When I jumped for my life this morning, I’d never have believed I’d be back in my room tonight, sucking Bram’s cock and loving it.

It’s the most soothing thing I’ve ever felt. I love his thickness, his warmth, his pleasure. The rightness of how we fit together. Our eyes bonded together, never looking away.

“You’re a natural,” he says.

I smile up at him. “Am I?”

“You love sucking me. I can feel it.”

I feel so happy, even though I know I should be miserable. Miserable that my plans failed, and that Miriam Peck drove up and found me. Miserable that Isaac answered when I called my parents’ house, and they wouldn’t promise I could stay with them.

But I’m not miserable, and I’m not sure why. I only know that when I walked into Bram’s house tonight, it felt like home.

He feels like home.

Tilting my head to the side, I open wide and gently suck one of his heavy balls into my mouth. He pulls in a sharp breath and I stop, looking back up at him for approval.

“That’s perfect,” he says. “I like it when you show me what you want.”

I give his balls a tentative lick. “Does it feel good?”

“Good? It’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever felt.”

I run my tongue along the seam of his balls to the base of his cock. He groans his pleasure, making me glow with happiness. He could have – has had – any woman he wants. But even though I’m nervous and inexperienced, I please him. For some reason I’ll never understand, he likes me.

My fist practically disappears as I hold his thick shaft. He’s so big, he hardly seems real. Lapping again, I go further under this time, until I tease the fine hair between his balls and his ass. I want to taste every part of him. To be part of him.

“Is this okay?” I ask.

“My lovely girl,” he says, his hips shunted forward. “You can be who you are with me.”

No one’s ever said those words to me. I feel like I’ve waited all my life to hear them.

I rise on my knees and take his cock in my mouth again. After a few minutes of wet, noisy sucking, he slides my hands around his hips. “Grab my ass. You’re going to be a good girl and make me come.”

His ass feels perfect under my hands – firm, high, and muscular. I’ve never touched a man’s ass before. I never thought I’d dare.

Bram thrusts into my mouth, hitting my throat until it feels swollen and raw. I slide my lips back and forth, letting him use me for his pleasure. “Perfect,” he growls. “You just started and you’re already perfect.”

It hurts and I can hardly breathe, but I won’t stop. I don’t want to. Clutching his ass, I meet his thrusts with my mouth, concentrating until the flow of cock, mouth, and tongue are just right. Bram must feel it, because his breath is heavy and deep.

“Now moan,” he says.

I stop. Mouth full, I give him a questioning look through my lashes.

“You heard me. Moan. I want to feel your pleasure vibrate through my cock.”

I’m embarrassed and shy. I almost pull away. But the look in Bram’s eyes is so encouraging, I can’t disappoint him.

I try it, just a brief, light hum in my throat, and Bram’s cock swells and pulses in my mouth.

“Holy shit, that’s beautiful,” he whispers, threading his fingers through my sweaty hair. “More. Louder.”

I push my other hand between my legs and trembles a finger across my clit. My toes curl and my nerves sizzle. “Mmmm,” I moan, louder. I feel the soft, tingly vibration through his cock and into my lips. My cheeks tremor from the sound.

“Show me how much you love sucking my cock,” he says, ramming hard into my throat. “Moan for me, beautiful.”

I want so much to make him cum. To know I’ve given him pleasure, and done well. To earn back his trust. To be better than any girl who’s sucked him before.

His one and only. After last night, now I know. That’s what I want.

As soon as I start moaning again, the pulsating starts. I feel it in the base of his cock, throbbing against my lips, and rocketing up his steel shaft until cum spurts onto my tongue. Moaning, I hold my lips tight. He groans loudly. He can’t contain the bliss.

His cum pours like nectar down my throat. I swallow every drop, nearly choking there’s so much of it. Now, part of him is truly, deeply inside me. In my bloodstream. My cells and my bones.

The last pulses fade and his fingers relax in my hair. As he pulls his still-thick cock from my mouth, a trickle of cum trails down my chin. Smiling, he kneels in front of me. His body is so beautiful, so tight and ridged, that looking at it makes my skin tingle. He licks the dribble of cum from my chin and feeds it to me with his tongue.

“Happy birthday to me,” he whispers.

Butterflies rise from my stomach into my throat. Mouth wet and open, he tastes himself, and me, and both of us together.

“You’re incredible,” he says.

