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I open my mouth to do that, but the words won’t come. Why won’t they come?

Because you don’t want them to.

I shut my eyes tight, pressing my lips together as I try to make my tongue form one simple sentence that will put a stop to all of this nonsense.

“Tell me to leave, Dani.” Ezra’s voice is quiet now, and I can feel the warmth of his breath only inches from my mouth. “Or I’m going to kiss you. Tell me to leave, or you’re going toletme kiss you.”

I make a sound that might embarrass me on any normal day, something like a muted whimper that’s caught in my throat. I’m trembling all over—from nerves or anticipation I’m not sure—and I know all it would take is a few simple words to send him away. A few words, and that would be the end of it. It’s what Ishoulddo.

I kiss him instead.

It’s always been frantic with Ezra, this thing between us. Every time I’ve ever touched him, it’s felt like some race to a faraway finish line. Like a short burst of something with an inevitable end. And that frenetic energy is still there when my arms wind around his neck, when his hands cup my face as if he might somehow pull me impossibly closer—but that finish line seems…more distant at this moment. Less of a race. For once, it feels like it’s okay to just take my time.

I know that later I will pick apart that feeling, analyze it until my head hurts, but right now…Right now I let myself focus on the warmth of his mouth against mine, on the weight of his hands as they slide down my throat before roving over the front of my dress.

“Remember when I said you looked nice in this dress?”

It’s hard to think with his tongue dipping past my lips, but I do my best. “Yeah?”

“I lied.” I barely have time to process if he’s insulting me or not, because his arm wraps around me, molding me to the front of him before one heavy palm cups my ass through my dress. “You look fucking beautiful.”

I make that sound again, the embarrassing one, but I don’t feel a scrap of embarrassment, miraculously. My head falls back as his lips wander, down my jaw and my neck and lower still as his tongue lightly flicks at my clavicle, which peeks out over the neckline of my dress. Distantly I register the sound of the lock clicking on the bathroom door, and evenmoredistantly I know this should be setting off alarm bells, that I should be pulling away, but I don’t do any of that. I can’t physically make myself pull away from him.

I gasp when he spins me, pushing me against the vanity and smoothing his hands over my hips as his lips brush along my shoulder. His voice is low, making me shiver. “Do you know how crazy you make me?” His fingertips tease at the hem of my skirt, drawing it upward slowly. “I haven’t been able to think about anything else but the way your skin feels since the first time I touched you.”

“Ezra—”

Whatever I’d been about to say morphs into a moan when his fingers curl over my thigh to slide over the fabric of my underwear, teasing my slit through the material. “Already wet,” he sighs. “Always so fucking wet for me. Even when you pretend to hate me, your body can’t lie.”

I should be telling him to fuck off, or at least, I think I should—it’s hard to think when he presses his hard length against my ass, thrusting slightly as he continues to trace a slow back-and-forth over my underwear.

“Tell me how you want me,” he breathes against my ear, his teeth nipping the lobe. “I’ll give you anything you want if you tell me, Dani.”

Tell him you don’t want anything. Tell him that you—

“Hard,” I rasp. “I want to feel it tomorrow.”

“Perfect,” he groans, tongue tracing the shell of my ear. “You’re fucking perfect.”

I feel his palm flatten against my spine as he bends me over the vanity, and vaguely I recognize the ruffling sounds of him digging in his pockets, catching sight of his wallet from the mirror as he pulls out a familiar foil packet.

I manage to cock a brow at his reflection, but the sarcasm is lost to the throaty tone of my voice. “Someone was confident.”

“Just wishful thinking,” he says with a lazy smile. I almost swallow my tongue as I watch him rip the packet open with his teeth before he spits the excess foil away. “Always wishful thinking when it comes to you.”

I have to avert my eyes just to try to slow the racing of my heart, but I canheareverything. The metal grinding of his zipper as he slides it down. The crinkling of foil as he removes the condom. The soft sound he makes as he slides it on. It’s almost worse somehow. Hearing it without seeing it. It means my head is full of nothing but him.

I bite my lip as he shoves my dress over my hips, bite it harder when he drags my underwear down to let them pool around my ankles before I toe them away—and where there should be discomfort at him pausing to stare at me, to take me in, strangely I find there is only purethrillfrom the almost tangible vibration of raw need I can sense from him. It almost matches mine.

“Fuck, Dani,” he mumbles, his fingers pressing against mebefore slipping inside with one fluid movement. “Look at you. You’re soaked.”

I wait for the embarrassment to come, but still it doesn’t.

“Do something about it,” I whisper harshly.

I hear his soft chuckle, and I gasp when his lips press gently against the curve of my ass as he twists his fingers deeper inside me. “You want me to fuck you? Right here?”

Really? We’re playing this game right now? With me bent over my parents’ guest bathroom vanity while his cock is wrapped up and ready to go?