“A gift from Chloe.”

“For me or you?”

“Both.” She curled her finger to me as she backed out of the room, and I stood, trailing after her until she stopped halfway to the bedroom on a slim, soft hallway rug.

“Here?” I asked, stepping close and bending to kiss her neck. She’d put the smallest touch of perfume on—the familiar light scent that seemed half fruit, half floral, and which she knew made me wild. Seeing her like this, in lingerie, her hair grown long and thick, reaching halfway down her back and brushed smooth, reminded me that it had been forever since we’d put in this sort of effort. It used to be either frantic fucking or a luxurious game.

Now we’d only known exhausted or frantic, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I should take her to our room, be slow and gentle with her.

“Yeah, here,” she whispered, standing on her toes to scrape her teeth over my jaw. “Remember that time we ate dinner in front of the TV, and I surprised you when the movie I put in was a video of us?” She dragged her teeth along my earlobe. “You got so turned on you fucked me against this wall. Bent at the waist, hands on the plaster and legs spread? Remember?”

I definitely remembered. We’d made love in the hall before—the frantic kind of pre-baby sex when we’d been unable to wait until we could reach the bed. Those times were fast and messy, a flurry of wild thrusts until we both collapsed sweaty and half dressed on the floor. On that particular occasion I’d just watched a video of me spanking her, and was so fucking turned on we re-created it, right here.

But tonight, when Annabel was fast asleep, why were we—

“I like this rug,” she explained, sliding down my body to her knees and my brain stuttered when she looked up at me with wicked eyes. “It’s soft and thick under my knees.” She guided my boxers down past my hips and freed my cock, watching it grow long as her fist curled around the base. She drew a slow circle with her tongue around the tip. “I also like the way you taste,” she continued, smiling knowingly up at me. “Is that weird?”

I opened my mouth, searching for sound, and finally grunted out a “No.”

She bit her lip, watching her fist work me for a few strokes before sucking at the crown again. I groaned, tensing from the pleasure of her swirling tongue. “I like this sweetness,” she whispered and stared up at me. “Relax. Tonight was a disaster, but a funny disaster. Give me more.”

Sara squeezed me, coaxing liquid from the tip and sucking at it. “What’s it like to watch me do that?”

My mouth opened and I tried to speak but only a garbled sound came out. Her tongue rubbed across the spot just beneath the head of my cock and my hand tightened on the back of her neck, breath tight and high in my throat.

Popping off with a wet kiss she asked, “When was the last time you came in my mouth?”

I knew the answer without having to think too long. It was two weeks after the baby was born and we couldn’t have sex yet. We were delirious with sleep deprivation and on some sort of high over the perfection of our lives anyway. I came on her lips not because she played with me for so long, but because we hadn’t touched intimately in several weeks and I’d felt spring-loaded.

“A while ago,” I admitted.

She nodded, lips pouting before she smiled and bent to kiss a wet, sucking line up my cock.

I wanted her hands around me, gripping and pulling, frenzied in that way that we seemed to never have energy for anymore. Wanted that slick slide of tongue over my skin and the vibrating sounds of pleasure, the urgency. She bent, licking another wet line from the head to my balls, smiling with her eyes up at me as she pointed her tongue and ran it around and around and around in a wet circle at the very tip of my cock.

Fuck.

My fingers found their way into her hair, massaging, guiding her down and I was speaking nonsense; encouraging her and begging her and praising her fucking perfect, sweet little mouth.

“Love that mouth. Fucking love it.” I ran a finger down from her temple to her lips, feeling her slide back and forth over me. “I bet you could take me all the way down, couldn’t you?” I said, giving in to what I wanted so so much.

She took me farther and farther until her eyes watered and she pulled back, sucking in air and staring up at me. I was harder than I’d been in ages, practically shaking with the need for her.

I needed Sara’s deep brown eyes and quiet, scratchy voice and hands that were both soft and strong. I wanted only the arch of Sara’s spine and the taste of the wet between her legs and the clench of her when she came around me with a shocked cry. I’d been with her a hundred times and every one of those times she’d been a different woman—a new discovery—revealing something new of herself.

With my cock between her lips, she reached back and unfastened her bra, letting it slide down her arms and land silently on the floor.

Her eyes twinkled as she looked up at me and when she reached forward and played with her nipple, I was fucking done.

Perfect suction, her hot little ass in perfect view . . . holy fuck. I closed my eyes and gave in to the clawing ache that built in my thighs and stretched upward, tightening . . .

A tiny thump sounded in the other room: Anna rolling into the side of the crib. She coughed a few times.

I started to step away but Sara planted her hands on my hips with quiet urgency. “She’s fine. You’re so close, baby, stay.”

And then the baby started to cry.