Tossing my almost-empty cup onto the dock a few feet away, I wrapped my arms around Hans’s neck and let him pull me down into the lake. He kissed me slowly as we sank to our knees, water sloshing over our shoulders. Hans’s hands clutched my face. His lips sucked and pulled against mine. His naked erection pressed against the length of my stomach. Hans wasn’t trying to sexualize our experience; his cock simply had nowhere else to go.

LDH. I smirked to myself, threading my fingers into his wet hair.

As Hans’s tongue traced lazy circles around mine, I caught myself holding my breath. Trying to stop time again. But I realized that I didn’t need to fight time, not anymore because, when that moment passed, there would be another. And Hans would be there, too.

“Holy shit! Are y’all fuckin’ under there?”

I broke away from our kiss and looked up, but Trip wasn’t chiding us. He was on the other end of the dock, shouting at Goth Girl and Steven, who were evidently christening one of the Oppenheimers’ inflatables under the cover of a beach towel.

“Come on,” Hans whispered, giving me one last peck on the lips before taking me by the hand and leading me back toward the shore.

We tiptoed out of the water and up the stairs as Trip and Louis whistled and cheered at the floating sex show, and Dani cheered about a Yankees home run. I looked over my shoulder and saw Kevin watching us make our escape, the lights from the dashboard of the boat illuminating his crestfallen face.

Up the stairs, through the gauntlet of living room furniture on the patio, into the now-empty basement living area, up another set of stairs, through a sleek, modern kitchen, around to the two-story foyer, up another set of stairs, and around a corner, Hans pulled me, not stopping until his bedroom door was shut behind us. The lights were off, but the blinds were open, letting in just enough light to illuminate a room the size of a studio apartment. There was a couch in the middle of the room, facing an entertainment center on the left. Behind it, on the right side of the room, was a recessed nook lined with windows and filled with musical instruments. On the far side of the room, in another window-lined nook, was a four-poster bed. The ceiling was vaulted. The floor was covered in clothes.

I shivered as Hans locked the door behind me, prompting him to disappear into a doorway next to the one we’d come through. He reemerged a split second later, holding a fluffy white towel.

“Come here,” he said with a shadowy smile.

I stepped toward him, expecting him to pull me into his arms, but instead, he dropped to his knees before me.

With care and attention, Hans slid the towel up and around my left leg, placing a small kiss on the front of my thigh as the soft terry cloth grazed my sex. My core tightened, and the piercing between my legs hummed like a tuning fork as Hans moved to my right leg. Starting at my foot and moving at a torturously slow pace, Hans replaced every drop of water on my spindly leg with a thousand brand-new goose bumps. I bit my lip to keep from gasping when I felt his mouth on my other thigh, felt Egyptian cotton slide against a place that was wet for a whole new reason.

Hans’s kisses climbed up to my hip as he reached behind me with both hands, spreading the towel across my backside. Hans slid his wide palms up and over my ass, massaging away the moisture, as he planted a perfect closed-mouth kiss on my throbbing slit.

He wasn’t fucking me, not yet.

Hans was loving me first.

I watched with my heart in my throat as he made his way up my torso. Everywhere the towel touched, Hans followed with a kiss. A lick. A nip.

He was breathtakingly beautiful. High contrast, as always. Black and white. Soft and hard. Smooth and spiky.

And he was mine.

When the towel passed over my already-hard nipples, they constricted even tighter in anticipation. Hans’s generous mouth followed. He didn’t say anything about my piercings or give me any salacious looks upon discovering them; he simply worshipped them like any other part of my body. Hans treated my elbows with the same amount of tender love and care as my erogenous zones. No man had ever regarded my belly button before, unless he was lapping tequila from it, but Hans did.

As he swirled his tongue around my pebbled flesh, I had to resist the urge to press my hands into the back of his head and hold him there. When he captured a steel hoop between his lips and tugged, it took all of my willpower not to slide down onto his straining cock and put an end to the torture. But a second later, when he used that same mouth to place a gentle kiss on my chest-tube scar, it took all of my self-control to keep from crying.

