My back was against the bedroom door, and Claire was facing me. For a moment, we just stared at each other, sparks of sexual tension flaring between us, but also something else. It was like a Vulcan mind meld—we just totally, completely got each other in that moment. It was powerful, emotional, and completely open and honest.

Claire reached for the fly of my jeans, hunger in her eyes; I grabbed her wrist to stop her, remembering the last time we’d had sex together. I’d taken control completely and utterly, and she’d been consumed by paroxysms of utter rapture. What I wanted was to kiss her stupid and let her ride me until neither of us could walk. What she wanted, however, was for me to show her exactly how badly I’d missed her, how badly I needed her. I could see it in her eyes, in the hesitancy to make the first move.

I held her wrist, keeping her from touching me first. “Ah-ah-ah,” I said. “I don’t think that’s how this is gonna go.”

She frowned, a puzzled downturn of her mouth. “No? What do you mean?”

I let go of her wrist and stepped around her to sit on the edge of my bed. “Take your shoes and socks off.”

She reached for the edge of her shirt. “Okay, I will, but first—”

“Nope.” I held up my hand palm out. “Shoes and socks first.”

“Brock, what’s gotten into you?”

I gazed steadily at her, not giving anything away. “Just trust me, Claire.” I gave her the slightest, quickest of winks. “Do what I tell you.”

A slow, happy grin spread across her lips, and then vanished. “You just want me to obey, huh?”

“Exactly.”

She nodded. “Okay. I’ll bite.” She wiggled a foot. “So. You want me to start with my socks and shoes, huh?”

I quirked an eyebrow. “It’s a practical measure. Hard for you to wiggle out those tight little jeans if you’re still wearing socks and shoes.”

She giggled. “I suppose that’s true.” Claire reached down and started untying her sneakers.

“Turn around,” I told her.

She huffed a little laugh, and then turned to face away from me, bending over at the waist to untie her shoes, presenting me with a lovely view her round ass, hugged by a pair of tight, dark blue jeans. She straightened and toed off her Converse, then bent again and balanced on one foot at a time to slip off her white ankle socks.

She turned back around to face me. “Now what?”

I wiggled my foot. “Now me.”

She bent over again, and the V-neck of her button-down gaped open, giving me a little glimpse at her tits, unencumbered by a bra of any kind, as was typical. Just a glimpse of her tits as she bent over was enough to make my cock harder than ever, and it was already throbbing and straining at the confines of my jeans.

When my shoes and socks were gone, she lifted her palms up. “And now?”

“Your zipper. Slowly.”

She flipped open the button and pinched the tab of her zipper, making a dramatic show of tugging it downward.

“Take ’em off.”

Claire shimmied her hips side to side, hooking her thumbs in the waist of the jeans, sliding them down past her thighs, and then kicking them off.

“Now your thong.”

Her shirt ended just below her navel, showing off her yellow V-string. She turned to face away from me, staring at me over her shoulder as she bent to lower the thong past her knees, and then stepped out of it. God, her ass. So firm, so taut, a perfect round bubble of muscle, just squishy enough to have a nice little bounce to it. Pale skin, which would pink up nicely when I spanked her—something I intended to do, and soon.

But first…

She stood in front of me, facing me again, her pussy playing peekaboo from between her thighs. “Now my shirt?” she asked.

I shook my head. “Now you take off my pants.”

“Demanding today, aren’t we?” she asked, sassily.

I licked my lips. “I’m just getting started, babe.”

She sucked in a breath. “Oh really?” A flick of her fingers had my button popped open, and then she was dragging the zipper down. “What else do you have in store for me?”

“Be a good girl and I’ll show you.”

“What if I want to be a bad girl instead? What then?”

“Bad girls get spanked, Claire. You should know that by now.”

She lifted an eyebrow, and then took a step back from me, ripped her shirt off, and then crossed her arms under her breasts. “In that case, take your own pants off.”

I laughed, stood up slowly, and stepped out of my jeans and boxers in one movement. “Bend over the bed, Claire.”

She sucked in a deep breath, her eyes widening, her nostrils flaring, her thighs tightening together. But she shook her head at me. “No. You’ll just have to make me.”

