Page 42 of Love is a Game

My cells plump with the rush of blood, the pulse of dopamine, the thrill of his touch.

With Tuck, my body transforms. It opens, itwants. This need isn’t soft or hesitant—it’s urgent, relentless, a force of nature. A drive to meld into him, to wrap around him, to take, and be taken.

Just to kiss him uncoils me…breaks me free from the hard shell I’ve spent my life escaping into. I bloom, unfurl, stretch outward, like a lotus flower turning toward the sun.

With him, I’m not a little crab clinging to a coral ledge. I’m something else entirely—drawn out, carried by the tide, surrendering to the pull of something vast and unknowable.

Now, in the dim hush of morning, he stirs beside me. Our limbs tangled like a drunk octopus. Arms, legs, even our fingers, knotted together. As if even in sleep, neither of us can bear to let go.

His breath tickles my ear, slow and warm, drumming a rhythm that hums in my bones. As ever, my body responds. The wetness returns between my thighs.

Take me, I’m yours.

Forget the sharp burn when I peed and the hint of new beard rash on my skin—evidence of the long night spent lost in him. Desire churns like a rising swell, an unstoppable current surging through my veins, sweeping me deeper, deeper. His fingers skim my skin, and I give myself over—wholly, helplessly, to their stroke, to the sleepy, hungry want awakening for more.

I moan, pressing into his touch, shamelessly signaling my need.

The flash of his wide smile fills my vision as he rises over me, effortlessly flipping me against the mattress.

Of all the ways we’ve had sex, somehow the simplicity of the missionary position in my childhood bed is what turns me on like crazy.

His face above mine, his dilating pupils darkening the blue of his eyes, his body poised between my legs, sets me alight. I twine my fingers around his tensed biceps, the pop of muscle making my mouth water.

Tuck slowly rubs against me, dips his head to my breast.

“Stop teasing. Fuck me.”

“Didn’t last night teach you anything?” he questions, returning his tongue to my erect nipple.

And the delicious pressure of his body revives the hellish pleasure of what came before this moment.Because last night? It was brutally torturous. And incredibly hot.

Whenever I tried to rush things, Tuck would stop…pull back, slow everything down. First, in the kitchen, where he licked and probed me to the edge and back. Then on the sofa where I immediately straddled him, my breasts in his face, poised at last to fuck.

But no. He held off.

I submitted to the slow burn. After all, I love kissing him. And we’ve rarely had time for gloriously slow, skin-tingling make-out sessions. Falling away in deep, spiraling kisses so intense that my body dissolves into his, as stars burst and collapse and renew themselves throughout my body.

My desperation peaked again. I grabbed at him. But Tuck eluded me a third time.

So I attempted payback: climbing off him, kneeling at his feet.

No. He halted my next move, gripping my hair to prevent me from reaching my goal.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

I sat back on my haunches, staring at the glistening hardness of my obvious intent.

“Answer me.” His voice was strong,rough.

I caught on to the game. And for a fleeting moment, I mightnothave played along. But that resistance evaporated against the surge of my body—my thighs gushing wetter, my nipples rock hard and eager, my skin vibrating with searing, driving lust.

“I want to suck your dick.”

“And what do we say, Penelope, when we want something?” He leaned forward, elbows to knees. “You have to ask nicely.”

Boy oh, boy—his commands just got me wetter.

“Tuck.” I pouted. “Can I please suck you off?”

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