Vegas fucked with my mind.

Gracie and I were never a couple. Didn’t owe one another a goddamned thing.

Yet, I thought maybe... I had hoped that we were more.

Then she tells me she wrote her research paper on her own fucking sexual awakening.

She named names.

My name.

Her advisor thinks it would make a great book.

Oh, hell no.

“That’s how you see this... we’re just a way to get a graduate degree?” I’d asked in my hotel suite.

“Well, it was kind of perfect content, Cooper. And I was stuck on how to move forward.” She’d sat on the hotel bed, eating bacon, and telling me she was using me.

“So, you just decided our List was okay to share with whomever you deemed fit? Have you even told Bridget?”

Her shoulders tensed, her eyes flashed with regret. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. And obviously, I won’t write the book.”

“So now I’ll be the guy who not only taught you to titty fuck, but I’m also the guy keeping you from achieving your dreams?” I ran my hands through my hair, so fucking disappointed.

Gracie simply said, “We’ve never actually titty fucked, you know that, right?”

Maybe it was the way the words sounded on her lips, but I was furious. I’d wanted to titty fuck her. I’d wanted to wake up that day and do and say and be all kinds of things for her.

And instead, we ended the conversation by exchanging tense good-byes.

But a month has passed. And the thing between her and I is not over.

I won’t let it be.

So now with an iPhone tripod and a fully charged device, I knock on Gracie’s door, needing to figure out where the fuck we go from here.

For four weeks I have crossed the country, laying my heart on the field every night of the week, and yet so much of my mind is tied up in a girl who isn’t mine.

A girl who wanted to use our encounters as a gimmicky book.

I wanted them to mean forever.

I wasn’t letting her go so easily.

“Cooper.” Gracie pulls open her door and lets me in. “I was surprised to hear from you.”

I raise an eyebrow.

“Not that I didn’t want to. Of course, I wanted to hear from you. I’m so glad you wrote. So, glad that you’re here. That you want to talk. I called and texted and …”

“I know, Gracie. Thanks for reaching out. I just needed time to think.”

“Right.” She smiles tightly, and I follow her into the kitchen. “Can I get you a drink?”

“A beer?”

“Coming up.”

I lean against the kitchen counter as she grabs two beers from the fridge, handing one to me.

“To...” she tries to toast, but falters.

“To friends,” I say, stepping in for her.

“To friends,” she repeats. “So, do you want to talk about the paper?”

“You mean the book?”

“Yeah,” she says, her eyes on the amber bottle of beer in her hands. “The book.”

I shake my head. “No. All I’ve done for four weeks is think. Tonight, I want to forget.”

She smiles, but a rush of relief floods her face. “What did you have in mind, Cooper?”

“It’s time we made a video.”

* * *

It doesn’t take long for us to set up the tripod on her dresser, to undress, and to stand before one another, completely naked. After all, our relationship is built on quickies and hook ups and over-the-top situations.

Shooting a porno on a Saturday night after we haven’t spoken for a month is not that out of the ordinary.

Except it suddenly feels awkward as fuck.

“So, we just, like, press play, and have sex?” she asks, narrowing in on the logistics.

“I guess,” I tell her. “Uh, but before we start … I want to be sure this video stays between you and I.”

She frowns. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, I know you’re writing your book … or whatever it is … and I just want to be sure this doesn’t get leaked somehow.”

She crosses her arms over her exposed chest. But with her shoulders straight and her eyebrows raised, she doesn’t look vulnerable.

She looks pissed.

“So you think I’d show our sex tape to someone?”

“No,” I say slowly. “But, my career is all I’ve got. I can’t have something as stupid as this mess it up. I don’t have my daddy’s trust fund to save me.”

She rolls her eyes. “My daddy? Are you kidding me? Cooper, this is my life. Mine.”

I snort. “It seems you were willing to sell out my life for a book deal.”

“I’m not using your story. I’m sorry I ever mentioned it.” She shakes her head, sighing in frustration. “Maybe this was a bad idea. If you don’t trust me, Cooper, I don’t want to have sex with you.”

I raise my hands in defense. “I do trust you. Dammit, Gracie. I’m fucking here, aren’t I? I could have left, I mean, what is this?”

