Page 130 of The Grumpy Defenseman

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I reached for the nightstand. Her hand caught my wrist.

“Top drawer,” she said. “I bought them three days ago in case this happened. I am deeply embarrassed about it.”

“You bought condoms in anticipation of me.”

“Don’t make me say it again.”

I laughed against her throat. Then I got the condom on and settled between her thighs and looked down at her in the streetlight, and the laughter stopped being possible.

“Last chance,” I said.

“Evan. Get inside me.”

I pushed inside her slowly.

Her breath broke. So did mine. She was tight and slick, gripping me, and I had to hold still until I could trust myself to move without ending this immediately.

Her hand came up to my cheek.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

Her thumb traced my cheekbone.

“Look at me.”

“I am.”

“No. Look at me.”

I understood what she was asking. She had spent three years being taken advantage of by a man who used her trust to make himself famous. What she wanted was the opposite of that. To be seen by a man who would never look away when it counted.

I held her eyes and started to move.

She kept her hand on my face the whole time.

I went slow at first. Long, deep strokes. Her hand at my jaw, her hips rising to meet mine on every stroke. Her breathing changed. She let mesee all of it.

“Fuck. Sam.”

“Stay.”

“I’m here.”

I moved deeper, slower, the way she had asked me to without using words, and her hand fisted in the sheet beside my shoulder.

“Don’t stop.”

“I won’t.”

I reached between us and found her clit with my thumb. She made a sound I would think about for the rest of my life. Her hand came back to my face.

“Evan — please —”

“I know.”

“With me.”

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