I gripped my cock in my hand and nudged at the triangular apex of her thighs. “Oh, I think I’ll enjoy that quite a bit.”

She ground her jaw together and tried to stay stoic, tried to not react as I teased her with my dick. She held out for about six seconds, and then her thighs relaxed and she shifted her feet apart, flexing her hips forward. I pressed the head of my cock into the top of her bared slit, right where her clit was, and she whimpered. I rubbed myself in circles against her clit until she was moaning softly and her hips were moving.

And then I stopped, and when her eyes flew open and her mouth moved to whisper protests, I grabbed her by the shoulders, spun her around to face the bed, and pressed her upper half forward. To her credit, she managed to remember to resist.

“What are you going to do, Brock?” she asked, in a passable impression of fear.

“I might fuck you, or I might spank you,” I said, “I haven’t decided yet.”

I slipped a foot between her feet and knocked her stance wider, then stepped up behind her and bent over her. My cock nudged against the seam of her ass, my thighs against hers, my chest against her back, all of me touching all of her.

I pressed my lips to her ear as I brought one of her wrists around behind her back and then the other. “You were a very bad girl, Claire.”

She only barely stifled an uncharacteristically giddy giggle. “I was, wasn’t I? I deserve punishment.”

“It feels like you’re mocking me, Claire.”

She couldn’t suppress the next giggle. “Would I mock you?”

In answer, I slipped two fingers between her thighs to find her slit, found her wet and hot and ready for me. I nudged the tip of my cock against her opening, and she gasped in anticipation. “Is this what you want?” I demanded. She nodded, and I spanked her ass cheek, once, hard enough that she squealed. “Answer me out loud.”

“YES!” she shrieked. “Yes, I want that.”

I slipped my cock in a little deeper, gripped her wrists together in my left hand and palmed her ass cheek with the other. I stayed like that, hesitating so she wouldn’t know when it was coming, or what was coming. I waited until she got antsy, shifting beneath me, wanting me deeper. I flexed my hips ever so slightly, giving her a fraction of an inch more of my cock, and she whimpered, needy and breathy.

“God, Brock—please.”

“Begging already?” I smoothed my palm against the soft flesh of her ass cheek.

“I haven’t had your cock in six months, Brock. I need you so fucking bad.” She wasn’t playing, this time; the need in her voice was genuine, as was the desperation in her next words. “Fuck me, Brock. God, please fuck me. However you want. Take me however you want me, just give it to me. Don’t make me wait anymore.”

Without warning, I drilled into her, sinking my cock as deep as it would go in a single rough thrust and, at the same time, I spanked her ass with a loud, resounding crack. “You were the one who made me wait, Claire. Six months.” I pulled out slowly, gently, paused to make her wait, make her anticipate and guess, and then I fucked in again, spanking her other cheek just as hard. “Six months I went without jerking off. I didn’t look at a single dirty picture, not even the nudes you sent me way back when. You know how many painful hard-ons I had to suffer through? How bad my balls ached?”

She whimpered as I pulled back out. “I had to, Brock. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But I had to. For both of us.”

I slid in and out of her in slow, gentle, delicate thrusts, teasing her—and myself. I sank in deep, bending over her, nibbling on her earlobe. “I know, Claire,” I whispered.

And then I pulled out and fucked her again, harder than ever, spanking both sides now, one and then the other in quick succession. “But still. Six months, barely a word from you.”

She gasped as I fucked her. “I know, I know. But if I let myself think about you, oh god—oh god—” She broke off as I fucked her again, harder and faster, three times in a row, spanking her with each thrust. “Fuck, fuck, that feels so good. I knew if I started talking to you, texting you, I’d give in. I wanted you every moment. I missed you every moment. God, Brock, I needed you so bad it hurt.”

I pulled her backward a few inches and released her hands. “Touch your clit, Claire. Let me feel you come. Make yourself come around my cock.”

“Keep doing what you’re doing,” she murmured, keeping her hands crossed behind her back, “and I will without needing to touch myself.”

“Oh yeah?” I spanked her, and now the firm bubbles of her ass cheeks were pink from my hand, and she was writhing beneath me, pushing back into my thrusts. “Like this?” I used both hands, now, spanking one side and then the other, fucking her steadily in slow, measured thrusts.

