Page 63 of For One Night Only

And so, so notdone.

He’s still in his jeans, but his erection is hot and hard at my hip. I draw my fingers down the tattoos on his pecs, down the smooth planes of his stomach, and palm him through the denim.

“We can stop—believe me, that was as fun for me as it was for you,” he says. Oh, this sweet, sweet man. Always so giving.

“I want to make you feel good too, Caleb.”

He exhales sharply. “I wouldn’t dream of trying to stop you.”

So I keep touching him. I flip him onto his back, unbuckle his belt, slide his jeans and boxers down his hips all in one go. Now that he’s naked beneath me, I let my eyes linger. Finally, I memorize every inch of him, like I’m relearning the words to my old favorite song.

“Please,” he breathes.

And then he stops talking entirely, because I give as good as I get.

19

Caleb

We wake up wrapped up in each other again, but now there’s nothing between us but sheets and sweat and the memories of last night.

My heart picks up as I look at Val in the morning light, gazing my fill. Sometime in the earliest of hours, the sheet slipped off her bare shoulder. I resist the urge to skate my fingers across her skin. I don’t want to disturb her sleep, but I’m also afraid that if I touch her, she’ll be nothing but a ghost.

It would be too easy to get used to this again. Her heat. Her scent. Valerie is everywhere, and I can’t get enough. I thought I remembered what it was like being with Valerie, but I forgot the tiny details: the sigh she lets out when she wants something, the way she rolls her hips when she’s begging for more, how her eyes flutter shut when she’s about to come like she’s trying to savor every ounce of pleasure.

I’m hard just thinking about it, and that’s no way to wake her up. But it doesn’t go unnoticed, as she twists around in my arms to face me with a drowsy smirk.

“We have a big day today. You can’t just keep me in bed,” she murmurs.

“Icould, though.”

“God, last night was incredible.” She bites her lip, glancing up at me through lashes that are still a little stuck together from sleep. “Breath control, huh, Mr. Sloane? Who’d have thought?”

“It has its uses,” I say, and she laughs, falling into my shoulder with an ease that twists my heart. Her hair tickles my skin, and I tug her closer. I missed this, touching just because we want to, losing track of where I end and she begins.

“As someone with real-world data, I can safely say it improves the experience,” she murmurs.

I draw back, faking offense. “Are you saying I wasn’t as good back then?”

Her eyes dance. “Things were always good between us. I’m saying it was evenbetter, dumbass.”

“If you say so,” I say.

She pouts. “Aren’t you going to tell me I’ve gotten better with my tongue?”

Val hasn’t just gotten better with her tongue, and she knows it. Holy hell. “I could, but you’ve already got such a big head. Especially when you’regiving it.”

Valerie swats my shoulder, then rolls away from me.

“Okay, get up, you big sexy idiot. We need to check if we’re trending.”

My stomach drops. “Oh, right, of course.” I scramble to get out of the sheets, but I can’t shake the feeling of being diminished to a publicity stunt. That’s not what I wanted with her. I wouldn’t have done this if…

“I mean, we were definitely photographed. Our strategy worked. Time to see if we made a splash for that kiss,” she muses, slipping out of bed and pulling on a robe.

I try to follow her lead as I tug on my boxers and gather the rest of my clothes from where we discarded them on the floor, but it doesn’t remove the lead weight in my chest. Was this really just PR for her?

My stomach roils. “Right. We have to see how thestrategyis going.”

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