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I drop my shorts over the side of the bed and toy with the waistband of his boxer briefs. “And did that work for you? The way Christian fucked you?”

“It was fine. I came.”

I flash back to his body beneath mine, my fingers pressing into his hips. Then Senator Latchley, who I always have to do mental gymnastics with. Worlds apart, those experiences.

“Sex should never be just fine, Dean.”

He shakes his head, chest hitching as he comes alive. “What about that fucking car dealership owner you see once a month? The finance guy? That old man on the top floor of the Towers condo building who makes you bring him breakfast in bed after? The married senator? You having mind-blowing fuck sessions with all those guys who are old enough to be your granddaddy?”

Call it a dream, but that almost sounds like jealousy. Smiling, I pull off his boxers and let his erection spring free. “It’s fine.”

“Exactly.” With a groan, he lifts his head and drops it again on the pillow. “You’re so full of it.”

“So are you.” I rise up onto my knees and plant my hands on his shoulders, pressing him into the mattress. “Don’t avoid me again. Maybe next time I won’t come looking for you, and I think secretly you want me to.”

For a moment he presses his eyes closed. When they open again, his gaze is sharp. “And what are you going to do to me this time?”

The muscles in my forehead twitch. “You really feel like trying me today? Fine. I’m going to fuck you, and then you’re going to get your punishment.”

“Takes a little something away from however you’re going to punish me if you fuck me first, doesn’t it?” Little bitch has the audacity to stick his tongue out at me.

But really, the playful brattiness feels like progress between us. Still, I’ve been saving something for a just-in-case scenario, and I think today’s the day. He’s going to get it.

Dean needs to realize trying to stay away from me will always be something he regrets.

“Oh, I don’t know.” I can’t keep the smile off my face. He has no clue. “Guess we’ll have to find out.”

Then I do something I’ve been dying to do since we fucked. No, since fucking freshman year. Since that day he wandered into our dorm looking bewildered and biting his lips and asking if I knew where to find the dining hall.

Something so small and so huge that I’ve denied us both since we were eighteen.

I press my lips to his, and I let our bodies sink together. This isn’t the fake kiss I gave Dean to prove I could pretend to love him. This is the one that reminds me I always have.

There’s no going back now.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Dean

I press my shaking hands to the mattress, digging my fingers into the sheets. Willing my body to be still.

Michael has seen every awful part of me. From the terrible flu I had freshman year, to the humiliation of blowing our pimp for cash in a hospital bathroom, to the time Ella’s first stomach virus had me panicked that she was going to die.

There’s nothing I can hide from him. There’s never been any point.

Until now. Because when he arrived at that appointment, everything changed for me. If he’d only fucked me, if he’d given it to me hard and detached the way things had been with Christian, I think I could’ve put it behind me. It would have been the exact explosive release I’ve wanted from him for years.

What he did? What he’s doing now? The heat of his skin on mine won’t leave my head. When he’s not touching me I think I might die without it, and when he is I’m terrified of needing something we can’t give each other.

The slide of his tongue along mine is gentle and slow; the way he sinks his teeth into my lip is only a whisper of the aggression I know we’re both capable of. He pulls my shirt over my head, brushing his thumb so gently over my nipple that I’m lifting my upper body to chase his touch before I even know what I’m doing.

“Mike…” I’ve always wanted this. I don’t know what to do with the way I need you.

I bite my lips closed, pulling away. This is not the moment for whispered wishes and confessions.

If I ever told him—straight up, no kinky BS between us—how connected to him I feel, what would I have left?

I’ve failed plenty in life. Missed shots, injuries…the time I arrived way too late to one of Ella’s dance performances. They all ached, but the ache dulled with time. I’ve been telling myself for a while now that I can’t love Mike. Losing him would hurt more than all the rest of it.