She nodded. “I know. But I do need to go to lab tomorrow. I don’t think I’ve ever just not shown up like I did today.”

I unlocked my front door, pushing it open and letting her lead us inside. She headed straight for the kitchen.

“Wrong way.”

“I won’t leave after tea,” she said over her shoulder. “But I do want some. That drink made me sleepy.”

“You had two sips.” We’d left her mostly full Jack and Coke on the table while Bennett and the rest did their best to convince us to stay and not only finish the one, but have another.

“I think there was the equivalent of seven shots in those two sips.”

Stepping up to the stove, I grabbed the kettle and then turned to fill it with water. “Then you’re a pretty boring drunk. If I had seven shots I would have been stripping on the table.”

She laughed, opening my fridge, rooting around, and finally pulling out a carrot. She walked over to my counter and hopped up on it, swinging her legs. Even though this was so new, it seemed like she’d been coming over here for years.

Her hair had started to come undone and a few pieces fell in small curls next to her face and down the back of her neck. The warmth of the bar, or maybe the two sips of her drink, had left her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright. She blinked slowly as she looked over at me and I smiled.

“You look pretty,” I said, leaning against the counter beside her.

She snapped into the carrot. “Thanks.”

“Think I might f**k you senseless in a few minutes.”

Shrugging and pretending to look nonchalant, she murmured, “Okay.”

But then she reached out with her legs and pulled me closer, between her thighs. “Despite that whole ‘work’ thing I mentioned, I think you could probably keep me up all night again, if you really wanted.”

I reached forward with one hand and slipped the top button of her shirt free. “What do you want me to do to you tonight?”

“Anything.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “Anything?”

She reconsidered, whispering, “Everything.”

“I love this,” I said, stepping closer and running my nose up the column of her neck. “This kind of sex where I get to learn everything you like. I discover all of your sounds.”

“I don’t know . . .” She trailed off, waving her carrot in a vague circle next to my head. “Isn’t sex with someone you’ve been with forever the best kind, though? Like she’s in bed, falls asleep, he comes in, and she just instinctively rolls to him, you know? And it’s like, her face in his warm neck and his hands all up and down her back, then her pants come off and he’s pushing inside her before her shirt is even off. He knows what’s under there. Maybe he can’t wait to be inside her first. He doesn’t have to take things off in order anymore.”

I pulled back and stared at her as she snapped another bite of her carrot. She had quite the vivid image of such a moment. I personally would never have said familiar sex is the best kind. A good kind, sure. But the way she said it—the way her voice dropped and her eyes kind of closed—fuck, yes, it sounded like the best kind. I could see that life with Hanna, where we shared a bed, and a kitchen, and finances and fights. I could see her getting angry with me, and me coming to find her later and making it up to her in whatever sneak-attack ways I had learned over time because she was mine and, being Hanna, she couldn’t help but let every thought and desire slip out of her mouth.

Damn. She wasn’t sexy in any of the ordinary ways. She was sexy because she didn’t care if I was watching her chow down on a carrot, or that her hair was in this half-assed ponytail she hadn’t bothered to fix since we were lounging on the couch earlier. She was so comfortable in her skin, so comfortable being watched—I’d never known a woman like her. She would never assume I was staring and judging. She assumed I was staring because I was listening. And I was. I would listen to her ramble about familiar sex and anal sex and p**n films forever.

“You’re looking at me like I’m food.” She held out her carrot, grinned wickedly. “Want some?”

I shook my head. “I want you.”

She moved her hands up, unbuttoning her shirt now, and slid it off her shoulders.

“Tell me what you like,” I said, stepping even closer and kissing the hollow of her throat.

“I like when you come on me.”

I let out a quiet laugh into her neck. “I know that. What else?”

“When you watch where you’re moving in me.”

Shaking my head, I said, “Tell me what you like that I do to you.”

