Page 118 of Problematic Summer Romance

“Stop. Too unrealistic.”

He pinches my knee, lightly. “I come home from work, and you’re there. At the table. Doing whatever it is that you do. Studying. Equations. Reading a novel. I have no idea.”

“At leastyoudon’t think I split atoms for a living.”

His lips twitch. “You’re just doing your thing. The same stuff I’ve seen you do countless times in Eli’s kitchen.”

“But I’m naked?”

“No, you’re just…It’s my house. You’re in my house. And your stuff is around the place, scattered everywhere. Like you live there.”

“You’d never be able to get it up in the presence of clutter.”

He snorts, but he’s rock-hard. That wet spot, expanding.

“And then?”

“And then, you look up, and smile. Come to me. Welcome me home.”

I wait for him to continue. “And…?”

“I kiss you, and you kiss me back. And I close my arms around you, because I can. And you’re warm, and you like it, what I’m doing to you. I press you against the table and you’re soft under me and…” Conor sighs. Like just saying all this stuff is turning him on beyond belief. He reaches for his cock and holds the base tight.

“What happens next?”

“I’m usually finished before it escalates. Most times, really. But if I play it further, usually I take you to my room, and—”

“Conor.” I tilt my head, amused. “Are you saying that the peak of your erotic fantasies is doing it in a bed?”

His fingertips trace the pale skin of my thigh, the place where the muscle turns into fat. A touch so light, his fingers may just be hovering over me. “In the fantasy, you’re my girlfriend. My…More than that, maybe. I figured out a way to have you and also set you free. And you are—” He looks away, like out of all the embarrassments, this is the one that burns the brightest. “I’m not afraid to hurt you. You are mine, and used to me touching you. You welcome it. It’s…We have a life, Maya. That’s ours.”

You could have it,I think. Something tears inside me.You could have had it for the past three years, if you hated yourself just a little less.

“That sounds like a highly problematic fantasy,” I say, not sure whether I’m joking. “Am I older, in it? I don’t have the tragic past that makes me highly susceptible to the undue influence of father figures?”

His hand closes around my knee, warm. “You’re not. You’re just you.”

Heartbreaking, that he would change nothing about me. “It’s you who’s different, then. You have found a way to give me the world, and take me, too.”

He nods with some difficulty. All I want is to take this self-loathing man and make him happy.

Next to us, his phone lights up with a work call that he ignores in favor of lifting a hand to my rib cage. It hovers there until I say, “You may,” and then his thumb brushes around my nipple, softly, delicately, like it’s made of a highly explosive substance. When his cock twitches, I lean forward, not letting my hips make contact with his. The front of my panties is wet and slick. I’m sure I’ve soiled his sweats by now. “Do you want to knowmyfantasy?” I ask, rubbing my cheek against the scratchy surface of his throat.

“That feels like a trick question.”

“It’s odd. It hasn’t exactly been my thing. Alfie used to complain that I didn’t do it enough.” My eyelashes flutter against his jaw. “But I think about going down on youall the time.”

He swears, sharp and unintelligible. The thumb circling my nipple stops, but his grip tightens.

“Conor, I just know that you would look sopretty, coming several inches down my throat, and—”

“You need tofucking—” He squeezes my hip so hard, there will be coin-sized bruises blooming there. I cannot wait to count them. “You need to stop.Please.”

I kiss his cheek, apologetic. “How long do you think you’d last?”

I think it might be an automatic reflex, the way his hand slams my core down, against the outline of his cock. His breath comes inquick, noisy puffs against my temple, and when I reach out I expect him to swat my hand away, but this time he lets me pull down the fabric and grip him. We stare at each other, chests rising and falling together. I push my underwear aside and run the head of his cock against my labia, then my clit. Feel how heavy he is, how hot and thick. My name is a deep grunt that travels through space and time.

His hands fist in the cushions.

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