Victoria’s feet were in my lap, my fingers digging into her arches. From the other end of the couch, she let out a long, satisfied moan, the sound going straight to my cock. “Right there.”

It had been three weeks since that difficult conversation around her kitchen table. As much as I loved her and wanted desperately to hear her say the same, I wasn’t going to pressure her. With words, or with my body. Not that I didn’t want to sink into Victoria every chance I got, but she’d wanted to take things slow … so that’s what we were going to do.

The way I figured, she was my forever so I had all the time in the world.

“I don’t know why you insist on wearing those heels,” I said as I massaged the balls of her feet.

“I have to,” she said, dropping her head back in bliss. “I’m short, and these guys think that means they can intimidate me. The heels are part of my arsenal.”

I glanced toward the door where she’d kicked them off she second she’d stepped over the threshold. Shiny and black, the spikes were at least four inches long. “They certainly look like something you’d find in an arsenal.”

She raised her head and smirked. “Maybe next time I’ll just take one off and threaten that asshole with it.”

Victoria had been chasing after one of the candidates for mayor for over a week, but he was avoiding her … and every other reporter in a one-hundred mile radius. With a population of around seventy-five thousand, Rocky Cove wasn’t a big city. Our mayoral races usually consisted of bake sale appearances, kissing babies, and ribbon-cutting ceremonies. But things had gone off the rails a couple of weeks ago when it was revealed that the incumbent’s closest competitor was, in fact, his secret love child from an affair he’d had nearly four decades ago.

“The man is a lying, cheating bastard, and the public needs to know. If he’s been lying about this, what else has he been covering up?” She sat up and pulled her feet from my lap, curling them underneath her. “What kind of man thinks it’s okay to have two families?”

“He can kiss the mayorship goodbye, that’s for sure.”

Her eyes flashed with indignation, her cheeks flushing as she pushed up onto her knees. “That’s just it. Even knowing he’s a duplicitous snake in the grass, he’s still leading in the polls! I talked to one lady who told me that even though she was angry about what he’d done to his wife, she was still voting for him because his son only seemed out for revenge. And then she accused me of writing fake news!”

I took hold of Victoria’s hand and pulled her down into my lap. One thing I’d learned the last couple of weeks was that once she got going, she was a force of nature to be reckoned with. She believed in fairness, justice, and the American dream. And she wasn’t afraid to fight for what she believed in, either.

But because it was her literal job to be impartial, she couldn’t always say what was in her heart. And when that happened, her emotions built up until they overflowed, like a sponge that had reached its saturation point.

If I was being honest, it made me love her even more. In these moments when it was just the two of us and she unburdened herself to me, there was a vulnerability about her that she didn’t show the rest of world. I counted myself lucky that she felt comfortable enough to let me see her with her guard down.

Unfortunately, her big, generous heart also meant that sometimes she got so worked up that frequently she couldn’t eat or sleep, and she’d recently confessed to wishing she wasn’t quite so emotional.

I didn’t know what to say to make it better. The only thing I could do was be there as her sounding board. That, and try to help her relax. But no amount of foot massages was going to ease the type of tension she’d built up these past couple of weeks.

She’d said she wanted to hold off having sex, but she’d never said anything about kissing.

“Shh, I got you.” I petted her hair away from her face and kissed her pursed lips. She was strung tight like a bow, but as my mouth crested softly over hers, I felt Victoria begin to relax, her limbs going liquid and her body melting into mine.

She hummed low in the back of her throat, and the vibrations sent a jolt of electricity from my lips, to my heart, and then straight to my cock, which was growing thick and heavy behind my jeans.

I eased her down and settled into the vee of her spread thighs. When I nibbled on her lips, she sighed, her mouth opening to me. I licked my way inside, my tongue rolling against hers, as Victoria’s arms came around my neck and her fingers tunneled into my hair.

After an eternity of drowning in her kisses, I pulled back, careful not to push things too far. I wanted Victoria as much as I wanted my next breath, but she’d been clear. I needed to rein it in.

“Hey,” she breathed out, her eyes half-lidded with desire.

“Hey.” I dropped a quick kiss to the tip of her nose. It was a compulsion. I simply had to have my lips on this woman.

“Why’d you stop?”

“You said you wanted to take things slow.”

She chewed on her lip, as if considering the veracity of my statement. “I did?”

“You did.”

“That doesn’t sound like me at all,” she answered playfully, her fingers brushing a sensual path over the nape of my neck.

I closed my eyes and stifled a moan. I didn’t know if she was purposefully torturing me, but I was a hair’s breadth away from imploding. Less, if she didn’t quit touching me like that. I swallowed and mentally recited a few lines from The Grapes of Wrath before opening my eyes.

“You wanted to get to know each other better before we had sex again.”

Her smile slipped into a frown. “I did say that, didn’t I?”

“Regretting it?”

Please say yes, please say yes, please say yes.

She shook her head. “No, it’s good that we didn’t immediately jump back into bed with each other. But it’s been weeks, David. I miss you.” She twined her leg around my hip and pressed her ankle against my ass, pulling me down flush against her.

