Page 72 of Shades of Grey & Gold

“No, this is a week and a half worth of busting ass to make a picture in your head a reality.” He leans forward and his breath skims the lobe of my ear. “Whenever you had to get out of your head or out of whatever was going on in school, you used to say you’d escape to the corner of your mind that had velvet couches, dark wood, a big fireplace, lots of books, trailing leaves and—”

“The moon phases,” I finish for him.

He breathes out a laugh against my neck and pulls back to look into my eyes. “And the moon phases, because they feel ‘witchy and like something all the cool girls have somewhere in their offices.’”

I drop my head back with a loud laugh that echoes in the small space and then I throw my hands around his neck while the laughs continue to trickle from my lips.

He listened. He listened and he remembered.

No one has ever listened to me and actually heard me. Heard what I liked, what I dreamt of; listened to my literal fantasies and made them real.

My feet come off the floor as he spins me around in a circle before sitting me on the desk in front of him. I pull his face to mine with both hands and commit every laugh line, every eye crinkle, and every golden-green fleck of his irises to memory.

“Who are you, Callan Calogero Reed Renzetti?”

Before he can answer, I connect my lips to his. Unlike the past few times we have touched, these kisses are soft, not devoid of passion, but full of gratitude, without even considering the feeling of his body against mine.

Gratitude for hearing me, gratitude for seeing me.

I feel a burning in my eyes as they well up with tears as he peppers kisses across my lips and cheeks.

“Thank you, Cal.”

I look in his eyes again and push my fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck. It curls tighter right there, and the smooth strands tangle between my fingers as I pull him gently to press our lips together again.

His hands frame my jaw like I’m breakable or might slip away. My laughs haven’t stopped, and still live in his mouth when he kisses me again and again.

But they’re slower now, more certain. He tastes like the kind of dare I always said no to, but will never deny again.

“Tell me what you want, Sims,” he murmurs, breath warm against my cheek.

“You,” I say, a little ridiculous, but the heat trickling up my body is limiting my ability to find more words.

“Already yours.” He grins, thumb sweeping across my lower lip. “More specific.”

Heat roars to life in my stomach. “Touch me.”

“Do I get to pick how I touch you?” His lips brush from my jawline to the sensitive spot on my neck right below my ear.

“Well, you are the boss, Renzetti.”

His responding laugh is a deep, throaty sound as he runs his hands down my ribbed tank top and over the soft fabric of my sweatpants that are still damp from the spilled tea. But he continues to drag his hands all the way down to my toes.

From my seat atop the desk, I watch as Cal peels my fuzzy blue socks off like they’re priceless artifacts, setting them neatly on the teal sofa behind him. He turns back to me, placing a kiss to each ankle like a vow to put the fuzzy socks back on later, and I let out the smallest laugh.

Not because it’s funny, but because it is truly dumbfounding how he can continue to make me feel like the most beautiful, worthy person in the world.

My pulse goes haywire when his palms slide their way to bracket my knees and continue their course up, slow enough to almost make my patience falter. He tugs me closer to the desk’s edge, my ass balanced there as he holds me, slipping the blue sweatpants down my legs even slower than his hands made their way up. The backs of his fingertips leave trails of heat as they slip down, down.

Internally, I scream. Inside my head, Max is running in circles screaming into the void because he is moving much too slow.

But on the outside… on the outside, I am propping myself up on my elbows to watch every deliciously slow movement this man makes between my legs. And he is watching me watch him, those golden-green eyes never leaving mine.

My thighs rest against the cold wood desk and the chandelier hums softly overhead; the fireplace flickers in my periphery. I could live inside this moment. Hell, I’d even pay rent.

Sweatpants discarded somewhere, he places his own hips between my open legs and presses one long kiss against my lips.

“You’ll tap me if you want me to stop,” he says, looking up, waiting for my nod. I give it, throat tight, and legs still wide open.