And even if I’d wanted to resist, I wouldn’t have been able to.

So I didn’t even try.

Instead I followed my nose to the kitchen where I found Hope.

She was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen, wearing a pair of cotton pants and a T-shirt and looking like everything I had always wanted.

Everything I knew I didn’t deserve.

“Nico,” she said when she noticed me, a huge smile on her face.

She grabbed the remote control for the sound system and turned the podcast off, plunging the kitchen into silence.

It was an easy silence, a comforting one before she spoke.

“I made some dinner,” she said. “It should be done in about twenty more minutes.”

I nodded, not able to speak. I worried that she might see some of the tumultuous thoughts. If she did, she ignored them, and instead moved around the kitchen like she belonged there.

“So all in all, it was great!” she said.

I realized she had been talking, then met her eyes, smiling.

“I’m glad,” I said.

She nodded, her smile even brighter. “I was so worried they were going to hire someone else. But to hear that all of my coworkers missed me so much was nice. Really nice,” she said.

She took the lid off of a pot, one I must have bought, though I could remember when.

“Turn off the stove, Hope,” I said.

She blinked.

“It’s not done yet,” she said.

“Turn it off,” I responded, walking toward her.

“Okay,” she said.

She turned off the stove, and I approached her slowly, then covered the few steps between us in a flash.

She inhaled sharply when I pulled her body flush with mine, her eyes meeting mine.

They were heavy lidded desire, desire I didn’t even attempt to resist.

I kissed her ear, then turned her, pressing her face against the cabinet refrigerator.

My hands rested on her sides before I started rubbing big circles down her body, taking her pants and underwear with me as I went down to my knees.

I wrapped my arm around her waist, forcing her to arch her back, smiling when she opened her thighs for me before I said anything.

Her sweet, musky scent tantalized me, and on Hope’s short breath, I dove in, traced my tongue down her crack, over her puckered hole, to feast on her wetness.

I kept an arm tight around her thighs as I lapped at her with my tongue, only pausing to circle her clit, working hard to bring her to the edge before pulling back.

“I need to…”

She started on a harsh breath, then trailed off.