“I think we just take this one day at a time.”
“What if you get tired of me?” he asks.
I laugh. “I’m not going to get tired of you.”
“You don’t know that,” he says, and I look up at him as he strides through the doorway into a large bedroom at the back of the house.
“No one else has ever made me feel so seen, so supported, so adored, or so loved. Why in the world would I get tired of that?”
He presses a kiss to my forehead. “Just remind me of that sometimes, okay?”
“Remind you of what?”
“That I’m being the person you need me to be. And if I’m not being that person, tell me that too. I want us to communicate about the important things, and not let our insecurities get in the way.”
I pause for a moment, thinking about how that’s the most mature thing I’ve ever heard anyone say at the beginning of a relationship. And that’s when it truly hits me: this isn’t thebeginningof our relationship. It’s the beginning of a new phase... the one where we’re committed to making this work, hopefully forever.
He lays me gently on the bed, no signs of the desperation we were both feeling downstairs, and carefully removes my bra and underwear, then strips his clothes off. When he kneels beside me, I can’t resist reaching out and sliding my fist up his hard cock before circling the head with my fingers.
He groans before saying, “I want you bare.”
“Oh?” I’m enjoying watching the way his abs flex every time I slide my fist down his length.
“Yes. I don’t want anything between us, not even a condom.”
“You already did that in a cave in Bermuda.”
“Yeah, but I’m not pulling out again. So I feel like we need to have a whole conversation about what would happen if you got pregnant.”
“I won’t get pregnant.”
“How are you so sure?” he asks.
I hesitate, not sure how he’ll react because of everything going on with Marissa Walsh. “I’ve had an IUD for years.”
“Well, fuuuuck,” he draws out the word as he runs a hand through his hair. He swings a leg over my hips so he’s kneeling, poised above me, as I continue stroking him. “If you don’t stop that, there’s not going to be any sex. I want you so bad right now.”
I slide my hand off him and down his muscular thighs. Then he leans forward, planting an elbow next to my head as he repositions his legs, using his knees to spread mine apart. “Why do you have an IUD?”
“Really bad periods and no desire to have kids this young.”
“Do you want to have kids eventually?”
“Eventually,” I say. “But I’m not ready now.”
“Good. I want to enjoy this time where it’s just us for a while first.” His free hand caresses the curve of my shoulder then he trails his fingers along the side of my breast and along my rib cage.
“You’re moving from ‘I can’t be in a relationship’ to ‘Let’s get married and have kids together’ real fast.”
“It feels fast to you because you haven’t been in my head for the past couple months while I fell for you. Totally and completely, even as I tried to prevent it from happening.”
“Hmmm,” I say as his hand continues its path down my side and along the curve of my hip. He reaches beneath my thigh and pulls my leg up and over his lower back. “I’m glad you stopped trying.”
“No choice,” he says, his gaze locked on mine. “I didn’t want to be without you, no matter what the consequences were.”
He moves his hips and glances down between us as he slides inside me ever so slowly, like he’s trying to savor every second of this. My teeth sink into my lower lip as he fills me completely, and then, with his eyes locked on mine, he sets a pace that’s just right.
It’s not the desperate, frantic sex we would have had if he’d given in back in that hallway. It’s slow and deliberate, and the reverent way he’s looking at me tells me everything about what this moment means to him. Another step forward as a couple, another “first” for us together.
