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“I’m surprised at myself because I don’t usually open up that easily. But lately, I’ve been talking to my cowboy pen pal, sharing stuff with you and now, your family.”

“You signed up for that?” he asks as he pulls into the driveway and shuts off the engine.

“I did.” I twist in the seat to get the bags of leftovers his mom packed but he stops me.

“I’ll get those.”

Maverick follows me to the door and waits while I take out my keys. I unlock the door and toss my sunflower keychain onto the foyer table. He puts his Stetson beside it.

Tonight something is different between us. It feels like a shift happened.

Maverick carries the leftovers into the kitchen, and I follow him to put them away.

After I close the refrigerator door, I joke, “If this were a real date, we’d end it with a kiss.”

He grins and jokes back, “If this were a real date, I’d make a move.”

We stand there smiling until we’re not anymore and silence is filling the room. I can’t say for sure which one of us moved first but his hands are on my hips.

A shiver chases down my spine. I want him touching me. I want him kissing me. I want him inside me.

His height forces me to look up. His lips part. Tempting. He’s a temptation that I want to give in to.

His eyes darken and he puts his hand on the back of my neck, pulling me in, letting my body rest against his. Then he lowers his head and lightly brushes my lips. The caress is gentle.

And then it’s a whirlwind.

I know what this is. The answer to the craving. The fulfilment of the fantasy. This is right with the man I thought was all wrong.

I cannot fight this hunger for him, and I don’t want to try. I simply want.

Him. This consuming kiss. This heat melting me.

His lips are firm and coaxing. A mixture of taking and surrendering.

My heart pounds as his fingers tighten. I’m pressing into the firmness of his cock against the softness between my legs.

His tongue tangles with mine and we move across the floor in a heated dance until I’m up pinned between the cabinets and his hardness.

I will starve if I can’t have him, if I can’t feed this hunger. I am lost. He finds me. And then we get lost together.

I ache down to the bone, starving…so hungry. I moan against his lips.

He pulls back then, breathing hard, his jaw clenched. “I lost my head,” he says. “I didn’t mean to come at you so intensely.”

“I like intense. It’s okay. It was my idea first.”

“Well…I gotta stop. I don’t have any protection,” he says. “I never expected⁠—”

I put my finger against his lips. “I know.” I’m throbbing everywhere.

He kisses my finger.

“I feel like I struck a match and everything caught fire,” I say.

“Same,” he says. He brushes a strand of hair out of my eyes. “I don’t want to leave but since I’m unprepared, I’m going to do the gentlemanly thing and say goodnight. Then I’ll go home and wank off in the shower.”

I laugh.