My hands undress her at fever pitch, leaving a trail of clothes from the door to bed. I plant my mouth on her neck and can’t help but moan a little when she rubs me through my jeans.

Her fingers work the belt easily. She unzips me and pulls my jeans down, while I reach around her back and unhook her bra with a snap of my fingers. She laughs, nervous but impressed, and lets the straps slide down her arms.

While I kiss her again, I cup her breasts in my hands, the heat of her skin transferring to mine. Her sigh makes her break the kiss, so her lips rest against my chin.

“I probably shouldn’t ask you this,” she says, breathing hard, “but what changed your mind?”

My fingers hook into the band of her panties. As I tug them down, she follows suit with my boxers.

We’re silent, staring at each other. Her sex is shaved close, exactly how I pictured it during the nights I lay awake and wondered, if I’d just kissed her in the light of all those candles, what might have happened.

I’m not sure what she’s thinking, looking at me, but the shy little smile bodes well.

“Well,” I answer, as I pull her against me, “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but…I haven’t stopped thinking about you since we met.”

Her laugh is much louder, this time. “That’s so corny.”

“Still true.” I slip my hand between her legs.

“I’ve been thinking about you a little,” she admits.

“Yeah? Just a little?” I brush my fingers across her skin, giving the slightest bit of pressure, until she pushes my wrist away and slides off me.

“Maybe a lot.”

The flush that sweeps across her face extinguishes any doubt I’ve got left. I want her, right now, in every way I’ve imagined and more. Tomorrow might be packed with regret—but tonight can be something incredible.

Her breath pours across my erection as she lowers her head. I had hoped, when she stopped me from touching her, that this was the reason: she wanted to do me, first. My fantasies all began just like this. Her perfect pink mouth enveloping me, the whisper of her tongue on my skin….

But suddenly, that isn’t what I want. I don’t see the dead-end, like I usually do, or all the sudden turns and twists where things could go wrong.

There’s an entire night ahead of us, stretching on and on like an open road. I’ll have my chance.

First, I want to give Lila hers.

I touch the sides of her face. She looks up, almost startled, as I rise, my fingers slipping down to her shoulders and pushing her back onto the bed, reversing our roles.

“Oh—I was going to….” Her voice is hoarse; she clears her throat, but doesn’t go on. Instead, she searches my face. I realize she’s looking for sincerity. Maybe no one’s ever done this for her, before—put her needs before theirs.

I hover my fingertips up and down her arms until she shivers. “This will definitely sound corny,” I answer, “but nice guys actually do finish last.”

Lila starts to laugh again, but the sound stretches into a thread, and then a sigh, when I bend down and pull her earlobe into my mouth. The gentle bite makes her entire body stiffen.

“Shepherd,” she whispers. It sends a shockwave right to my brain.

Shepherd’s hands pull blood to the surface of my skin, like painting a blush everywhere he touches: my breasts, stomach, the tense muscles inside my thighs, melting under his touch. I try to savor the lead-in, but all I want is for those hands to migrate between my legs again. I could kick myself for stopping him before.

His lips kiss their way down my body, a scenic tour: first, my ear and neck, then my collarbone. I expect him to spend a great deal of time on my breasts—a main attraction for men—but he doesn’t. No more so than the rest of me, from my jawline to the bottom of my rib cage, as though every single inch of me is worth exploring.

At last, I feel his breath there, the wet heat of his mouth. I raise my hips from the bed, begging in silence, until his tongue makes contact.

“Yes,” I say gratefully. I sink back into the bed.

His fingers trace my opening, an easy up and down. One pushes inside.

“Another?” he asks. The bass of his voice against my sensitive skin makes me dizzy. I nod. His second finger slips in alongside the other, filling me swiftly. Before I can adjust, he flexes them against my G-spot.

“Yes, Shepherd!” He moves faster when he hears me call his name, spurred on by the sound. I feel his tongue lap harder, circling.

