustrated sound and reached for me. I caught her wrist. “Impatient.”

“You’ve made me wait fifteen months.”

“You’re the reason we waited.”

The truth struck between us, but it didn’t turn the desire into cruelty. Charm absorbed it and pulled me closer with her free hand.

“Then stop wasting tonight.”

I bent toward the clothes scattered across the floor, found my wallet, and removed a condom. The foil felt insignificant against the weight of what we were doing, but the boundary mattered.

Charm watched me bring it between us. “No.”

I stopped. “What?”

“I want to feel you.” Her voice steadied beneath my attention. “All of you. I’m protected, and there hasn’t been anyone else.”

The confession shouldn’t have mattered. It changed nothing about the past or the terms I had given her in the hallway.

Possession still struck hard enough to feel like anger.

I held her gaze and opened the packet. “I have.”

Pain moved across her face.

“I’ve been with other women,” I said. “I didn’t lie to them, and I won’t lie to you.”

Charm swallowed. “I know.”

“No, you knew there probably were. Hearing it is different.”