“Frederick...”

“Can I tell you what I do to you in my dreams?”

Finally, at last, he parted my drenched folds with one thick finger. My head fell back onto the pillow as he gently circled the place where every nerve ending in my body was centered. My jaw fell open as stars burst behind my closed eyelids, my body taut as a bowstring.

“Oh.” I was panting now, any pride or dignity I might have once had long gone. I needed him to touch me.Now.“Please.”

Frederick chuckled a little as the mattress at the foot of the bed shifted beneath his weight. I could almost hear his satisfied smirk when he said, “Perhaps I’ll just show you instead.”

He slid his large hands down my body until he reached my hips. He left them there, gripping my flesh, spreading me open as his eyes feasted on my bare flesh. I shivered at how vulnerable this position left me. The open, heated longing I saw in Frederick’s eyes was almost too much to bear.

“You,” he murmured against my inner thigh, nostrils flared as he breathed me in, “are magnificent beyond my wildest imaginings.”

I’d done this a few times before. Mostly with my college boyfriend, someone who viewed oral sex as an obligation to be dispensed with as quickly as possible before he could move on to more pleasurable activities.

But the moment Frederick buried his face between my legs it was clear there was nothing in the world he would rather be doing than this. He tasted and licked, breathing me in as he took his sweet, deliberate time. My fingertips found purchase on his shoulders, and I clung to them for dear life as he teased me, the wool of the sweater he still wore deliciously smooth against my bare legs.

My head fell back against the pillow again and I writhed onthe mattress, bucking up towards his mouth in search of greater friction, needingmore. But he wouldn’t be rushed. His hands gripped my hips harder as my body sought to move against him, keeping me pinned helplessly to the mattress in the exact spot he wanted me. I whined in delicious agony as he traced the shape of my clit with the achingly soft flat of his tongue, dancing around the direct contact my body was screaming for. I could feel how wet I was growing, could hear the sharp keening sounds I was making as if from a distance. But he would not be rushed by my desperation as he kissed, and lapped, and tasted.

“Frederick.” I tangled my fingers in his soft hair and tugged, moaning. I was going to pieces. I was out of myheadwith need. “Please.”

At my naked plea something must have broken inside him. He groaned, long and loud, the reverberations from it sending sparks of sensation rocketing down my spine—

And then, at last, his tongue wasright there, licking me senseless as his lips closed around my clit. He sucked gently, then with greater pressure, and the room, the bed beneath us, fell away. The world collapsed down to a pinprick, nothing existing anymore outside of Frederick and the exquisite, cresting pleasure.

“Oh, god,” I moaned, bucking against his mouth. I was outside of myself, outside of reason. “Please—”

My orgasm came upon me like a tidal wave—devastating, and all-consuming, my toes curling with the spine-melting pleasure of it. Distantly, I could feel Frederick shifting on the bed, kissing his way up my body, whispering praise to my bare legs, my stomach, my breasts.

After what might have been a few seconds, or thirty minutes, he stretched out to his full length beside me on the bed, a crooked, self-satisfied smile on his lips.

“I want to do that to you every day for as long as you’ll let me,” he murmured against the top of my head.

I giggled, feeling utterly spent and lighter than air.

I rolled over and burrowed my face into his chest. “I’m so glad you’ve come around.”

He chuckled, then wrapped his arms around me, pulling me close. “Me, too.”

I startled awake sometime later, not having realized I’d dozed off. Frederick was walking towards me with a glass of water, a small smile on his lips.

He sat beside me on his bed. “Here,” he said, offering me the glass. “In case you’re thirsty.”

I was. “Thanks.” I took the water from him, taking a sip before setting it on the bedside table. “How long was I sleeping?”

“Not long. Maybe fifteen minutes.”

I shifted a little beneath the duvet. The last thing I remembered before drifting off was using his chest as a pillow, his arms wrapped around me. He must have covered me with the duvet when he left the room.

Tenderness flooded me. I reached up and cupped his face in my hand. He sighed, his stubble rough against my palm as he leaned into my touch.

Only then did I notice that his jeans were tented with what must have been an extremely uncomfortable—and massive—erection.

Given his recent confession about his relationship to fruit, I was tempted to make a wildly inappropriateIs that a conjured banana in your pocket?joke. But I didn’t. Because for one thing, he’d just given me one of the most mind-meltingly incredibleorgasms of my life, and teasing him felt like a mean way to repay him. For another, I knew full well that his pants situation was due entirely to the fact that, yes—hewashappy to see me.

I trailed my hand slowly down his chest, not stopping until I reached the waistband of his jeans. His stomach muscles rippled, tensing and flexing beneath my palm.

“Cassie,” he said, hoarsely, quickly covering my hand with his own to stop me. “Wait.”