"Because if I don't stop now, I won't be able to." I pressed my forehead to hers. "And I don't want to rush you. I don't want you to regret?—"
Kim grabbed my face and kissed me again. Hard. Demanding. When she pulled back, her eyes were dark, her breathing uneven.
"Never," she said. "Don't you dare stop."
So I didn't.
I lowered her onto the plastic-wrapped bed, covering her body with mine. Her sundress hiked up as I settled between her thighs, and she gasped against my mouth, arching into me.
"Is this okay?" I asked, my hand hovering at the hem of her dress.
"Yes."
"And this?" My fingers traced higher, finding warm skin.
"Yes. Xavier, please?—"
I kissed her neck, her collarbone, the swell of her breasts above the neckline of her dress. Every touch drew a sound from her—a gasp, a moan, a whispered version of my name that made me harder than I'd ever been in my life.
This was different. Everything about this was different.
Before, it had been about the chase. The conquest. The fleeting pleasure of bodies moving together with no meaning behind it.
With Kim, every touch meant something. Every kiss was a conversation. Every moment was building toward something I'd never experienced before—connection, maybe. Or something deeper. Something I didn't have a name for yet.
I took my time. Learned the map of her body, the places that made her shiver, the spots that made her cry out. When I finally sank into her, she wrapped her legs around me and held on, and I understood with sudden, terrifying clarity that I was never going to be the same after this.
She was everything. She was everything, and I hadn't even known I was looking for her.
Afterward, we lay tangled together on the plastic-wrapped bed, breathing hard, sweat cooling on our skin. Kim's head was on my chest, her fingers tracing lazy patterns on my stomach.
"We should probably—" she started.
Then we both looked at the clock on the wall.
"Oh shit."
Dinner. Dinner with my family. Dinner with my family had started twenty minutes ago.
We scrambled off the bed, grabbing clothes, trying to make ourselves presentable. Kim's dress was wrinkled beyond repair. My shirt had somehow lost two buttons. Her hair was a disaster, and I was pretty sure I had lipstick on my neck.
"This is fine," I said, running my fingers through my hair. "We'll just say we got lost."
"We'll say we got lost," Kim repeated flatly. "In a hotel your brother built."
"Stranger things have happened."
We power-walked back to the main building, trying to smooth clothes and fix hair as we went. By the time we reached the restaurant, we were only thirty-five minutes late.
And we looked exactly like what we were: two people who'd just had sex in an unfinished hotel room.
Every head at the family table turned when we walked in.
Grandmother's eyebrows rose slowly toward her hairline. Helena pressed her napkin to her lips, hiding what was probably a smile. Sebastian's expression was unreadable, but Aria beside him was definitely fighting a grin. Isabelle didn't even try to hide her amusement—she lifted her wine glass in a silent toast.
And Evie, bless her, was too busy showing Zoe pictures on her phone to notice anything.
"Traffic," I said, pulling out Kim's chair. "Terrible. Really terrible traffic."