Hanna shrugged a little, running her fingertips down my chest before reaching for the hem of my shirt and pulling it up and over my head. “I like when you throw me around a little, have your way with me. I like when you act like my body is yours.”

The teakettle whistled, screeching in the quiet kitchen, and I moved away just long enough to grab her mug and pour some hot water over a tea bag. “When I’m touching you,” I told her, putting the kettle down, “your body is mine. Mine to kiss, and fuck, and taste.”

She lifted her eyebrow and smiled at me. “Well, when I’m touching you, your body is mine, too, you know.”

My mind went completely, directly into the gutter when she leaned across the counter, reached for the honey, and drizzled some into the mug.

Taking the honey wand from her, I swiped some excess on the lip of the jar then ran the stickiness across the top swell of her breast. She watched me, her tea apparently forgotten.

“So take control,” I told her, kissing her jaw. “Tell me what to do next.”

She hesitated for only a beat. “Suck it off.”

I groaned at the quiet command, licking across the honey before sucking her skin into my mouth with such force I left a small, red mark. “What else?”

Her hands slipped behind her, unlatching her bra just as I ran my tongue over her skin. I moved to her nipple, blowing lightly across the peak before sucking her into my mouth. Gasping, she whispered, “Make it wet.”

I leaned forward, doing exactly what she asked, licking her breasts, sucking them deeply, laving her skin with my tongue until it glistened. “These will be f**ked soon.”

“Teeth,” she whispered. “Bite me.”

With a groan, I closed my eyes, biting small circles into the swell of her breasts, finding small traces of honey remaining on her skin. My hands slid lower, to her jeans, and I worked them and her underwear down her h*ps so she could kick them to the floor.

Her hands ran over my shoulders, legs spread open. “Will?”

“Mmmm?” I teased down her ribs, lifting both br**sts in my hands. I knew her tone; knew what she was about to beg me to do.

“Please.”

“Please what?” I asked, pressing my teeth carefully into her nipple. “Please hand you your tea?”

“Touch me.”

“I am touching you.”

She let out an angry little growl. “Touch me between my legs.”

I dipped my finger into the small bowl of honey, and pressed it against her clit, rubbing it across her skin as I pressed my teeth into the delicate flesh of her breast. She moaned, head falling back, and pulled her feet up onto the counter, legs spread wide.

Crouching, I ran my tongue over her, not teasing, not even able to. The honey was warm from her skin, and tasted f**king amazing. “Holy fuck,” I whispered, sucking gently on her small fold of nerves.

Her hand ran into my hair, pulling, but not for pleasure. She raised me up to her face, leaning forward to kiss me. She’d put honey on her tongue, too, and I knew in a hot pulsing heartbeat that I would now associate this flavor with Hanna forever.

Her quiet little moans filled the space between our lips and our tongues, echoing mildly, growing tighter when I reached between us, slid my fingers over her skin, playing where she was slippery and hot. The counter was a little higher than my hips, but I could make it work if she wanted to f**k in the kitchen.

“Let me get a condom.”

“Okay,” she said, pulling her fingers from my hair.

I turned, padding in bare feet down the hall, unbuttoning my jeans. I pulled a packet out of the box in my drawer and moved to return to the kitchen, but Hanna was standing just inside my bedroom.

She was completely na**d, and without saying anything, walked over to my bed and climbed to the middle. Resting back on her heels, she sat with one hand on her knee. Waiting for me.

“I want to be in here.”

“Okay,” I said, pushing my jeans down my hips.

“On your bed.”

I got it, I thought. It’s pretty obvious you want to have sex on my bed, what with the na**dness and condom in my hand. But then I realized she was actually asking me something. She was wondering whether my bed was off-limits, whether I was that kind of playboy, who never brought girls home and took them into the inner sanctum of the bedroom.

Would it always be like this? Her unspoken questions, uncertainty about what I was giving her that was new and special? Wasn’t it enough that I was secretly giving her the chance to break my heart?

