Yale…

“You really want me to move in with you?” she asked suddenly, as we were lying in bed. We’d eventually made it back here, and we’d made love again. It’d been a three-condom night and I was good with that, utterly spent and on the verge of sleep when her voice had sweetly disrupted the silence.

I paused and thought about what she was asking. I didn’t give her any platitudes or immediately jump to a ‘yes, of course, I do' because that wasn’t what she was looking for. She wanted the truth, and I swore I would always give her that. I couldn’t expect total honesty from her if I wasn’t willing to give it in return.

“Yes,” I said, finally. “Everything about you makes my life better. I want to share it with you; I want you in my space. I want it to be our space.”

She dragged herself up and straddled my hips, her hands resting on my stomach, and peered down at me, searching my face.

“I guess I’m surprised,” she said after a while, deciding I was sincere.

I smoothed my hands over the tops of her thighs and met her level, somber gaze. Those green eyes of hers gave me no quarter.

“I tried to deny you, Ally. I tried keeping you out of my heart and keeping it just about meeting physical needs with you, but you weren’t having any of it.” I reached up and cupped her cheek, and she turned her face into my hand, kissing the heel of it as I grazed her soft skin with my thumb.

“I don’t understand why you were so determined,” she murmured.

“I’m not a good man,” I said, swallowing hard. “I know how to move through the world and fake it, but I’m a deviant. I’m sexually depraved and I –“

Both of her small hands covered my mouth and she leaned down, nearly nose-to-nose with me. “I happen to like it, and you are a good man. Look at how you take care of me,” she whispered, and she moved her hands and replaced them with her lips in a soft, sultry little kiss. I let my fingers dig slightly into her hips, surprised that my cock stirred where her pussy rested against it. Shit, I might have another round in me, after all.

“The least I could do for corrupting you so thoroughly,” I murmured against her mouth.

She smiled and said back, “I like how you corrupt me.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll carry on, then.” I sat up and rolled her onto her back, the sudden movement making her shriek and laugh. I loved the sound of her laughter after so many tears and so I nipped at the sensitive spot on the side of her neck, growling against it, tickling her with my beard.

She kicked ineffectively and laughed harder, her hands pulling me closer rather than shoving me away and I just couldn’t stand it. I turned that laughter into a moan as I slid into her. I needed to get a condom, shit, but just for the moment, oh god, she felt so good.

I went to stop after just a couple of strokes, but she locked her legs around me and whispered, “Just a moment longer?”

“I shouldn’t have even started –“

She interrupted me. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt closer to you. I know it’s stupid –“

“It’s not.” I interrupted her. It wasn’t. I got it, even if no one else out there did; I did and that was what mattered.

Still, I wasn’t ready for children, and though she had gotten on the pill, it was my responsibility to take care of us. Her pregnant, right now, would be too much, with every other major life change going on. So I withdrew, quickly got a condom on, and fervently picked up where we left off.

She was warm, soft, and everything I needed, and I loved having her here and in my bed. I wasn’t upset at all by the confluence of events that brought her here to stay ‒ except for the fact that they made her hurt. Her grandmother had been sweet and kind, but she’d known it was her time.

When Ally had gone to use the restroom on our last visit to her gran, Mrs. Blaylock had put her gnarled hand on mine, had looked me straight in the eye, and had told me she didn’t think she had long and to please take care of Ally when she was gone. Then she had begged me not to tell her granddaughter, pleaded with me not to upset her.

I promised, because how could I not? I had every intention of taking care of what was mine, and make no mistake; Ally Blaylock was mine. Of course, until unless there was ever a day that she didn’t wish to be anymore. Then again, what kind of man would I be to give her just cause to walk away from me?

Call me an over-achiever, but that would never happen. I would make sure of it. I would love her, care for her, honor and cherish her. Someday this woman would be my wife, but there was plenty of time for all of that later.

It was a special moment, a special thing to know you had found the one that was for you. The one you knew, unequivocally, that you would be spending the rest of your life with. I loved Ally Blaylock with every part of my damaged heart and soul. She completed me ‒ soothed the hurting, aching, broken bits of me in a way that no one or nothing ever had before. She believed in me to the point that I had to believe in myself, that I had to give myself more credit. She undid so many of the doubts that my parents had instilled in me and how, after all of that, could I not love her in return?

“Tighten up that pussy,” I ordered and she complied, and I could stay here like this, in her, with her, forever. I stroked in and out of her in an easy cadence, her breath soft and her arms around me, her hands on my ass, encouraging me. Not that I needed the encouragement. Not when it came to her. I made her come twice before I concentrated on my own pleasure.

I laughed; it felt so good, but I couldn’t get there. I think I was just too damn spent. I just didn’t have one more in me, but it damn sure wasn’t for a lack of trying. This last session of sex for the night ended with both of us laughing, holding each other tight and kissing as I cursed my inability to finish and Ally bemoaned how badly she felt that I couldn’t.

It didn’t matter. It really didn’t. It was everything just to have her in my bed, in my arms, as we both finally fell asleep.