The tension in my body is so tight, and I ache so deeply it’s nearly painful. I need his tongue there, and I want him inside me, and I feel like I want to climb out of my skin I’m so desperate to feel him.

“Please.”

He pulls away just slightly and I whimper in torment when he kisses my thighs again, speaking into them. “Hmm?”

“Josh.” My hand goes into his hair, pressing silent radio commands to the brain beneath: Suck on me. Suck on me.

“I could lose my mind down here.”

My other hand dives into my own hair, pulling to keep me from screaming. I let out a tight “I mean, that would be okay.”

His mouth presses warm against the very top of my thigh, and I feel my legs shaking against his hands as he whispers, “Isn’t it nice when I take my time?”

“Oh. Oh my God, yes it is nice.” I sound like I’ve just run a mile.

“You feel like silk in my mouth.” My brain melts inside my cranium at his words and the heat of them across my skin, and Josh—the beast—sucks a small hickey into my inner thigh. I swear he’s smiling when he says, “You’re shaking.”

“I know … because I want …” A sob seems to rise in my throat at the force of this want, and my heartbeat is everywhere, slamming up against my skin.

“You want?” He comes back over me then, mouth open, eyes closed, and the suction pulls any coherence out of me.

I’ve had oral sex before, but never like this. Never with such focus, such precision. His mouth fixes over me, gently sucking as he hums. He doesn’t play or bite or lick around, doesn’t roughly push his fingers in me. He remains just there, but it seems to be only a matter of seconds before I feel a shift inside me, a tide rolling in and a wave that builds. When he moans—a spontaneous, encouraging sound—I tip over, falling with my head pressed back into the pillow and my entire body curling in pleasure.

I’m nonverbal for a good thirty seconds afterward, lying on the bed in a pose that I really hope looks more Sated Goddess than Deflated Hobo, but I can’t be bothered regardless. “That was the most mind-numbing sexual experience of my life.”

He laughs into a kiss to my thigh. “Good.”

“I don’t want to know where you learned that particular technique.”

Josh doesn’t bother to argue, he just kisses his way up my navel to my breasts, where he stops and plays for a bit while my brain returns from orbit. My breasts are tender and wildly sensitive, but the gentle assault of his tongue and hands seems to make my body forget that I just came not two minutes ago. I tug at his shoulders, impatient.

“Up here.”

“I like being here,” he says from between my breasts, but he comes over me anyway, kneeling between my legs. He hesitates for a breath, then, “We could use condoms, too, if you want? I don’t want you to feel it’s all your responsibility.”

It’s an effort not to let a tiny, hysterical laugh burst free, followed by a Well, now that you mention it … “It’s okay,” I say instead.

“You sure?”

I swallow. Tomorrow. “Yeah.”

He remains kneeling there, eyes roaming over my body, hands sweeping up and down my thighs. “I’ve wanted this for a while now.” Pausing, he adds, “I mean, this kind of sex.”

The gentle fist around my heart tightens. “Me too.”

His voice is hoarse with frustration, maybe over all the time wasted. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I thought you wanted Tyler.”

“I thought you’d be well suited with … someone else.”

His brows pull in. “Who?”

“Just someone less Hazel.”

Josh frowns down at me. “Can we address that?”

“We can’t do it after sex?” Because his hands haven’t stopped their slow circuit up and down my thighs, up and down, and over my hips and I’m melting into the sheets.

“No. Are you listening?”

“Barely.”

“You are perfect for me.”

A star is born inside my rib cage. “I am?”

He nods, pinning me with his attention. “You are.”

He stares at my face for another few breaths before resuming his visual perusal of my naked body. Hovering above me, he’s a statue: broad shoulders, smooth bulky chest. Soft black hair low on his navel, and his cock—perfect, jutting straight up. It brings to mind steel rods, I-beams, precision engineering, and—

His words come out quiet: “You’re staring.”

“Because you’re perfect there.”

I love the way his smile comes out in his voice. “ ‘There’?”

“Everywhere, but … there, in particular.” I point, and he catches my hand, lifting it over my head and trapping it on the pillow as he leans over me. His cock brushes the inside of my thigh. “I was thinking you’re shaped like my favorite dildo.”

“That’s a compliment I haven’t heard before.”

I open my mouth to say more but he bends, kissing me once. “Haze, I love you, but I’m going to lose my mind if I don’t get closer to you soon.”

We both go still and his words bounce around the space between us.

He loves me?

I stare up at him, and the rolling bubble of thrill works its way up from my belly, through my chest, and into my throat. I bite my lip, but not even my teeth can trap this smile. It breaks free and he sees it, and his answering smile is at first relieved, but then it falls into earnest focus.

“I do, you know,” he says.

Raw emotion paints his expression. I’ve honestly never seen anyone look at me this way … it’s more than desire. It’s need.

My hand comes up to cup the back of his neck, to pull him down just as he’s falling over me and his mouth covers mine with a quiet moan. With a shift of his hips forward, he’s pressing into me, and we both cry out as he slides in, deep.

It’s not gentle or slow, not even to start. His hips rock into mine, and soon they’re slapping as he grunts with every pass. Josh rises with a groan, hooking my legs over his arms and spreading me wide. His sounds are rhythmic and hoarse, and something about them—the grate and vibration of Josh’s pleasure—makes my body even wilder. He grinds into me, fucking fast—

“Jimin.”

His rhythm falters, and his laugh comes out as a burst of air against my neck. “That was,” he pants, “the first time you got my name right.”

I’d be celebrating, but my orgasm is right there

right here

and my back arches away from the mattress as I start to come. Josh grunts out these soft, encouraging words as pleasure bursts through me, rippling on, and on, and on and finally I feel him go tight everywhere—inside me and under my hands and against my thighs. I hear the catch in his throat, his relieved “Yes,” and then he’s shaking through a long groan, pressed so deep inside.

Carefully, he unhooks my legs and lowers his body so we’re chest to sweaty chest. Josh kisses me through sharp, jagged pants. “I’d planned for that to be more lovemaking and less … desperate fucking.”

A tiny thrill works its way through me at the rare curse word from his lips. “You will hear no complaints from me.”

Carefully he pulls back, watching his body’s retreat while I watch his face. I love his little frown, his tiny grunt as he slips from me.

His frown deepens and he reaches down, touching me. “Did I hurt you?”

“No?”

He looks up. “Okay. You sure?” He holds up his fingers. “You’re bleeding.”

..........

Don’t panic.

Don’t panic.

I grabbed my phone on my sprint into the bathroom, and am now sitting on the toilet, madly Googling bleeding in pregnancy.

The results are reassuring. Apparently it’s common. Apparently it happens in about one-third of all pregnancies. And especially early.

But it can also be a sign that something is wrong,

and it wasn’t a little bit of blood,

it was all over my sheets,