Page 65 of Hushed

I decide to simplify things. “Are we back together?”

“If you want that still after what I did to you.” His jaw works a few times. “Then, yes.”

“So this is not a no-strings thing anymore.”

“Lots of strings. Consider me fully stringed to you.” He winces. “It makes more sense in French.”

“Does it?”

“No.”

I smile. “We’ll sneak around this semester, we’ll go away every weekend to someplace new, and we’ll see where this takes us. We’ll take it slow and gentle. That all right with you?”

He strokes my chest. “It’s a lot of sneaking around. You deserve better.”

“So do you. But you’re worth it,” I answer. “And if I don’t get my hands on you right goddamned now I might actually nut in my jeans, so please, now, can I touch you?”

“Everywhere. Please make me yours.”

I slide my hands under his shirt, skimming the muscles there while he kisses me. I let him down and take him by the hand to his living room and back him over his couch. He laughs as he falls, scrambling to take off his shirt. I shuck my shirt in record time and pull myself over him, kissing him furiously. He intertwines our legs together. “I missed you,” he says when I give him the chance to recover his breath. He touches my hair and glides his hand over my shoulders and back. “When I saw you again…”

“You wanted to run away and get down on your knees and beg me to take you back at the same time?” I ask.

He mulls it over. “That sounds about right.”

“So, then, now that I have graciously taken you back again, what are you planning to do, Professor Saint-Jacques?”

He laughs. “Oh, you have taken me back?”

“I’m the more injured party.”

“I’m the one with more to lose,” he counters. “I was the one who took you back.”

“Agree to disagree.”

“We can, but you’d be wrong.”

I laugh, and he joins me. “I’d like to make love to you,” I say.

I suck on the sensitive skin above his collarbone. He gasps. “You’ll leave a mark,” he murmurs.

“That only I’ll know where to find. So sexy. You’re so—”

“You’re praising me again.”

“Uh-huh.” I kiss him and run my hands down his sides.

“Angel, you’ve got me. You can stop selling.”

I jerk my head up. “Never. Will praise you because I love you.” I kiss the tendon on the side of his pelvis. “Tell me I can fuck you. Please let me fuck you. I’ll wait while you make yourself ready if you need to.”

Bastien turns bright red. “I might have…already done that. Before you came. I thought that if I just used a dildo before you came I’d be immune to you. I mean, that’s how I rationalized it. You told me I had forty-five minutes! You literally caught me with my pants down when you came to the door.”

I stare at him for a full beat and then hook my hands under his jeans. “Such a good boy. You wore these jeans just for me this morning, didn’t you? You knew I would come and you wanted me to lust after you.”

“Yes,” he admits. I drag his jeans and underwear to his knees in one go and press my fingers to his ass. It’s still slick with lube.

“Did you picture me when you were fucking yourself?” I take his cock in my mouth.