I point to the empty space between us, not wanting any space there at all. I want Gracie. And I want to mean more than a book deal or a fucking list. I want to mean everything to her.

Gracie’s eyes fill with tears, and she draws in a sharp breath, trying to compose herself. “I want you here, Cooper. I do. And you have to believe I would never do anything to compromise you, or your career.”

Her edges are soft, her words sincere.

I step toward her, pulling her into a hug, our skin bare and our hearts open. This girl is not going anywhere. Not now. I hope not ever.

Regardless of how uncomfortable things have gotten between us, knowing I had two items left on this list has gotten me through the fear of possibly never seeing one another again.

All month, I haven’t had the balls to come to the apartment unless I was sure she was gone. I’d heard from Gabe, who’d heard from Bridget, who’d heard from Gracie when she was visiting her parents when she was out with her friends.

I didn’t trust myself. I swear to God I was either a fucking train wreck or wanting to punch something.

My coach said whatever was going on with me was a fucking game changer and our ticket to the World Series.

Turns out he was right.

We’re on our way.

Yet, all I am thinking about is her.

And now... here we are.

“Maybe we should have written a script or something,” she says, her hands wrapping around my waist.

“So we’re doing this?”

She lifts her chin, our eyes meet. She reaches out and presses record on my phone.

“We’re doing this,” she tells me, her perfect lips rounding to a smile. “Now.”

I kiss her forehead, she never ceases to amaze me. “You’re right,” I tell her. “We should have written a script.”

“Right? Like I could be on a massage table.”

I raise an eye, getting plenty of ideas. “And I could rub you down before we fuck.”

She laughs. “When you’ve done this before, did you just wing it?”

My jaw tenses. “I haven’t done this before, Gracie. I’ve never made a video.”

“Really?” Her shoulders scrunch up to her ears. “I figured a guy like you would have some thumb drive holding all the evidence.”

“Maybe I’m not the guy you think I am.”

“Maybe not. But I’ve got massage oil. Let’s make this video something to remember.”

* * *

Soon Gracie is face down on her bed, a white sheet draped over her duvet. She has slipped under another sheet, and I’m naked, hard as fucking always, and rubbing her down.

My hands are slick with oil, she is murmuring her enjoyment as I gently run my hands over her shoulders, her arms, her neck, her back.

It doesn’t take long for me to think of all the things I want to do to Gracie, and soon I am on the bed, the sheet off, and I’m rubbing her perfect ass, my finger running down to her slit, my fingers slippery as they touch her warm pussy.

She’s moaning, and my fingertips find her asshole. I add more oil to my fingers and start playing with her perfect ass, adding a finger, stretching her until she’s groaning, raising up on her knees, giving me permission to keep going.

Like I’ve said, I’ve fucked a ton of women, but I have never had the experience of such mutual trust, respect, or pleasure. Gracie is offering me her body and I am taking it... not to meet my own needs, but because all of me wants to meet hers.

“Cooper, I’m a little scared,” she admits once I have two lubed up fingers in her asshole.

“You want me to stop?” My hand stops moving, and my other hand reaches around Gracie, holding her bouncing tits, my words close to her ear.

“Don’t stop.”

“Do we need a safe word? I think people use safe words when they get kinky.”

This makes her laugh. “I don’t need a safe word with you, Cooper.”

“What do you need then?”

“I need you to take me up the ass, and I need it all on camera. Otherwise, I don’t think I’d ever believe I really just did this.”

“Gracie, we don’t have to.”

“I want to.”

So, I press my tip into her tight hole, easing myself in ever so gently, her fingers on her pussy almost immediately, as I take her doggy style, inching myself into her until she is full.

Full of me.

“Cooper,” she cries, as I thrust against her, my hands on her tits, holding her close to me.

“Gracie, I’m here. You’re safe with me.”

“I know,” she whimpers. “I know I’m safe with you.”

She comes, touching her pussy, and I come, deep inside her, and together we are a sweaty wreck of pleasure and pain, a misunderstood safety net that catches us both by surprise.

We don’t talk our shit out, but we do fuck until our bodies shake, until our minds forget until our hearts beat in a steady rhythm of unspoken desires.

Maybe Gracie isn’t putting words to whatever this is and maybe I don’t have the balls to say it out loud, but there is footage of her saying she is safe with me.

And nothing is going to erase that memory.