But I didn’t stop. Couldn’t have if I tried.
I didn’t even get a rhythm going before Tru’s breath hitched—once, twice—and his whole body jolted like I’d plugged him into a socket.
“Dare—” he warned, already gone.
Seconds. That’s all it took. One shaky pull of my mouth, one helpless groan from him, and he was spilling over the edge before I even registered what I’d done right. When it happened, when I realized what I’d actually pulled off, a ridiculous burst of pride flared through me. Not because I’d been perfect. But becauseIhad been the one to take him there.
I swallowed clumsily, coughing once, eyes stinging. But I stayed with him through it—hands on his hips, mouth on him, taking every twitch and gasp like they were mine to keep. Because Tru had come undone forme, mess and all, and nothing in my life had ever made me feel more unstoppable. He collapsed back on the pillows, flushed and ruined.
I wiped my face with the back of my hand, breathless and embarrassingly triumphant.
“Fast,” I said, grinning like an idiot.
He covered his eyes with one arm. “Shut up.”
I crawled up beside him, heart banging around like it had no idea what to do with itself. “If it makes you feel any better…” I muttered, jerking my chin toward the rumpled sheets near my hip, “I came faster.”
Tru’s eyes flicked down to see the evidence already cooling on the fabric.
A slow, wicked smile tugged at his mouth. “Seriously?”
“Don’t,” I warned, face burning. “I panicked. And you—” My voice cracked. “You were looking at me like that, making those noises. What was I supposed to do? Hold it together?”
He bit his lip, pleased in a way that made my stomach flip.
“Guess we’re even, then,” he murmured.
I groaned and buried my face in his shoulder, hoping the mattress would swallow me whole. But Tru just curled an arm around me, pulling me in like my humiliation was something he wanted to keep.
“What did it taste like?” he asked, quiet but hungry for the truth.
I lifted my head and took him in—flushed cheeks, hair a mess, lips still kiss-swollen. He looked wrecked in the best way. Wrecked fromme.And for one dizzy second, I couldn’t believe he was actually mine.
“See for yourself,” I murmured.
I leaned in and kissed him, sliding my tongue into his mouth, letting him taste every bit of what he’d given to me. He grabbed my jaw and kissed me back harder, pulling a low sound out of me that I didn’t mean to make.
When I finally broke away, a thin breath stretched between us. I traced the edge of his mouth with my thumb, because I couldn’t not touch him.
“I’m glad you saved that for me,” I said, softer than I meant, but honest all the way down. “It’s more than I deserve.”
His lashes dipped. His fingers curled into my hip. “Don’t say that,” he whispered. “You’re the reason I ever wanted any of this.”
That hit me somewhere low, somewhere stupidly soft. I bent down, brushing my mouth over the corner of his, tasting the salt on his skin, the trust he kept handing me.
“Tru,” I murmured, “you’re gonna be the death of me.”
He smiled—small and unfairly sweet.
“Then die warm.”
I felt it then, someone turning on a light in my ribs—pain, adoration, hunger, all tangled together. I pulled him closer, pressing our bare bodies into the sweat-warm sheets, into each other, into the impossible truth we kept trying not to name.
For one perfect, breathless moment, everything else—fear, future, fallout—fell away.
CHAPTER 31
DARE