He keeps his rhythm steady, never slowing down or releasing pressure, even when I grab his head and pull him down against my sex, instinct kicking in. The tension inside my core builds and before I can tell him, it erupts.

“Shh,” I groan, trying to say his name again. The electricity surging through my nerves fries that part of my brain; all I can do, until it’s over, is hold his head against me like my life depends on it.

It seems like ages before I stop shaking and release him. He sits up, panting, and wipes his mouth on his undershirt before taking it off. “Good?” he asks, kissing me again.

With a shiver—this one definitely not from the cold—I nod.

“Oh, hold on.” He gets up and digs through his pants on the floor, producing a condom from his wallet. I find it sweet of him to take the initiative. I’m on birth control, since most of the men I’ve slept with couldn’t be bothered with protection. Shepherd, in true good guy fashion, doesn’t even ask. He just puts it on, climbs back onto the bed, and asks if I’m ready.

I pull my hands down his chest. My arms are weak, shaky by the time I reach his navel. “Ready.”

He palms his erection and guides the tip to my entrance, still swollen from his fingers, everything sensitive and tingling as he slowly sinks into me.

“Oh, man,” he sighs, laughing. The muscles in his stomach draw taut. “It’s been a while for me. I forgot how good this feels.”

My laughter echoes through the room. “Yeah, right. Nobody forgets.”

He shrugs, smiling, as he withdraws. “Okay,” he says, “I didn’t forget. But it is even better than I remembered.”

“Maybe it’s me,” I joke.

Shepherd pulls his bottom lip through his teeth and stares at me. I stop laughing and stare back, as he tilts his hips and fills me once more, our breathing deep and synced to the very last second.

“Actually,” he whispers, touching his forehead to mine, “I think you’re right.”

Lila shuts her eyes as I pick up speed. She wraps her legs around my back, ankles locked, and rises to meet me every time I thrust, her shoulders lifting off the bed. I catch the scent of smoke in her hair, but stronger than that is the scent of us, our sweat and breaths, her perfume and my detergent, all mixing into something new, but known. I hold her face and kiss her again.

I missed this kind of contact, too. Not just the physical aspect, but this connection: that moment when you know exactly what someone else is feeling, because you’re feeling it too, flying with them.

“Would you mind getting on top, for a sec?” I manage, biting back my orgasm. She unhooks her ankles and slides out from underneath me, letting me take her place on the bed.

Her hair falls across her breasts perfectly, like girls on album covers or in fashion ads, just the right amount hidden as she straddles me. I push it back onto her shoulders and lean up to capture one of her nipples in my mouth.

She arches her back, offering me more.

My hands grab her hips and pull her down onto me again. At this angle, everything feels new: tighter, deeper. She lets out a moan, short and clipped, as I pull my mouth away, sit back against the pillows, and start to guide her.

“I’m close,” I confess, “but I want to feel you finish, before I do.”

She opens her eyes. “Again?”

“Again.” My hand slides from her hip. The second my thumb finds her clitoris, she buckles, arms pinned underneath her against my chest.

“Shepherd, I’m—I’m....”

My hand can hardly move with her on top of me the way she is, so I push myself down into the bed to make a gap between us. This time, I can only touch her with the back of my hand, just a brush of my knuckles. But it works.

“Oh, my God, Shepherd,” she whimpers. Her walls convulse around me, thighs trembling; I feel eight distinct arcs as her fingernails dig into my chest.

“I’m coming too,” I manage, just in time, and lose my breath when it hits.

I can’t remember the last time I came with someone. In the brief void where everything around me stops and disappears, I’m only aware of her. The rush that crashes across me feels twice as big, enveloping us both, as I tighten my grip and hold her against me even harder, like she’ll float away if I don’t.

“Shepherd,” she whispers, one final time, as she wilts on top of me. I stroke her hair and stay inside.

I think I missed this most: the afterglow.