He closes his eyes. “Do you feel the same with me as you have with these other men?”

The hilarity of this. “No. Of course not.”

“Have you considered that you didn’t enjoy it because they weren’t very good at it?”

“Yes, but I’ve also considered that I didn’t enjoy it because they didn’t, either.”

He stares at me, head tilted, expression unreadable, until he whispers, “Or maybe you need to be comfortable with the person in order to be comfortable with the act?”

“No . . . I mean,” I whisper, feeling truly naked for the first time tonight, “what if you don’t like it with me?”

His gaze softens. “How could that possibly happen?”

When I don’t answer he whispers, “Lola. I’ve already felt you. I’ve tasted you.”

“I know.”

“On my fingers. On yours. Do you remember how I responded?”

I close my eyes and nod. I remember the sounds he made, the way he seemed to want more.

He lifts my hand, kisses my palm. “I’d be so careful with you.”

“I trust—”

“I’d start slow,” he interrupts, kissing me again. “Just kissing you there first.”

I bite back a smile but it dissolves when his tongue slips across my palm, tracing in a soft, wide circle. His lips come together and he sucks gently on each of my fingers.

“I wouldn’t suck too hard. Wouldn’t lick too fast.”

Swirling around my palm, his tongue forms smaller and smaller circles until my hand feels wet and warm under his kiss and I ache so intensely for him that I feel a little breathless. “And it’s me. It’s Oliver. Not some other guy.”

I smile, pulling my hand back enough to run my finger across his stubbly chin.

“Circles, I think,” he muses. “Just around and around and around so steady and gentle until you’re soaking wet with legs spread wide and you’re clawing at the sheets, begging to come on my lips. I’d want you begging for my mouth every time we’re alone.”

He looks up at me.

“And I’d give it to you, Lola,” he says quietly, earnestly. “I would suck the pleasure straight out of you; I wouldn’t toy with you. If I could get you there I would, whenever you want it.” He slides his tongue along my index finger to the tip. “I want to be so good you never let me go.”

I exhale a hoarse, begging noise. I already can’t imagine my life without him.

“But after I’d do that, I’d need to feel you.”

“You would?”

He brings my hand between us, circling his cock. “See, even the idea has me hard again and I just came. Already I’m so bloody hard for you.”

After studying his face for three deep breaths, I nod, and he shifts back again, this time kneeling between my legs at the side of the bed.

He watches where he touches me and I fight the urge to cover myself, closing my eyes instead. I feel his hair brush my thighs as he bends forward, feel his breath when he exhales against me, and then feel the soft kiss, one more, and then his lips part and cover me, and his tongue is there, touching, stroking so carefully.

“Holy fuck,” he growls, and his hands shake as he spreads my legs, urges me to rest my feet on the mattress. “Holy fuck, Lola.”

I no longer want careful.

I no longer want gentle.

I want him to pull out every fucking trick he ever learned because if he can make me feel this much with one single kiss, I’m dying to know what I feel when he pulls out all the stops.

Once I’m situated he quickly returns to me, trying to be slow. He’s watching me—eyes glued to my face—and my chest twists when I see how anxious he is to please me. Pushing my head into the mattress, I arch into him, whispering, “It’s good, it’s good, it’s good,” and it unleashes something in him. I don’t know what he’s doing; I don’t know if I even have the muscles he’s using but it’s fast and perfect and better than any sex toy I’ve ever found.

Holy shit . . .

I want to watch but there is too much to feel. The wet slide of his tongue, the vibrations of his sounds, how my thighs shake, my stomach grows tight, pleasure crawls up my torso.

But oh . . . how his head looks between my legs. How his arms wrap tightly around my thighs, a band of muscle keeping me open for him. The long line of his back, his ass in the mirror across the room, the definition of his thighs as he rocks absently, loving me with his full body but touching me only with his—

Sensation snags me mid-thought; it’s felt consuming, nearly surreal, but then it’s more than good, it’s everything. It’s his sounds and his breath against me, and the pleasure growing on the surface of my skin and plunging deep until I can’t process anything but the way pleasure rockets through my body.

I get it.

I get it now.

“I’m coming,” I cry through a choking exhale.

And—holy shit—I’m coming so hard.

He grunts encouragement, looking up at me as I say it again, and again, with wonder in my voice and it’s still true after so many gasping, preparatory breaths. It seems to build forever, growing and never cresting and I’m saying it so many times I can feel him laugh proudly against me, holding his rhythm and giving me more, and better, and holy fuck I have time to wonder if this is a completely new thing my body does, whether every other orgasm was some sad bastard cousin of this orgasm, the one that seems to never end.