So I decide—right there—I’ve found myself another purpose for the week. I’m going to get Lara and Drake together.
Later
Eli
Iconsider myself a principled man—even if my principles don’t always look the way people expect them to. Max has brushed up against a few already, but not this one. Not like this.
This is the principle in how I give myself over to her pleasure. Fully. Like it’s not indulgence at all, but air.
I don’t know when it started or how, but there’s something about the sound of a woman coming undone—those broken moans, the loss of control—that has always stripped me bare. It drives me. Turns something feral loose in my chest.
And after the day I’ve had, after the promise she made to let me burden her—I need to hear Max.
I remember the sounds she made simply from tasting her food and it drives me insane. I need more of it.
Need to hear her breath hitch.
Need to hear her voice fracture.
Preferably around my name.
So I do what I always do.
I start with touch.
And there’s something settling about using oils made from what my land has given me. From soil I’ve worked with my own hands. Ground I’ve tended, waited on. Patiently.
Her body reacts the moment my hands are on her. Just a faint tremor. It’s easy to miss if you weren’t paying attention. I start at her feet, pressure firm, and watch her watch me.
She’s on her back, propped on her elbows, almond-shaped eyes alert, searching. She studies my hands like there’s something to solve there. Like care is a system she needs to map instead of surrender to.
Always the techie.
Always trying to understand the architecture, even when the point is simply to feel.
To consume, not calculate.
“When you said later,” she says lightly, a grin tugging at her mouth, “I assumed it would involve whips. Chains. Ropes.” She arches a brow. “At least I was hoping it would?”
I smirk, glancing up at her. “Another move straight out of the book-boyfriend playbook, eh?”
She laughs softly. “No, baby. That’s pure Maxine Palmer.” A beat. “Your girl’s got a few kinks up her sleeve.”
My girl.
“I don’t doubt that for a second,” I say, and keep going. Slow, easy, letting my hands do most of the talking in this moment.
And then I hear it.
“Mmmm.”
It slips out of her like she didn’t mean to let it escape, and it hits me harder than anything else could. That sound alone could be enough. But I keep going.
My hands travel higher, thumbs pressing into the tension along her arches, my palms warming her skin as I work my way up her calves.
I take my time with her thighs, kneading gently, then deeper, learning her reactions instead of rushing past them. Every small shiver. Every hitch of her breath. I am observing everything as if I am preparing new ground to work.
I keep my eyes on hers the entire time and don’t let her look away. There’s something obscene about the intimacy of it. About making her feel this much while she watches me do it. No rush. No looking away. Just her body responding and me listening.