That was all the invitation I needed.

I’d been on the brink of spontaneous combustion for days on end. I couldn’t wait to have Victoria’s naked skin against mine again, our bodies slick as I rocked into her.

Wordlessly, I pressed my erection into the warm space at her center. When she moaned, I rolled my hips, the friction of my cock against the denim of my jeans both sweet relief and exquisite torture.

“Again,” she demanded, pulling me toward her mouth.

Somehow, I managed not to maul her. Instead, we kissed lazily for several long minutes, my hand under her sweater, my fingers tweaking her nipples into tight, needy peaks. Under me, Victoria squirmed, seeking relief, but I took my time. While I’d missed fucking her, I’d also missed not fucking her, too. I missed hearing the little noises she made when she became so impatient that she was close to tears, the way she mewled and begged for my cock when she couldn’t stand it a moment longer.

There was something so intoxicating about knowing I had the power to unravel her like this. Me, and no one else.

“Please, David. I need you.” She slid her hand between us and frantically plucked at the button of my jeans before sliding my zipper down in jerky tugs. The path clear, she reached into my boxers and pulled my cock free.

Sweet relief. Exquisite torture.

I groaned and my lips crashed down. I kissed her with pent-up passion and weeks of banked desire. I tasted her with need and with greed.

And I still wanted more.

I broke away and moved downward, pulling her loose flannel pants with me as I went, the scent of her desire filling my nose. I looked up the length of her body to find her eyes latched on mine. I licked my lips and she tangled her fingers in my hair before pushing my face down to her pussy as she lifted her lips.

I nearly came right then.

I’d never been happier to be used for someone else’s pleasure.

Victoria rocked her hips as I sucked her clit, her juices covering my face. I licked with long, lazy strokes, flicked with rapid lashes, and pulled her into my mouth, savoring every soft inch of her. She tasted like woman, like happiness, and love. She tasted like all of my wildest dreams come true.

She tasted like mine.

And she was close, so close. I could feel her orgasm vibrating on my tongue. Above me, she panted and moaned, and said my name over and over and over again.

A benediction. A solemn vow. An oath.

“I’m coming.” She fisted my hair at the roots. “Oh god, David.” Her back arched off the couch, and with a keening cry, she fell apart, her limbs shaking, her pussy clenching, her juices flowing.

And I drank her down, every last drop.

When she let go of my hair, I kissed her inner thigh and slid away, reaching for my cock. I needed to come. Badly.

“What are you doing?” She asked, her voice from screaming.

“I didn’t bring a condom,” I said, my fist moving over me.

I’d taken the one I always carried out of my wallet when Victoria had said we she wait to have sex. It was so easy for us to fall into the physical that I’d somehow convinced myself that not having a condom would put an end to any shenanigans our hormones might try to push us into.

Her eyes flicked between mine and what I saw in them made my heart trip. Love, acceptance. Trust.

“I’m on the pill,” she whispered.

My hand stilled. “Are you sure?”

“I want to feel you. All of you.” She was already flushed, her skin glowing from her orgasm, but she turned an even deeper shade of pink as she said, “I want your cum inside me.”

Growing bolder, she trailed her fingers down the slope of her belly where they danced playfully over her mound. “Do you want to come in me, David?”

Only more than I’d ever wanted any fucking thing in my life.

“Fuck yes.” I moved over her, taking my cock in hand, and in one fluid motion, sheathed myself to the root. She was tight, her pussy swollen, wet … so, so wet … and warm.

Everything about this moment was familiar while also being exciting and new.

I knew Victoria’s body, knew the way she liked to be touched, knew how best to fuck her, but now I knew her, too, and that made this something ... more.

In the beginning, she’d been a flicker in my imagination, an idea taking shape. But now, we had a future together, and I could see it so clearly. In fact, I’d never seen anything clearer. I loved her, and I knew deep down that she loved me, too. I could wait for the words to come. They already lived in her heart.

I pulled back, and then slid home again, the wet sounds of our lovemaking and Victoria’s panting filling the room. She reached for me, and I speared her hair with my hands, lifting her to my lips. “You’re mine.”

She nodded and gasped when my hips slammed forward. Her eyes dilated and goosebumps broke out over her skin. “So close,” she whispered, her hand resting on my chest, just over the spot where my heart was pumping furiously in my chest. She screwed her eyes shut, and let out a long, low moan as her pleasure mounted. And then she was coming, her walls clamping me tight, triggering the beginning of my own orgasm.

“Fuck. Oh, Christ.” My face dropped forward into the hollow of her neck and my brain shut off … my body and eons of ingrained human instinct taking over. I fucked her through my release, and with each thrust of my hips, I wasn’t sure if I was going to die or if, through her, I might live forever.

It was the single most intense physical experience of my life.

When I came back to myself—when my hearing and my sense of space and time returned—Victoria wrapped her arms around my middle, hugged me tight, and let out a tiny, happy laugh. “Let’s make sure we do that everyday.”