Page 85 of Business or Pleasure

An easy smile. “That’s the best one. One of your eyes gets squinty. Just one.”

“Sounds charming.”

“It is,” he insists, moving forward to drop a kiss onto each eyelid as I let out a yelp.

It’s probably a good thing that I’m leaving tomorrow and won’t see him for a few days. In Ohio, I wanted to send him away to protect my heart, but maybe the fact of it is that my body is stronger than my mind.

Right now, he is mine, and I’m going to show him just how proud I am of his progress.

I beckon him closer. I want to tell him everything I like about his face, too, his freckles and the angle of his cheekbones and most of all, the lovely warmth in his eyes when we’re talking like this. How the shade of his hair has quickly become my favorite color.

“Come here” is what comes out instead.

“Insatiable,” he says, and it’s true, because I’m already greedy for another orgasm: his.

“Do you have the condoms?” I ask.

“You think I’m ready for that?”

“As long as you don’t use your teeth to open it.”

He lifts his eyebrows at me. A challenge. “Look, I’m sure with a little practice, I could get it right.” He moves off the bed, returning with the condoms and lube we bought in Memphis. I take one from him, moving down his body, wrapping a hand around his hard length. He doesn’t need it—he’s been ready since we shed our clothes—but I give him a few strokes anyway. I’ve missed what this does to him. The way his eyes roll shut, a fist clutching my shoulder. A little lube, and the condom slides on easily. “That said... god, Chandler. I love the way you do it.”

The way he says my name echoes somewhere in the vicinity of my heart.

“Now I just have to hope I don’t get stage fright,” he says with a self-deprecating laugh.

I straddle him, knees pressed into the mattress. “You know what to do.”

We both do.

And then in one swift motion, I lower my hips, savoring the feeling of him filling me. Slowly, slowly, inch by incredible inch, as he holds me against him with a hand on my waist. I have to catch my breath the moment he settles inside me.

“Okay?” he asks when I let out a sharp gasp. His hands come up to grasp my hips, but he doesn’t start moving just yet.

I nod, biting down hard on my lower lip. “I just—really like the way you feel.”

As though encouraged by my words, he thrusts upward in slow, delicious strokes. I lift my hips to match his rhythm before picking up speed, urging him to go a little faster. My eyes flutter shut, the sensation already verging on too much. Too good. I’ve wanted him like this for weeks, and it’s somehow even better than I imagined—the way his fingers dig into my ass, his cock pulsing inside me. The rough, desperate sounds that fall from his mouth.

“Christ.” A shaky exhale as he throws his head backward. “I didn’t appreciate this nearly enough our first time.”

Soon we’re both panting, and I’m certain neither of us will last long, especially when his thumb lands where our bodies are joined. Everything in me tightens as he strokes, rubs, then licks his own fingers before sliding them back to my clit. Jesus. Now that he knows what I like, he’s almost too powerful. With a gnash of my teeth, I ride him harder, his other hand anchoring me at the waist.

“You always turn your face away when you come,” he says. “Can I watch you?”

“Oh—I do?” As soon as I say it, I realize he’s right. That maybe, after all my bravado, there are still some things I’ve held close.

“I want to see everything,” he says, his fingers circling and circling.

So I let him, because I think I’ve started learning from these lessons, too. I don’t hold anything back, my moans and the way my body shakes, and when it’s enough to send him over the edge, too, I wrap my arms around his neck to bring us closer.

It’s not like our first time. It’s not like anything I’ve had before, and whether that’s because we’ve both spent weeks aching for it or something else entirely, I’m not sure I want to know.

It’s just practice, I tell myself when we wake up in the middle of the night and reach for each other again. Casual, I remind myself when he whispers honeyed words into my skin. No emotions, I think as his fingers curl between my legs and I cry out against his throat, repeating his name like it’s something sacred.

I am a huge fucking liar.

MS.MISTLETOE

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