She gripped the flannel quilt on my bed with both fists and arched her back, groaning and gasping, and then those sounds turned to breathy whimpers as she moved with me. “Yeah, god yes. Just like that. Don’t stop, please don’t stop.”

I didn’t stop.

I fucked her and spanked her until she was a thrashing mess beneath me. “Use your fingers, Claire. Come hard.”

She slipped two fingers between her body and the bed, and I felt them moving, circling. It was all I could do to hold out. I wanted to come inside her like this. I wanted to let go, to fuck her mercilessly and come so hard I saw stars. But I had other ideas, better plans.

I gritted my teeth and clenched my muscles to hold back as she went wild beneath me, thrashing, screaming, her pussy clamping around me as she came. I nearly lost it, then, only barely managing to keep it back.

I wasn’t ready to come yet.

She was still spasming and grinding when I pulled out and let her go; as soon as I released her, Claire slumped limp to the floor, clutching the bed and panting. She turned a gaze up at me, and then glanced at my cock, hard, glistening, pointing at the ceiling, bobbing as I breathed. “You didn’t come,” she said.

I shook my head. “No. Not yet.”

“I want you to.”

“I will,” I promised. “Just not yet, and not like that.”

She twisted to face me, then reached for me. “You want to come a different way, is that it?”

I held out my hands, palms facing hers, fingers spread out. “Hold my hands.” She met my gaze and threaded her fingers into mine, kneeling in front of me. I gave her a smoldering stare. “Open your mouth for me. Taste us on my cock.”

She parted her lips and angled so I could fill her mouth with my cock, and she tongued me as I slid in. Then she backed away, so I popped out. “God, Brock. We taste amazing.”

I gave in to it for a moment, let her taste me, let her take me into her mouth, into her throat, let her twist her head this way and that, licking me and mouthing the thick shaft with her head tilted to one side, until I was groaning and growling with the need to come.

When I couldn’t take it anymore, I tugged her to her feet. Met her gaze. “When I come, it’s going to be inside you, your eyes on mine.”

She caught her breath. “Brock I—”

I touched her lips with my finger, shushing her. “You know how often I’ve thought about this day, Claire? The day when you came back and said you wanted to be with me?”

“Probably almost as often as I did,” she said. “I dreamed of this. What you’d do, what I’d do.”

“I fantasized about it. I thought about taking you up against the wall, in the shower, bent over the bed, all the places we’ve fucked before.”

“God, I want you to fuck me in all those places.”

“And I will.”

She slid a fist up and down my length, an idle, affectionate stroke. “But?”

“But the more I thought about it, the more I realized there was only one thing I really wanted, when I finally had you back, when I could finally bury myself inside you.”

“What’s that?” she asked, stroking me, whispering in my ear. “Tell me.”

“You know, I remember the night we met very vividly. I remember each time we fucked that night, and where. And I remember each time and place we’ve fucked since.” I let her stroke me, burying my fingers in her hair. “We’ve fucked in the shower, on the floor, you bent over the bed, up against the wall…anyplace there is to fuck, we’ve fucked. Except one.”

She stilled, freezing. “Where?” she breathed.

“In bed.” I nodded at the furniture in question. “We’ve been in the bed for sex exactly one time: the night we met, the third time we fucked. It was reverse cowgirl. You took longer to come that time than any of the others, but when you did, you came hard, and so did I.”

She sighed. “That was amazing. And scary.”

“We’ve fucked on your couch in Seattle. On the bar, downstairs. In my plane, and on the float of my plane. In the bathroom of more than one bar. You’ve sucked me off in almost as many different places. Up against the window of the hotel, remember that?” I breathed all this in her ear. “Yet we’ve never once had regular old vanilla sex in a bed.”

She froze again, her hand clutching my cock. “In a bed means it’s different. I never have sex in bed. I never have. It was a rule from the very first time, which was the last time, for me. Keeps it from…I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“Keeps you, and them, from forming an attachment,” I answered for her. “You don’t like looking into my eyes and kissing me while we fuck, because then it’s too much like something more than fucking.”

“Right.”

