It’s just raw, bare, natural pleasure.
And I don’t want it to end.
The regrets are already threatening to break through.
You’re leaving. You can’t be his. You know he waited for the right person. You know he hasn’t done this with anyone else. You know you’re not worthy.
“God, Tavi,” he whispers as his body sags against me, his chest heaving as he pants softly. “If I’d known it would be like this—”
I freeze. “Terrible?”
“So worth the wait.”
His arms tighten even harder around me, which should be impossible. My bones are turning to jelly as the last of my spasms fade. “So worth every second of the wait,” he whispers.
I squeeze my eyes shut against the heat building and threatening to cause tears.
I’ve never been “worth the wait.”
Not personally. Not professionally. Not in bed.
“You are entirely too good for me,” I whisper.
“Good,” he replies. “It was all the people who were too good for me who finally showed me what mattered.”
I still don’t understand what he sees in me.
But for once, I push away the fears, the doubts, and the pending regrets.
“Once won’t be enough,” he says softly into my neck.
And despite every reason I shouldn’t, I smile. “Agreed.”
Chapter 24
Dylan
I’m apparently a freak.
Not because it’s odd that helping Tavi make chocolate gives me a boner every damn time. Chocolate and sexy women? Yeah. Boners are natural.
No, it’s my nose.
“Smell this one,” she says late Tuesday night, shoving a truffle under my nose.
I take it and sniff, rub the smooth exterior and sniff again, and then I bite into it, letting the flavors melt on my tongue.
She leans on the table in the kitchen basement, watching me, eyes bright and fascinated, like she’s not sleep deprived and running on fumes.
Don’t tell me she’s not.
I know for a fact she’s in this kitchen every night until well past midnight and up hitting her favorite jogging path by five thirty. All while also spending all day working on the school, managing her grandmother, and planning Shiloh’s birthday party, which is coming up two weeks from today.
“Orange and cinnamon, with a hint of ...” I sniff again. “Olive oil?”
“I just got wet in my panties.”
“I could flex my pinkie and you’d get wet.”