I was not the same person by the time Hans reached my fingertips that I’d been when he started at my feet. My eyes had been opened. My heart had been opened. I was no longer the girl whose body had only been regarded as a sex object. The girl whose lovers had pierced, sliced, bitten, restrained, and penetrated her to satisfy their own needs. The girl who’d traded her flesh for affection. Hans was showing me that my very flesh was worthy of affection all by itself.

Even the scars.

“You’re beautiful,” I breathed into his parted mouth when he finally completed his journey.

Hans smiled against my lips, tossing the towel somewhere behind me. “That’s my line.”

As he kissed me sweetly, his erection pressed against my belly again. I considered taking three steps backward, plastering myself against the door, hitching my thigh up over his hip, and pulling him into me. Because that was what other boys would have wanted. That was what the old me would have wanted. But this boy was different. Because of him, I was different. And together, our bodies were more than a means to an orgasm. They were canvases. Our hearts, impressionists.

Lacing my fingers through his, I walked backward toward the messy, moonlight-drenched bed as our tongues danced, stepping on errant T-shirts, belts, and boxer shorts along the way. I guided Hans to lie on his back, crawling over him on the mattress, unwilling to break our kiss. I had planned on starting at his feet, which hung over the side of his king-size bed, and massaging my way up, but I couldn’t bear to be that far away from his mouth. So I changed my plan, straddling his washboard abs instead. Hans’s thick, hot length throbbed against my slippery folds, but I ignored it, or tried to, focusing instead on kneading the knots out of his broad shoulders as we kissed.

Hans groaned in appreciation against my mouth, and I felt the vibration all the way between my legs. I didn’t know how much longer I’d be able to hold out, but I couldn’t wait to find out.

I slid my hands between our torsos, massaging Hans’s pecs, sternum, and upper abs as he lavished my lips with attention. I couldn’t massage his arms while lying on top of him, so I reluctantly broke our kiss and sat up. Hans watched me under hooded eyelids as I lifted his heavy right arm, draped his hand over my shoulder, and worked the tension from his tattooed muscles. I kneaded my way from his biceps to his wrist. Then, taking his hand in mine, I held it at my breast and massaged his palm with my thumbs, pulling the strain from years of bass-playing out through each callused fingertip.

The sensation caused Hans’s heavy eyelids to flutter shut and a deep moan to rumble in his throat. The sound was so sexual, so primitive, his face so euphoric, that I couldn’t help myself. I lifted his hand to my mouth, wrapped my lips around the base of his index finger, and sucked the rest of the tension out.

Hans’s eyes slammed open, black pupils swallowing the blue, as I smiled and took his middle finger the same way. I could feel my heartbeat pounding in my clit as Hans’s left hand gripped my hip. By the time I pulled his ring finger into my mouth, Hans was no longer my passive canvas. His jaw flexed along with his hips, grinding into me from underneath. I was so slippery, and he was so hard, that by the time I took his pinkie finger, I was panting with need.

“Hans,” I whispered, releasing his hand, which he wrapped around the back of my neck.

Pulling me back down to him, thrusting his slick girth through my trembling folds, Hans pressed his forehead against mine and rasped, “I want you…just like this. I’m clean, baby. I promise.”

I nodded in relief against his face. I wanted him just like that, too. Not with a barrier between us. There were no more barriers between us. I thrust my fingers into his messy black hair and stilled, the head of his cock poised at my entrance.

“Me too,” I whispered.

Hans cursed and claimed my mouth, his fingers digging into my hips as he filled me, inch by agonizing inch. My insides clenched around him. My pulse quickened. My fingers curled into fists in his hair. My teeth captured his bottom lip. And when Hans filled me to the hilt, when we were as close as two people could possibly be, when his pelvic bone pressed against my clit, I detonated. Hans held me in his big, strong arms as I whimpered and writhed and tried to survive the most intense orgasm I’d ever experienced. For the first time in my life, I hadn’t gotten off from the sex; I’d gotten off from the connection.

The connection was better.

Rolling me onto my back, Hans braced himself on his forearms and gazed down at me. He used the pad of his thumb to wipe a tear from under my eye and gave me a one-dimpled smile. “Come here,” he said, pulling me into his arms as he sat back on his knees, lifting me off the bed and onto his lap.

I was straddling him again; only this time, we were both on our knees, praying to gods to let it be real. To let us be that happy forever.