“That’s it, isn’t it?”

She ducked her head, and nodded. “Yes. It keeps me from letting it mean something.”

“Even with me?”

“It meant something with you anyway. It always has. That’s what scared me. Even when you took me hard and fast up against at a wall, it meant something. If you fucked me doggy style on the floor, it meant something.” She remembered herself, and went back to stroking me; the depth of the conversation had allowed me to start slackening a little, and now her touch brought me back to life. “It’s always meant something. And that night, we fucked reverse cowgirl on this bed, and I didn’t even stop to think about it until I was nearly at orgasm, and it scared me, because it just felt so right, so easy, totally normal.”

“You said it was a rule from the very first time?”

She nodded. “When I let a guy have sex with me for the first time after…all that other shit, it was in his bed. He didn’t think anything of it—I mean, for most people that’s just where you fuck, and I get that. But for me…it’s just always felt too intimate.”

I caught her wrists to stop her touching me. “Claire, I don’t need you to—”

She shook her head, cutting in over me, reached up to cup my face in both hands. “No, Brock. You do. You deserve that from me—I owe it to you. And I’ll give it to you, I swear I will. Because what we have, it’s so much more than anything I thought even existed. After six months apart, the moment I saw you, the moment you kissed me, I just—knew.” She looked up at me, her eyes boring into mine, glittering, burning, intense, and open.

“Knew what, Claire?”

“That I’ve been in love with you for…a long time.”

“When you do think the moment was, when you fell in love with me?”

“The first time you ate me out.” She wrinkled her nose and grinned at me. “That’s not entirely a joke, either.”

“And you’ve been fighting it this whole time?”

She nodded. “You scare me, Brock.”

“How? Why?”

“Because you have so much power over me. I’m the actual dictionary definition of an independent woman, but you—you…” She paused, looked away, and then met eyes again. “You own me, Brock.”

“I don’t want to own you, I just want to be with you.”

She laughed. “I know. That’s why it’s scary. Because what if you start wanting more than I can give? I don’t know how to love. I’ve never really been shown true love—I don’t really know what it looks like. Even what Mom and Dad had wasn’t…I don’t know—they loved each other, I know they did, they spent thirty-two years together. But their love was…weird. It wasn’t something I would ever emulate. It was a relationship built on guilt and shame and convenience and a sense of doing the right thing by each other. I bound them together, in a weird way. But they weren’t passionate about each other. They didn’t need each other desperately…the way I need you.”

“You came back, and you’ve admitted you want to be with me, that you fell in love with me a long time ago.” I moved to sit on the bed. “Have you finally understood that all I want is you?”

“It means I’m trying.” She shuddered, sighed. “It means I’ll always keep trying.”

She feathered her fingers into my hair at the back of my head, and pulled me down to kiss me, and the kiss was transformative, transportive, rapturous. More than teeth and tongues and lips, it was souls, hearts, and minds merging. She was giving me herself in the kiss. The conversation that went before had been a long time coming, and now it was consummated with this kiss. I’d gone slack, needing the words she was giving me more than I needed sex, more than I needed the release. And now, with the kiss, I still didn’t need anything more than what it was, a slice of heaven made real, her hands clutching me with reverence and love, her mouth moving on mine, her tongue seeking mine, kissing me so deeply, so fervently, so passionately that it was…it was the truest expression of love Claire Collins was capable of creating.

She pulled away. “Lay down on the bed, Brock,” she whispered.

I slid backward and lay down in the middle of the bed, my hands tucked under my head. She stood there beside the bed for a moment, staring at me, just breathing and just looking at me.

She was naked, and so gorgeous. Small breasts high and firm, dark areolae the size of quarters, plump nipples. Flat, toned abs, indents at her hips leading down to her pussy, dark pubic hair trimmed into a neat, short V. Strong, lean, powerful runner’s legs. Her hair was its natural blonde, a few inches longer than it’d been last time I’d seen her, and she’d left it loose and a little wild, tossed and tangled by the wind as she drove with the top down of her ridiculous Jeep. I loved it, loved her hair like that, a few strands in her eyes, some tucked behind her ear, the rest left to blow wherever it wanted to.

