"This time there's no clothes in the way."
"And no choreography required."
I grip her hips tighter. "I can improvise."
Her breath catches as we connect, as she sinks down onto me slowly. "Oh—"
"Mine," I say, the word torn from somewhere deep.
Her hands fist in my hair, tugging just shy of painful. "You're mine too."
I hold her gaze—so close I can feel her breath shift when I move. She doesn’t look away. Neither of us does. There’s nowhere to hide in this position.
The claiming goes both ways. Equal. Mutual.
"Yeah. I am."
She leans forward until we're chest to chest, foreheads touching, her hair falling around us like a curtain, trapping the world outside. "Yours."
This started as humor. Jane pulling me out of my head. Making Blake's voice fade—women are replaceable, interchangeable, inventory.
But now? Now it's something else. Urgent. Grounding. A refusal to let this feel hollow.
My hands settle at her hips, thumbs digging in—not guiding yet. Just anchoring. Feeling the weight of her. The heat. The way she adjusts when she finds that angle that makes her mouth part.
"Mine." I need her to hear it. My hands slide up her thighs the need —thumbs pressing into soft flesh—then higher, up her back, feeling her shift as she moves. "Stay."
She answers by moving—slow, deliberate, taking me deeper—using my shoulders to steady herself as she settles closer and closer. Her palms flatten against my chest, fingers curling intoskin.
"You've got me," she murmurs, breath warm against my mouth, hips rolling in a slow grind.
Her words aren't loud. They don't need to be. Her body is already saying it—knees tightening around my hips, hands braced, pulling herself up to meet me.
That’s when it hits me. Not the sex. Not the want.The trust.
I swallow. My grip firms at her waist, guiding the rhythm when hers stutters. "Right here," I say. "With me."
She nods, breath breaking, pressing her forehead to mine as she moves, finding that place where everything lines up and holds. Her thighs tremble where they bracket mine.
The rhythm builds—becomes faster, more urgent. I can't get close enough. She's in my lap, wrapped around me, taking me as deep as physically possible, and it's still not enough. Her nails dig into my shoulders for leverage and I shift my hips up to meet her, giving her something solid to push against.
I need to mark her. Brand her. Make sure she remembers this—remembers me—when she's back in Boston and I'm... I'm still not sure where I'll be.
I've wanted her since day two—possessive and consuming in a way I told myself was just physical. The touch I'd been missing for three years. The chemistry. The attraction.
But it's day six now, and I can't dismiss it anymore.
I think I love her.
My hands still on her hips. She feels the shift, eyes opening to find mine.
"West?"
I can't say it. Not yet. Not when I don't know what comes next.
So instead, I show her.
I pull her down into a kiss—slower this time, deeper, like I'm trying to memorize the taste of her. My hands slide up her back, feeling every curve, every shift of muscle as she moves.