I joined her on the bed, beginning to tear the condom packet open with my teeth before she reached up and took it from me.

“Fuck,” I mumbled, watching her duck down to run a tentative tongue across the tip of my dick. “Holy hell. I just love your f**king mouth.”

She kissed the tip, running her tongue up and over me. Drawing me into her mouth.

“I like watching you,” I babbled. I was so f**king tight and the vision of her doing this . . . I wasn’t sure I could hold out. “I feel like I’m going to come.”

“I’m barely touching you,” she said, clearly proud of herself.

“I know. I’m just . . . it’s a lot.”

She took the condom and rolled it over me, laid back on the bed. “Ready?”

I hovered over her, looking down the length of our bodies before I positioned myself to slide into her. She was so warm, so slippery, and I wanted to last, draw this moment out just a tiny bit longer. I pulled my h*ps back slightly, tapping my c**k gently against her clit.

“Will,” she whined, h*ps arching up.

“Do you realize how wet you are?”

With a shaky hand, she reached between us, touching herself. “Oh God.”

“Is that because of me? Plum, I don’t know if I’ve ever been this hard.” I felt my pulse reverberating down my length, pounding.

She gripped me then, and inhaled sharply, whispering, “Please.”

“Please what?”

Her eyes opened and she whispered, “Please . . . inside.”

I smiled, enjoying her sweet, urgent agony. “Does your pu**y ache a little?”

“Will.” Beneath me, she moved, searching with her hands and hips. I brought her fingers to my mouth, sucked each into my mouth to taste her sweetness.

Then I reached between us, circling a finger around her slick opening. “I asked you, does it ache right here?”

“Yes . . .” She tried to push up, to get even my finger inside but I slid it up and over her clit, making her moan loudly. I dragged my finger back down, dipping into the unbelievable wetness. “Does it ache in your thighs? Are these sweet little petals right here—” I bent, sucking her nipple into my mouth and playing a little with my tongue. “Are they tight and aching, too?” Fuck, her breasts. So f**king soft and warm. “God, Plum,” I whispered, feeling desperate. “I’m going to make it so good tonight. I’m going to make you feel so f**king good.”

She arched off the bed, hands in my hair, down my neck, scratching along my back.

Drawing my finger down across her pu**y and lower, I pressed it against her backside. “I bet I could make you do anything right now. I could f**k you right here.”

“Anything,” she agreed. “Just . . . please.”

“Are you . . . begging me?”

She nodded urgently and then blinked up to my face, eyes wide and wild. Her pulse thrummed in her throat. “Will. Yes.”

“So those girls in the p**n movies you so love,” I whispered, smiling as I rocked my hips. We both groaned when the crown of my c**k slid over the taut rise of her clit. “The ones who beg. Say they need it . . .” I tilted my head, jaw tight as I resisted the urge to sink into her, pound her into the bed. “Would you say right now you need it?”

She groaned, fingernails digging into my chest just below my collarbones and dragging down so roughly she left a trail of fire-red marks from my sternum to my navel. “I’ll do whatever you want tonight, just make me come first.”

Unable to tease any longer, I rasped, “Put me inside.”

Her hands flew to my cock, wrapping around me and rubbing over herself before sliding me inside, pushing her h*ps off the bed to take me deeper. My skin flushed warm, and with a grunt, I met her movements, sinking in deep and pushing her legs to her sides so I could press all the way in, so I could rub her right where she needed it.

I closed my fists around the sheets on either side of her shoulders, struggling to control myself. She was so wet. She was so f**king warm. I squeezed my eyes closed, blood thundering in my veins as I pulled back and pushed in again, and again, hard and deep.

Her noises—sweet moans and growls that it was good, so good—made me want to dive deeper, press harder, make her come over and over until she could never imagine feeling anyone else inside her like this. She knew now I would go all night, and it wasn’t just that first night we shared. I would always keep her up for hours. With Hanna, I would rarely let it to be over quickly.