I was hardening under her gaze, which was hungry, needy again, but now was rife with the new openness I wasn’t used to seeing in her eyes. She wasn’t blocking or suppressing or keeping anything in. She wanted me—shit, the girl was insatiable, so she always wanted me, which was the best thing in the world—but she also just…loved me. And was looking forward to showing me.

She crawled onto the bed from the foot end, prowling like a lioness up between my outstretched legs. She crawled over me, hands on either side of my hips, an eager, lascivious smirk on her lips, and then she took me into her mouth, and this time, it wasn’t because I’d told her—playfully ordered her to—it was because she wanted to. If I hadn’t been totally erect before, her sweet warm mouth took care of that in a heartbeat. She took me to the back of her throat, and then once again demonstrated her lack of a gag reflex, sliding me into her throat until her lips were at the base of my cock and her nose was touching my belly. She backed away and immediately pressed down again, and then started fucking me with her mouth around the root of my throbbing cock.

“Claire, Jesus—Claire, stop. I’m gonna come in a second—” I reached for her, pulled up and away. “I don’t want to come in your mouth this time.”

She let me fall out of her mouth, grinning up at me. “Oh, I wouldn’t have let you.” She crawled farther up my body, until she was straddling me. “I’m on a hair trigger, and I wanted you ready for me.”

“I’m more than ready,” I said.

She sat astride my waist, ran a hand through my hair and then cupped the back of my neck. Leaned forward so her lips brushed mine, her breasts brushing my chest. Reaching a hand between us, Claire guided me to her entrance and she sank down onto me in a single smooth slide, no pause, no hesitation, no drawing it out, just a beautiful joining of our bodies. We both moaned in unison as her pussy swallowed my cock, and then I was fully seated inside her, her ass on my thighs, her mouth on mine, her weight on her shins on the bed.

“I’ve never done this before,” Claire whispered. “Not like this.”

“No?”

“Never like this.” She clung to me, started writhing on me, her breath hot on the side of my neck. “I can see this being addictive.”

She moved, lifting her hips and dropping them, rolling slowly, grinding on me. Taking me, using me to bring her orgasm to the surface. She hadn’t been kidding—she was on the edge, riding me hard and fast within moments, gasping, crying out, and clawing her fingers down my chest as she detonated.

As she climaxed, she cupped my face with one hand and touched her trembling lips against mine, shuddering on top of me. “Brock, god…Brock.”

“Claire—” I was getting close, her clenching clamping heat bare around me bringing me swiftly to that edge as well. “Claire, I love—”

She pressed her thumb over my lips and shook her head. “Not yet.” She stared down at me, desperation in her eyes. “Don’t say it yet.”

I knew what she wanted, then. I saw it in her eyes, felt it from her.

I lifted up to kiss her, grinding my hips against hers. Ran my hands over her back, cupped her ass, pulling her against me as we moved together. She ended the kiss first, her forehead resting against mine.

“Brock,” she whispered.

“I know.”

I captured her legs with mine, clamping my thighs around hers, and rolled over without allowing our connection to break. And then, just like that, she was beneath me. Her eyes were wide, her breathing fast…

But she had a smile on her face, bright and bold and fearless and beautiful. She slid her arms around my waist and clawed her fingers into the muscle of my back, wrapped her ankles around the backs of my knees, and her breathing caught.

“Brock,” she whispered again, happiness in her eyes, shining wetly.

“I know.” I pressed against her, pushing deeper, and she gasped, lifted her hips against mine. “Me too.”

She palmed my ass, pressed her forehead against my shoulder and then bit the side of my bicep, and began writhing beneath me, desperate for more. “Say it,” she murmured, kissing the side of my jaw, then my cheekbone. “Now say it.”

I laughed at the giddiness in her voice. “Hey, Claire.” I braced one hand in the mattress beside her, used the other to brush her hair out of her face. “Guess what?”

Her smile shone up at me as our bodies moved in perfect incredible sync, hips meeting and retreating, breath coming hard and fast, her hands on my ass and my back and in my hair and everywhere, her legs hooked around mine and her feet stroking me wherever they could reach, our bodies so eager to caress and show as much affection as we could, because this was love.

“Hey, Brock—what?”

