Our mouths fuse once more. More tongue. Wetter, better. I could eat him up he tastes so good, boobs pressing forward. Nipples throbbing from the make-out session.

So different than that first, innocent kiss in the street.

Er. On the sidewalk?

Tripp’s hand is between our bodies, working the button on my jeans. Zipper. Jerks it down as I spread my legs to give him better access, because suddenly, I’m begging for it and want it bad.

Real bad.

Badder than I’ve ever wanted anything. Badder. Gooder.

Wait…did that even make sense?

From the floor, Chewy whines, awake now and wanting our full attention.

“Stop watching us,” Tripp tells him.

Chewy watches us.

“He’s creeping me out,” Tripp tells me. “Chewy, look away.”

Chewy seems to look harder.

“I feel like he’s judging me.” His hands are still down near my crotch, inches away from going down my pants, the sexual frustration boiling up inside me ready to bubble and burst. “Chewy, I love you man, but fuck!”

I bite down on my bottom lip to stop myself from laughing. “Bedroom?”

That seems drastic, and only asking for trouble, but if it’s going to get his fingers down where it matters most, I don’t give a shit if I’m jumping in bed with him too soon.

Too many months of living like a nun have me feeling a certain kind of way, and no peeping Tom of a dog is going to harsh my groove.

Tripp hoists me up, tosses me over his shoulder as if I weigh practically nothing, and makes toward the stairs. Takes them two at a time, damn near giving me a heart attack, my eyes squeezing shut—I shouldn’t have looked down.

The stone on the foyer floor looms and one misstep would send me plummeting to the bottom to my death—

Tripp shoves his bedroom door open then kicks it closed with the toe of his boot, the low sounds of Chewy whining through the crack immediately ensuing.

Fine. Better listening to him bellyache than feeling his beady, puppy dog leer creeping on us.

I expect Tripp to toss me on the bed—actually, I look forward to him tossing me on the bed, but he doesn’t. Removing me from his shoulder, he cradles me before setting me on the edge of it then takes my face in his hands. Kisses me on the tip of my nose.

Gets down on his knees, face level with the crotch of my pants, fingers reaching for the waistband and working them down off my hips.

He is at the perfect height on his knees to insert his face directly into my—

“Oh god,” I gasp when he has the jeans all the way off, spreading my legs and keeping them open with the breadth of his shoulders.

Hand sliding under my ass, he hitches me closer to the end of the mattress, hiking my knees on either side of his head.

Oh god.

Oh god, yes.

Yes, yes, “Yes.” I hiss when his warm breath hits my sheer panties, heating them without touching them, driving me insane. Use your mouth, use your mouth, use your mouth.

When I was younger, I never liked when a guy would go down on me. I was too in my head, too lost in my own thoughts to enjoy it. I worried about how my vagina looked, how it smelled. Did I shave it well enough? Should I have waxed? Is he the kind of guy who doesn’t mind hair down there? Should I have drank more pineapple juice?

I can’t remember a time when I was able to come from oral, but I know I will remember this night for the rest of my life, regardless.

Tripp licks.

Licks again, getting me wetter than I already was.

“Goddamn you smell good.”

Pulls the thin fabric to the side and moans, licking again, this time up the hot center of me.

I tip my head back—only for a moment—before righting it again to watch. There’s something intoxicating about having a man between your thighs, a powerful something that makes a woman bold.

I am in control.

He is on his knees worshipping.

I do this to him.

Tripp sucks, dragging the pleasure out of me. Licks. Sucks until I moan again, nostrils flaring, wanting him inside me.

Is it too soon to beg?

Is it too soon for sex?

“Fuck.” I moan out the curse—the first and only time he’s ever heard me use profanity—so shocked he lifts his head to stare.

“Fuck what?”

Fuck…

“Me.”

Tripp’s entire body seems to hesitate, frozen, before he remembers where we’re at and what we’re doing, and he stands, tearing off his sweater and pulling it over his head.

Fingers go to the fly of his jeans.

Crap, shouldn’t I be naked too? It’s only fair.

Off comes my shirt as Tripp yanks open the top drawer of his nightstand and rummages around frantically. “Fuck! Where the fuck is it?”

Oh—right. He’s looking for a condom.

I worry my bottom lip, the endorphins in my body naturally beginning to decline.