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I keep my mouth on her clit and move my fingers deeper, finding the rhythm that makes her back arch and her knees press against my shoulders. She tries to keep quiet; I can feel the effort in her body, in the way her stomach pulls tight, in the way she bites down on the sound. I lift my head just enough to speak against her. “Don’t.”

Her eyes are half-open, unfocused. “My neighbors⁠—”

“Can live.”

She laughs once, helpless and broken, and then I put my mouth back on her and take her over the edge.

She comes hard. Her thighs clamp around me, her hand pulling at my hair, her body shaking around my fingers as she rides through it. I keep my hand firm against her stomach and my mouth gentle enough not to hurt her, drawing it out until she starts trembling with aftershocks and pushes weakly at my shoulder.

“Okay,” she breathes. “Okay, Jesus.”

I stand slowly, and she looks at me like she’s not sure whether to thank me or murder me.

Then her gaze drops. She sees how hard I am, and her face changes.

It’s not shy. Maggie is not shy with me now. Her breathing is still uneven, her breasts still bare, her dress still shoved around her hips, and she reaches for my belt with a kind of focused impatience that makes my jaw clench.

“Bedroom,” I say, catching her wrist.

She looks offended. “Now you want patience?”

“I want space.”

“I’m on a counter.”

“And I want you on a bed.”

Her mouth curves, but her eyes stay hot. “That sounded very medical.”

“It wasn’t.”

I lift her off the counter, and she comes against me immediately, arms around my neck, mouth on mine, tasting herself there and making a low sound that nearly ends me in the kitchen anyway. It takes effort to get her to the bedroom. More effort than it should. She keeps stopping me, pressing me back against the hallway wall, reaching between us like she has decided I’ve been dressed long enough.

By the time we reach her room, my belt is open and her dress is barely on.

The bedroom is dim, lit only by the weak light from the hall. I see enough: the unmade bed, the pile of clothes on the chair, the books stacked on the floor, Maggie standing in the middle of it with swollen lips and a look in her eyes that says she’s not done with me.

Not even close.

I pull my sweater over my head, and she watches like she’s trying to memorize the act. Then she steps forward and puts both hands on my chest, sliding them down, slower now, less frantic for one dangerous second.

“You’re very calm for a man I just had on his knees,” she says.

“I’m not calm.”

Her hand lowers, closes around my cock through my open trousers, and every word in my head disappears.

Her smile is small and satisfied. “No. You’re not.”

I catch her wrist, not to stop her, only because if she keeps touching me like that, this will be over before I get inside her.

She reads that on my face and looks delighted.

“Maggie.”

“What?”

“Bed.”