I sank into her, feeling her clamping around me, feeling myself unable to hold back any longer, feeling my heart expand and connecting to hers and merging with her skin and her soul and her past and our future.

I extended the moment as long as I could, not breaking eye contact as I brought us closer and closer and closer…

She was gasping, shrill and desperate, clinging to me everywhere she could, moving with me, and then her gasps turned to moans, soft, sweet, wild sounds as she clenched and throbbed around me, and then it was time, I couldn’t wait any longer, I was bursting with the need to finally say the words to her and hear them back, violently desperate to release inside her after so long.

“I love you, Claire.” As I said the words, I came, and the words became a chant. “I love you, ohhhh god, I love you.”

Again and again and again, and Claire was crying, coming apart beneath me, sobbing and clutching at me wildly and kissing me in a thousand places with a thousand kisses each more desperate and crazed than the last.

“Brock, Brock, oh my god…Brock!” She screamed my name as she shattered, shaking, trembling, gasping. Her eyes flew open and locked on mine, tears running unheeded down her face, joy in every line and pore and movement. “I…I love you, Brock.”

My breath caught, my throat closed. I bumped my forehead against hers, and she clutched the back of my head, her lips seeking mine. These were the words I’d been waiting to hear, and they meant so much to me that all I could do was utter her name, again and again. “Claire, Claire, Claire.”

All I could do was pour myself into her and feel her lush tight body writhing beneath me, her hands all over me, her lips on me, her pussy clenching around me throbbing and clamping down so tight it was nearly painful as she came and came and came, milking my orgasm until it became something else entirely, more than just a release.

When I could come no more, I collapsed on her, and she laughed in pleased surprise, taking my weight. She stroked my hair and my back and my ass and my arms, just caressing, petting. Loving me with her hands.

I went to move off her, sure I was crushing her with my weight, but she held me in place. “No. Just…stay like this for a while. I…” She inhaled the scent of my hair. “I love this.”

“I’m not too heavy?”

She shook her head, her hands moving over me, tracing my muscles. “You’re perfect.”

I don’t know how long we stayed like that, me still buried inside her, my weight on her, her hands moving, our breathing slowing into a synced susurrus.

Eventually, she pushed at my shoulder. “Now switch.” I rolled again, and now she was fully on top of me, her head tucked under my chin, her fingertips resting on my face. She lifted up to look down at me. “I want to say it again, when it’s not the heat of the moment.”

She gazed at me, a long silence growing as she allowed the feelings to move through her, the fear of putting herself in my hands, the joy, the bliss of being together after so long apart. “I love you, Brock Badd.” Her voice was strong, her eyes searching mine as she said it.

She rested her head on my chest again, and I breathed in the moment, letting my hands now roam her skin.

After a moment, Claire lifted up again. “Aren’t you going to say it back?”

I grunted a negative. “Nope. Gonna let you have that one.”

She laughed. “Oh.”

“It doesn’t have to be a you-then-me sort of thing, Claire. It can be whatever we want it to be. Expressing love for each other however we feel like expressing it.”

She slid off me to lay on the bed beside me, and took my slack cock in her hand. “So if I wanted to express my love for you like this?”

“Then I’d say, baby, I’ve got all night.” I watched her hand move, teasing me to life. “I’d say, baby, let’s get started on forever right now.”

She laughed. “That was cheesy.”

“You love it when I’m cheesy.”

“True, I do love it when you’re cheesy.” She fondled me into erection, toying with me until I was achingly hard again. “I also love it when your come is leaking out of me, and I get your big fat cock inside me again and you come even more, and I spend the whole next day smelling like you, with your come dripping out of me every time I sit down or stand up.”

She rolled on top of me, took me inside her, and this time, she rode me to completion, hers and my own. We hurried there, grinding together until she was breathless above me and I was pouring into her. Less than five minutes from start to finish, but her eyes never left mine, and we didn’t need to say the words this time, we just needed to move together, come together, feel the intensity of our union.

Again and again, and again, all through the night. We slept, and we woke and we joined together, and we slept again. Dawn came eventually and I was inside her again, above her again.

We never left the bed.

I lost track of the number of times we each said I love you.

As it should be.