After a short hesitation, I heard the shift of her blindfold as she removed it and then the sound of her quiet breaths.

“There you are.” She ran a hand up my chest and over my neck, and then a single fingertip traced the shape of my mouth. “Husband. Isn’t that crazy?”

My skin ignited, hungry. “Hann—”

Her mouth came over mine, shutting me up, lips wet and so fucking full, hands working my boxers down my hips. She licked my neck, her hair tickling my skin as she made her way down my chest, past my stomach . . .

“It’s good luck to give head before the wedding,” I confirmed when she wrapped her hand around me, licking near the base and dragging her tongue to the tip. “So we’re on the right track.”

Her giggle vibrated against me as she kissed and sucked, licking me hard as fucking stone in her grip.

“Goddamn,” I whispered, hips arching from the bed. “Plum, this blindfold . . . your tongue. Fuck.”

She played with me just enough to have me rocking up from the mattress and then I felt her shift and pull her little nightie up over her hips and straddle me.

Her mouth came down against my ear. “No grabbing my boobs.”

“Whatever you say,” I swore immediately. “Just don’t stop.”

“You have a gift for bruising boobs. My dress shows boob.”

“You mentioned this.”

“If you bruise them, no head for a year.”

Even though she was probably—I think?—joking, the idea made my heart stop for about three beats.

I gave her a reverent “I promise.”

She reached for me, rubbing me over the perfect, slippery skin between her legs. My hands made fists around the sheets at my sides.

“Hanna?” I asked in a breathless burst.

Pausing, she asked, “Yeah?”

“Can I grab your hips, though?”

I could feel her go still over me and then start to laugh. “What in the world kind of dress would show my hips?”

“Sorry, sorry,” I said, laughing. “I’m not thinking. Holy fuck, Plum, just get on my dick.”

But she didn’t. I could feel the heat of her, so close, and she slowly settled back down on my thighs, her hands running up over my stomach.

“You okay?” I asked, sitting up beneath her and clumsily finding her face again with my hands. “You’re freaking out about the dress again?” I tried to surreptitiously swipe my thumbs beneath her eyes to make sure she wasn’t crying, but she ducked away.

“I’m not crying.”

I nodded, going quiet, wanting to tread carefully.

“I’m just nervous,” she said.

My chest twisted. “You know that just because we’re getting married doesn’t mean that anything between us changes, right? We’re still Will and Hanna. We’re still us.”

“It feels different already,” she said, and slid her fingertips over my lips when I opened my mouth to protest, quickly adding, “I don’t mean that in a bad way. I mean, it feels deeper. It feels more important. Before, I would look at your body and think, ‘Wow, I get to play with this all night long!’ Now, I look at your body and think, ‘Wow, I get to play with this, and Oh my God what if anything ever happened to him and—’ ”

“Hanna. Breathe,” I said gently from beneath her fingers.

She took a calming breath, sliding her hand down my neck almost as if she was tracing a line to my heart. “I’m only twenty-five,” she said after a long pause. “And I know my life would be ruined if I lost you.”

The idea of it stabbed sharply into my gut. “You’re never going to lose me.”

She didn’t say anything, just drew tiny circles on my chest with her fingertip.

“Plum, come on. We already take such good care of each other. This just makes it official.”

Her finger came up again, crossing from one side of my bottom lip to the other, stroking. Thunder pounded through my blood.

“I take care of you?” she asked.

“You do. And when you’re not sure how, you ask.”

After a few breaths of silence, she said, “Like now?”

I both loved and hated the darkness of the blindfold. I wanted to see her face, but from her voice alone I could imagine it: lip being gently chewed between her teeth, eyes fixed on where her fingers touched my skin with maddening care. This was how we started. She asked, I guided.

“You’re not sure how to take care of me right now?”

“I’m just anxious tonight,” she whispered. “It helps when you tell me what you want me to do.”

My heart seemed to stutter and then explode. It had been a while since we’d played in these roles.

“Bring your hips back over me,” I instructed, my voice a rough growl.

I felt her shift, and then the heat of her, so intense, barely pressed down on my dick. I bit back a groan.

“Take me in. Slow. Tease me a little.”

Her hand came around, steadying as she placed herself over me, rubbing, lowering, bit by bit.

Good holy fuck.

I nearly lost it. “Like that. Like that.”

“Will . . .”

A thousand times we’d made love. Maybe more. And it shocked me to no end that I always found myself counting to ten and distracting myself so I wouldn’t explode as soon as she took me in.

“Down and up,” I said. “Don’t tease. Let me feel every inch.”

Her breath was a shiver of heat on my neck, her hair tickled along my shoulders, and she did exactly what I asked. But she could have easily taken me in in a single stroke. She was wet as the ocean.

My thoughts spun off the rails over the intensity of it, as it all seemed to hit me in a rush: here we were, on the cusp of this wild fucking adventure—I’d never wanted anything more in my entire life.

And as Hanna moved slowly onto me, and then rocked above, growing confident, forgetting herself, losing herself, I reeled in the truth of that. How many people find the person they ache to touch, to be near, to belong to? How many people married their best friend, the person they admired most in the whole world?

I pulled my blindfold off, catching her face just as she fell: eyes fixed on my face, lips parted in a breathless moan. Relief washed over her expression when our eyes met—she needed to see this, see me, be steadied by my gaze—and I knew she could read my thoughts as clearly as I could read hers.