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“I guess I do.” He takes a breath. “Do I have your permission to stay?”

I let him stand there with it for one hateful little second.

Then I jump in. I come up in front of him, already reaching, and he barely has time to breathe before my hands are on his waist and I’m pulling him to me.

His body hits mine. Warm skin. Pool water. The startled give of him.

The kiss is not careful. It probably should be. Everything about this probably needs discussion, paperwork, legalese.

Instead, Paul makes a sound that goes straight through my chest, and I kiss him harder.

Not thank you, just yes. Yes, stay. Yes, this house is mine, and I am choosing you inside it.

Paul’s hands come up my back, slick and searching. He laughs against my mouth once, breathless and broken.

I pull back just enough to see his face.

His eyes are wide. Wet. Alive.

“You’re sure?” he asks.

“No.” His mouth parts. I kiss him again before panic can use the opening. “But I’m saying yes anyway.”

His laugh shakes out of him, softer this time.

One of his hands slides down my side, then lower, and my knees forget themselves.

He wraps his fingers around my cock, and my breath breaks. Paul’s smile turns dangerous.

“Confirmation,” he says.

I grip his hips. “Don’t get smug.”

“Too late.”

I shove him back against the pool wall just enough to hear him gasp. My hands move over him, thoughtless and blind, without a lick of grace.

Paul shivers under my palms. His ribs. His stomach. The slick dip of his waist under the water. The softness of him, the strength underneath, the places where his body gives and the places where it holds. Here, real, and I’m done pushing that away.

My hands settle at his waist.

Paul’s eyes darken. “Clint.”

I push upward.

He understands and helps, bracing his hands on edge while I lift. Water streams off him as he rises. His hip bumps the pool edge. He makes a small awkward sound that might be pain, might be surprise, might be both, and then he is sitting above me on the warm stone, naked and wet and breathing hard.

My heart kicks once. Everything in me looks at him and says yes.

My hands slide down to his knees. I push his legs apart.

Paul’s breath catches. His body opens for me in bright daylight, and for a second all I can do is stand there in the pool between his thighs, water at my waist, staring at what I want.

I should be scared. I am scared, but the fear’s not bigger than the wanting.

I lean in. Paul’s hand lands in my wet hair, not pushing.

“Are you sure?” he asks.