We clung to each other like kite strings in a hurricane as our bodies took over. Pushing, pulling, giving, taking. With every thrust, I rejoiced. With every withdrawal, I mourned. I never wanted to be separated from him again. Not even by an inch. I’d spent my whole life looking for him, and now that we were joined, I was holding on for dear life.

And I knew Hans felt the same way. His arms around my torso squeezed until my breathing became labored, until my newly healed ribs screamed in protest, until stars danced before my eyes and a second wave of life-threatening pleasure gripped my core.

“Hans,” I gasped, fighting for air and bracing myself for the orgasm I was sure would drown me. I wrapped my hands around the back of his head and sucked in a breath as Hans’s cock stiffened and swelled inside me.

“Fuck, baby,” he hissed, pulling my body down onto him as he thrust one final time.

When my piercing careened into his pelvic bone, I fisted his hair and cried out. Torrents of pleasure crashed over me as Hans buried his guttural groans in my neck. He tested the limits of my body as he came, pouring himself into the deepest parts of me as I struggled to stay conscious.

I must have failed because, the next thing I knew, I was waking up on Hans’s chest. He’d flopped onto his back, still inside me, and he was running his fingertips up and down my spine. I shivered under his touch.

“Cold?”

“No. Just ticklish.”

“Sorry.” Hans chuckled, smoothing his hand down my back to make it better.

I purred and snuggled into the crook of his neck. Spent. Sated. Suspended in the afterglow. “Hans?”

“Mmhmm?” he murmured into my hair.

“Was that…normal for you?”

Am I special? Do you make everyone feel like a goddess or just me?

Hans got very still. Even his breathing became shallow.

When I didn’t get a response, I placed my forearms on his chest and lifted my head. Hans blinked up at me with wide eyes. He was chewing on the corner of his mouth.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, my eyebrows pulled together.

Hans’s smoky-blue irises dropped to my mouth. “That was…not normal,” he finally admitted.

I could tell there was more he wanted to say, but I didn’t press him. I laid my head back down on his chest and waited, my heart lodged in my throat.

Please let it be nothing. Please let it be nothing.

“BB…”

“Mmhmm?”

Fuck. This is it. This is the part where you find out that you read the whole situation wrong. This is the part where Hans tells you he doesn’t have a girlfriend; he has a fucking fiancée. This is the part where you get your stupid fucking heart broken all over again.

I felt Hans swallow where my head was nestled against his throat. Felt his heart thundering beneath my cheek. Felt his cock swell inside me.

“I’m in love with you.”

Tears stung my eyes immediately, but it took a moment for the rest of me to shift emotional gears. As the shock wore off, a tentative smile began to spread across my face.

He’s in love with me?

I wrapped my arms around Hans’s rigid body and squeezed.

He’s in love with me!

I kissed his collarbone, his neck. Kissed his jaw, his cheekbone, his eyelids. I kissed his nose and forehead, and then I finally kissed his worried mouth. “Hans,” I cooed against it, slowly fucking his now fully hard cock, “I’ve been in love with you since the night we met.”

Hans exhaled in relief and wrapped his big arms around my tiny body. “Fuck. Me too. I was so afraid you’d leave before I got a chance to get your number that I laid in bed next to you all night, just waiting for you to wake up.”

I felt like my heart was going to explode. I buried my face in Hans’s neck to keep him from seeing the stupid grin that had consumed it and squeezed him tighter. His body was the only thing keeping me from floating away.

“Waking up next to you was the best surprise I’ve ever gotten,” I confessed on a whisper, my lips brushing against his heated skin.

Then a squeal was torn from me as Hans surprised me again, rolling me onto my back and hitching one of my thighs up over his hip. “You like waking up next to me, huh?” Hans smirked as he picked up the pace.

I tilted my head back and felt his mouth on my exposed neck. “Mmhmm,” I moaned.

“Then stay,” he rasped against my collarbone between thrusts. “Stay here, with me, until my parents get back from their trip. You could wake up next to me every day.”

Twin tears rolled down my face as I nodded and laughed in disbelief. Hans lifted his head and looked down at me, eyes hooded in ecstasy, brows raised in hopefulness.

I gazed into them, through them, at the soul of the man offering me everything I ever wanted, and said, “I’d love to.”

To which Hans replied with a two-dimpled smile, “I love you.”