My whole body glows. “Do you mean it?”

“God, do I mean it. One day soon I’m going to fuck you. But I’m going to make us both wait because it’s worth it. You’re worth it.”

He picks me up in his arms and brings me to the bed. He strips off my bra and panties before taking off his clothes and lying beside me.

I’m so aroused I’m covered with goosebumps, so wet my thighs are sticky. But all I want is to feel him next to me. To put this confusing, rollercoaster day behind me and be close to him. Even if it’s wrong. Even if it can’t last, and breaks my heart.

It feels strange to snuggle up beside him, but so natural. Like I’ve been waiting to do it forever. His arms are big and strong, and wrap all the way around my body. I can hear his slow, heavy heartbeat under my ear.

“I wish you’d told me it was your birthday.”

“I forgot myself,” he says.

“How could you forget your own birthday?”

He pauses, and that pause says everything. “Birthdays weren’t very important when I was growing up.”

“Why not?”

“Single mother, not much money, same old story.”

I look up at him. His eyes are angled toward the ceiling, but I can see a glimmer of pain. “It’s a story I’d like to hear,” I say.

“Nothing much to tell.”

“Tell me anyway.”

He does, in a cool, flat voice. As if it doesn’t matter that he never knew his father, or his mother was distant, or she died when he was sixteen. As if getting bullied and beaten up is just part of growing up. I can hardly imagine him as a skinny, frightened kid, shooting his grandfather’s gun in the woods after school.

“Where’s your father now?” I ask.

“Dead. My mother’s buried next to him. I guess they’re finally back together after all these years.”

I hear so much emotion just under the surface of his words. I wish he’d let me see it. I wish he’d tell me everything. “It must have been hard not having her attention when you were young.”

“Yeah,” he says. “My dad came first, even though he wasn’t there. I mean, she kept his place set at the table for two years after he left.”

“But he never came back? Not once?

“Yeah, he came back. In a pine box nine years ago.”

I can almost feel the wound in his heart as I listen to it beat. He’s not the privileged, perfect man I thought he was. He’s not cold. He’s a lot like me. A little bit damaged. Strong on the outside, but broken underneath.

“I know it’s not the same,” I say. “But my parents wanted a boy instead of me.”

Bram’s eyes are intense as they search my face. “They did? How do you know?”

I swallow. Even after all these years, it feels forbidden to say it.

“I used them to hear them talking. I was young so I couldn’t understand everything, but I had this feeling. And once...” I swallow down a rush of tears. I can’t believe I’m about to cry.

“Once what?”

“I was looking for Christmas ornaments in the attic and I found a box of baby clothes. Little blue bibs and tiny socks. They were all for a boy. Maybe my mother had a miscarriage, or they were trying to adopt and it didn’t work out. I don’t know. I asked her about the box but she said it must have been there before they bought the house. I could tell it wasn’t true.” I shake my head against his chest. “I just know I was second best. They wanted something else but they got me.”

“Oh, sweetie,” Bram says. “Your parents couldn’t ask for anything more than you.”

“Really?” My voice breaks but I can’t help it.

“Really.”

My heart swells with sadness and regret and joy. Bram makes me feel special. He makes me feel seen. Like even if I’m not perfect, I was worth saving.

His hand strokes up my belly, lighting sparks along my skin. “You don’t know, do you?” he says. “You don’t know why I left after I spanked you last night.”

My stomach does a tiny dip. “Is it something I did?”

“Yes,” he says.

My heart sinks. I’m so inexperienced. I cried and asked for more and embarrassed myself. I did something wrong.

“You mentioned James,” he says. “Just after you came with me.”

I frown. “I did?”

“You asked me – if I had to. And I understand, Grace. I’d ask, too. I just wanted you to be with me for a minute without thinking about him.”

There’s a dark note in his voice. I hurt him. I hurt Bram Russell, who has everything. Who could have anyone.

I have that little bit of power. And I thought I had none at all.

“But we’re not…supposed to care,” I say. “Are we?”

“No,” he says, his fingers dancing over my ribs, my nipples, my neck.

“We have a deal, and this isn’t part of it.”

I feel him shrug under my head. “Maybe that deal has changed. Everything’s the same except now…it matters more.”

I smile and get as close to him as I can. It matters.

I guess all I ever wanted was to matter. I just can’t believe I matter to a man like him.