"And that's okay. I understand." I sit up all the way, settling her sideways on my lap. "I'm not in a hurry. I fucking want you more than my next breath, Ember." I touch her lips to silence her so I can finish. "But even more, I want to be with youonlywhen you're completely ready for it."
"I don't want to be like this, Felix. I just want to be yours. I'm all over the place. One second I'm thinking about how badly I want you to take me from behind as hard as you can, and the next I’m…like this." She gestures at her tear-streaked face.
I let out a ragged sigh. "Can't say shit like that to me, babe. I'm barely keeping it together here." I lean in and kiss her wet cheeks. "It'sokay. You hear me?It'sokay. You have to feel what you feel."
She searches my face. "You're in love with me? For real?"
I snort. "Ember. C'mon. OfcourseI am. What do you think all this is about? I fell in love with you the first time I saw you."
She frowns. "The first time you saw me, all you saw of me was my ass."
I shrug, grinning. "Yep."
She rolls her eyes, huffing. "That's so sweet," she deadpans, sarcasm ripe in her voice.
I grin all the more. "It was love at first sight and only got better the more of you I've gotten to know."
Her expression softens. "Fee, god. That actuallyissweet."
Heart pounding, I go for broke. "I fucking love you, Ember James. I'll do anything for you. Including keep waiting."
At my words, she tears up again, but this time it's with a smile. "When you say that, I'm a little less afraid."
"Then I'll say it a thousand times.” I kiss her lips. "I fucking love you." Lips to her left ear. "I love you so fucking much." Right ear. "Ember James, I amsofucking in love with you it's crazy."
She shudders all over, whimpering. "Fee." That breathy utterance of my name again, fraught with emotion. "Again."
She twists on my lap to straddle me, sliding back so my subsiding erection angles between us, pointing at her navel. "Tell me how much you love me, Felix. Please?"
"With all my fucking heart."
She grasps my cock and strokes it. "Yeah?"
“Yeah." I gasp. "It's scary, sometimes. I look at you and I can't remember life without you."
Both hands caress my length. "That's what's so hard, Fee—I sometimes have a hard time remembering life without you, too."
I put my hand over her heart. “He's here, Ember. Always."
She nods, watching her hand slip down my shaft, twist, and slide up again in a slow, sinuous stroke. "Fee, I…"
"You don't have to say anything," I tell her.
"Can you promise me one thing?" she asks.
"Anything."
"Don't hold back." She reaches into the drawer and grabs the box of condoms, opens it, tears one packet free, tosses the box back into the drawer, and rips the foil open with her teeth. Withdraws the ring of latex. Meets my eyes, hers serious and deep and swirling with a universe of complicated emotions. "Don't be sweet all the time. Don't be gentle. I'm not made of glass and I'm not…I won't—"
I clutch her face in my hands, cutting her off, my forehead against hers as she caresses my cock to full erection. "I promise, Ember. I will never hold back."
She rolls the condom onto me hand-over-hand, making me shudder and hunch forward. Rises to sit up tall on her knees in front of me, straddling my thighs. Balancing with one hand on my shoulder, she reaches between her thighs and grasps my cock, guides me to her entrance. Once I'm notched between her lips, she hovers there, touching her forehead to mine, arms locked around my neck.
"Fee?" she breathes.
"Yeah, baby?"
She sinks onto me, impaling herself to the hilt on my cock in one slow, smooth drive. "I love you."
