Page 68 of Dial F for Finance

His breath comes out in a sigh. “That’s not what I need to hear and you know it.”

Heat climbs my neck and blooms in my cheeks as I fight with the words caught in my throat. If I say them, I don’t get to pretend this was just an itch that needed a scratch. If I say them out loud, I’m admitting this is real. And I can’t take it back a second time and expect him to believe me.

Forcing the lump in my throat back down, I meet his eyes. “Make love to me,” I whisper, hesitating before I add, “husband.”

He groans and closes his eyes for a half second, like the words physically hit him, and then he’s right there again, mouth on my collarbone, hand skimming down my stomach to the waistband of my underwear.

“My wife.”

His fingers rest just above the elastic, and only move when I flex my hips up, giving permission with the tilt of my body. He drags the panties down, slow and deliberate.

I grip the sheet, desperate to do anything with my hands but tally the likelihood of what happens next. He’s done this before—he’s mapped my body with unwavering attention, learned my pleasure by induction and then proved the theorem with every subsequent encounter. But it’s never been like this. Never so blatant and honest. Never with my defenses so clearly inoperative.

He settles over me, eyes on mine, like all of New York could collapse into the river and he’d only care whether I was watching him. He slides two fingers inside me, slow, like he wants to memorize every micro-flinch across my face. His thumb moves over my clit in circles, a perfect syncopation, and I’m torn between arching into it and melting down into the mattress. He keeps his eyes on mine, everything about him so intent and so good that I can’t look away even if I want to. I don’t.

He’s gentle at first, but when my hand finds his wrist and holds him there, he picks up the pace, working me until my hips climb off the bed and my other hand is in his hair pulling, God, pulling him down like I think maybe if we’re close enough it will stop the world from moving.

“Jenna.” There’s a note in it like he’s almost pained, and I think he might be even more wrecked than I am right now.

“Don’t stop,” I gasp, and he doesn’t—not even to answer. He just lets his mouth trail down my body, teeth grazing over skin until he finds my breast again, sucking hard enough that I feel every nerve ending light up at once.

It’s not smooth. It’s not even dignified. Nothing in me knows what to do with how much I want him. I come so hard I bite my own lip and ride it out tangled in his arms, the sunlight making weird soft halos in my vision, him murmuring things I can’t understand but know must be filthy. I’m still trembling when he pulls me onto his lap, my back to his chest, strong hands gripping my thighs and spreading me open like he wants to see all of it, every aftershock, the parts of me that never get to exist except for the moment before thinking starts again.

He does nothing slow this time, nothing tentative. The way he keeps me open on his lap, the hand at my core—he’s not even pretending we’re equals at this; he’s holding me there like he expects to be responsible for whatever happens next. “You have no idea the shit you do to me,” he growls, and I barely recognize the voice because Dominic never sounds out of control, not even when he’s making me come so hard I see through time.

I try to protest—some stuttering denial about how I’m not doing anything, it’s just him, it’s always him—but all that comes out is a wordless sound, embarrassingly high and sharp. He laughs, a low, thrilled sound against my hair, and bites my neck so hard I shudder with it.

“You’re fucking spectacular,” he whispers, and moves his free hand up under the shirt, palming my breast from behind, kneading the flesh as if he can’t decide if he wants to bruise it or worship it.

He works me with both hands, talking now, filthy and reverent, telling me in detail how wet I am, how perfect, how he wants to keep me just like this all day, and when he slides his cock against me—through, not in, an exquisite, teasing torment—I almost lose my composure entirely.

Never mind the math. Never mind inventory. I want and I want and I want, and there’s no protocol for what happens to me if he keeps doing this. There’s just the sharp, insistent ache and the pleasure that expands in layers, overlapping and multiplying until my limbs are useless and all there is, is the way he wants me, holds me, keeps me.

He shifts me forward a notch on his lap and lines himself up, the head of his cock pressed right where I want him most. He keeps me steady with one arm across my stomach, the other hand petting over my thigh as though trying to focus me back in.

“Jen,” he says, breath ragged against my ear. “You good?”

“Yes. Fuck, yes.” My nails dig half-moons into his tattooed forearm and I don’t even try to apologize for it. “Get inside me. Now. Please.”

He groans—long and pained—then he pushes in, one solid, gliding stroke that fills every empty inch of me.

For a second I think I might come again just from the stretch, from the way this man fits me so perfectly it feels like a trick. The world shrinks to the size of him inside me and the bed under us, and nothing else matters or will ever matter again.

He fucks me in a rhythm so deep and controlled it’s almost punishment. Every slow push forward is a reward, every drag back a warning that if I stop holding onto him I’ll lose this extraordinary convergence of want and everything I’d been trying not to feel. He holds me tight to him, pace increasing with every slick, uncontrollable grind, until nothing in the universe exists except his voice in my ear and his cock inside me, the pleasure of it so high and sharp I can’t remember why I ever cared about anything else.

I come again, harder, breaking apart in his arms, and he follows right after, holding me so close it’s a miracle the building doesn’t crash down around us. For a long time we just sit there, glued together in sweat and sunlight, my body draped over his, both of us shaking. His arms wrap around me, tight, his breath hot in my ear, keeping me held long after it’s strictly necessary.

I’m the first to move. I roll off his lap and flop onto the pillow, which smells like him, and I yank the covers up over my face, mortified and grinning and so wrung out I couldn’t stand if I tried. I feel his gaze before I hear his laugh—low, self-satisfied, but somehow not unkind.

He tugs the sheet down and kisses the tip of my nose, which—because he’s a bastard—is too gentle, too much like being liked. I want to bite him. Instead, I feign outrage.

“I still hate you,” I mumble.

He just props himself up on one elbow, grinning wickedly. “I know.”

He’s too pleased with himself. There’s no other way to describe it. I can feel it rolling off him, smug and lazy and satisfied, and for once I’m not sure whether I want to bask in it or start a second round of hostilities for the sheer principle.

We lie there for a while—him absently tracing circles on my thigh, me pretending not to enjoy it—but eventually the silence can’t hold and he nudges me lightly. “Hey, you want breakfast? Or do you want to stay right here and see how many times I can make you come in the next two hours?”