Ellie is mine again from the moment I kiss her. She presses the length of her body against mine, taking special care to wriggle her hips a little, brushing against my cock.

The spaghetti can wait.

I don’t break the kiss when I reach around and flip the switch on the front of the stove to turn the burner off. And I definitely don’t look back at the garlic bread on the tray. What’s a little garlic bread gone cold when there’s an Ellie here, her hips swinging against me, her pretty lips opening to let my tongue in?

Filthy. Filthy thoughts. I haven’t had thoughts like these since before Serena. When she left, I thought I might never have them again. Staying out of the kitchen, and all that.

I’m literally in the kitchen with Ellie right now, and it could light on fire before I’d leave. It’d have to be a pretty terrible fire, too.

Ellie braces against the countertop, leaning back. She’s switched into a black tank top for the occasion, and I flex my hands against the fabric.

“That doesn’t have to stay on,” she says, tilting her head back to give me access to her neck. I linger there for a moment, teasing, before I say anything.

“If you were hot, you could have said so.” I flick my tongue against her earlobe and strip the shirt off in one quick motion. It drops to the kitchen floor next to our feet. “Damn, Ellie.”

“What?” she says innocently.

Her bra is unbelievable. No—it’s not the bra. It’s her breasts. They’re perky and full and gorgeous, and the black lace number she’s got on is doing them all kinds of favors. 

“You’re gorgeous.”

“You’re not being fair.” She leans back onto her elbows and bites her lip.

“How am I—” I get it a heartbeat later and whip my shirt off over my head. “Is this fair?”

Ellie takes me in, and her breasts rise and fall with her breath. “We’re almost even.”

I move back in, sliding my palms over the smooth skin of her waist. “Almost?”

“I feel like...” I lower my head to her neck and kiss downward toward her shoulder. “I feel like you might owe me...”

“What could I possibly owe you for?”

“Well,” she shrugs her shoulder so it presses back against my lips. “You won’t close your coffee shop and let mine survive.”

I pull back to look into her eyes. “I’m not opening a shop to run you out of business.”

She snakes one hand around the back of my neck and toys with my hair. “Yes, you are.”

“I’m really not. I’m opening it because of my grandmother.”

“I don’t think now’s the time to talk about your grandmother,” she whispers.

“Why are you whispering?”

“To keep the inappropriate topics from getting out.”

“My grandmother was not inappropriate,” I say with a laugh. This conversation is going off the rails, but somehow I care not at all. “But you’re right. I don’t want to talk about her right now.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“I don’t want to talk.”

Ellie smiles.

“You challenged me before,” I say, hooking my thumbs into her shorts.

“I did?”

“You said you’d never beg me for anything.”

Her body tenses under my hands. “I did say that.”

I tug the shorts down an inch, then another. “Are you sure you meant it?”

Ellie leans her head back, her hips jutting forward, making it easy to slide the shorts down below her ass. She’s wearing matching panties. “I’m sure,” she says, and then she leans forward to look down. “Do you like them?”

“Your panties?”

“Yeah.”

“I’d like them better if they were off.”

“Can I tell you a secret?”

“You can tell me anything,” I say and slide the shorts over her knees, over her shins, down to her feet. It takes kneeling down in front of her to get them all the way off.

“I’d like them better if they were off, too.”

It’s an easy fix.

I stay kneeling and breathe her in. She is immaculate. 

Ellie looks down at me. Her lips are slightly open, and there’s a high pink in her cheeks. “I don’t normally do this,” she says.

“I know,” I tell her, cupping her ass with my hands. “It can take some getting used to when you’re not in the habit of begging.”

I reach around from behind and tug her legs apart. She doesn’t resist me, not at all, and spreads her legs open a few inches.

“You’re going to need to open more than that,” I chide her.

“For what?” she says, her voice breathy and trembling.

“For this.”

I spread her open with my hands and dive in.

Her knees tremble on the first stroke of my tongue. Holy fuck, she is sweet. It takes exactly no time at all for her shyness to dissolve into my mouth. Her feet inch outward and she lets go of the countertop with one hand to bury it in my hair.

I don’t let go of her. I keep her firmly in my grip, pressing her hips forward, and devouring her for everything I’m worth, lapping up her juices, going back for more. 

I lick until her knees are shaking, until her grasp isn’t steady on the countertop, and then I slide one hand around to her front and find her clit with the pad of my thumb.

A hint of pressure. Just enough so that she knows I’m there. Ellie writhes under my touch, hips dancing. Jesus, if this is how hot she is in the kitchen, I can’t wait to get her into bed.

I don’t move my thumb.

I know she wants me to.

I don’t do it.

That’s the game we’re playing.

She makes a plaintive sound.

“What was that?”

“Please,” she whispers.

“Ellie, I can’t hear you,” I say, flicking my tongue along her folds. 

“Please,” she shouts, and I let her have it.

I circle her clit with my thumb and press my tongue in deep, my free hand sinking into her ass. She can’t get away. The gush of juices into my mouth tells me she doesn’t want to.

Ellie comes with a cry, her hand flying up to her lips. She bites down on her own knuckle. Three waves and she’s gasping for breath, twisting away from me, oversensitive and spent.

Not me.

I get to my feet and she faces the counter, leaning heavily on it, breathing hard.

I put my arms around her and she leans back into me. Her head falls back against my chest. I swear, I can feel her smiling. 

There’s one more thing to say to her, whispered into her ear as she recovers. “I win.”