Page 82 of The True Love Experiment

He laughs. “Only since this morning.”

“How confident.”

“ABC’s,” he says, tearing it open. “Always be prepared.”

“That’s ABP.”

Connor huffs out a distracted laugh. “There’s not so much blood in my cranium at the moment,” he says absently, and we both watch him slowly roll it down his length, inch by straining inch.

“I’m seeing that.”

He pulls me to stand, bending to kiss me, his urgency in the tight grip of his hands on my hips, the restraint when he pivots me and sits in a smooth movement coaxing me onto his lap.

“I want you in charge.” Connor guides me closer. “Go slow.”

But slow sounds awful. I want to impale myself and die a happy death.

He tempers my impatience, and I don’t know how because he looks about as calm as I feel, flushed and tight all over. I want to bruise his thighs, eat him whole. The galaxy inside me expands, toofast, in a world-ending way. The feel of him—his patient, trembling hands on my waist and full mouth on my breasts and his urgent body filling me—sends me into a euphoric trance. I start slow, but eventually animal instinct takes over, slippery and wild. It’s so good it’s speechless, gasping sex. It’s take up the whole bed sex, head hanging over the edge, sheets popping off the corners sex. It’s screaming into his ear, laughing into kisses as we slow down and check in with each other sex. It’s slow, shared breath, tiny movement and fast, headboard slapping sex. When he finally comes—behind me, curled over my back and trapping me in a savage, tender cage—the room falls still for the first time in an eternity. His massive body heaves in breaths, fists shaking where they’re planted on the mattress beside mine.

“Holy shit,” he breathes against my spine. His forehead is sweaty when he presses it between my shoulder blades. “Holy shit.”

My ears are ringing, skin prickly and aware that I’ve taken a new shape. I can feel my heartbeat in my windpipe; my thoughts are warped with thrill and pleasure and the tight, hyperaware realization that I want him close to me every second of every day from here on out. I want to tattoo my name into his skin and shout his name a hundred times and make sure everyone hears.

He shifts back and away, standing at the end of the bed. I’ve never felt so physically drained and spiritually full all at the same time. I collapse forward onto the warm mattress, and roll to my back, staring up at the ceiling.

Connor gazes down at the situation around me. “This bed is a disaster.”

“Let’s put it back together so we can destroy it again.”

He laughs. “I might need a minute.”

“Okay.” I throw an arm across my face. “But only one.”

He leaves, bare feet padding across the tile into the bathroom. Quiet shuffling. Water running.

I feel like I’m floating.

He returns and gently touches his fingers to my inner thigh before pressing a warm, wet cloth there, drawing it up to where a pleasant ache throbs, cleaning me with slow, careful hands.

“Ready?” he asks.

I push up onto an elbow. “I am. Are you?”

He shakes his head but kisses me, distracting with the familiar drag of his teeth along my lower lip, and then presses a fresh, cooler cloth between my legs. The shock immediately shifts to a soothing bliss.

“We went at it quite a long time. I’m worried you’re gonna be sore.”

I hum into his lips. “Good sore.”

The light from the bathroom sends gold along his arms, his fingers, and I feel like he’s painting me with stardust. It’s crazy, but I need him again. This is a choking, panicky feeling. I am infatuated, I am mesmerized by everything he does. When he stands to return the washcloths to the bathroom I grab his forearm, taking the damp cloths from him and tossing them somewhere to the side, out of sight.

“Don’t go.”

“I was just—”

“I don’t care. I don’t want you to leave my sight.”

With a smile, he climbs back over me.

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