Page 39 of Sunflower Persona (Classic City Romance #2)

“I’ll be right back,” he tells me as he gets out of the makeshift bed.

He places a quick kiss on my lips and dashes off toward his bedroom, leaving me naked and alone in the living room.

I should probably do something, like lie down and look sexy and enticing, but I can’t make myself move from the spot. Gage returns a few seconds later and tosses a condom packet onto the bed. He walks around it to stand behind me and wraps me in his arms.

“Are you still okay?” he asks and starts to pepper my neck with kisses.

“Yes,” I say, fighting the urge to roll my eyes at his constant need for reassurance.

He holds me even tighter, his hot erection pressing into my ass, and his hands start to roam over my body before coming to rest on my breasts.

His fingers twist and pull at my nipples while he sucks on a sensitive spot under my ear.

The sensation sends an explosion of electricity cascading down my body into my core.

Heat pools between my legs, and my pussy aches for his touch.

Thankfully, he seems to read my mind. One of his hands travels along my body, dropping lower until it finds my center. His fingers slide between my folds, gathering the wetness and spreading it to my clit.

“Tell me what you need, Low,” Gage rasps in my ear as his fingers tease the area around my clit without actually touching it.

“I need your cock inside me.”

He spins me around and devours my lips again. His hands grab my hips, squeezing them as if he can’t get enough of me.

“Bed,” he gets out between labored breaths and moves me in that direction.

Right, bed.

I scramble backward and fall onto the mattress, spreading my legs wide for him.

“Come fuck me, Gage,” I command.

He is on me in an instant. His body blankets mine, and I’m lost in the sensation of tangled limbs and sloppy kisses.

He only pauses to grab the condom and slip it on before he’s right back on me, kissing and licking and petting me in ways that make every nerve ending in my body come to life and my pussy clench with need.

I don’t think I’ve ever been this turned on in my whole life. Sex before was never pleasant. It never felt like my skin was made up of living sparks or like I might actually die if something doesn’t fill me and take away that need.

Gage lines himself up at my opening and stops one last time, looking at me for reassurance.

I nod, and he slips inside me. He moves slowly, but his size still stretches me more than I’m used to.

The sensation isn’t exactly painful, but it’s new.

It’s nothing like the sharp, stinging friction I’ve always associated with the act.

His eyes never leave mine as he works himself to the hilt—he never stops looking out for my comfort. Even in the throes of passion, my needs are his first thought. The burn of tears prickles behind my eyes as a flood of emotion washes over me.

Fuck, I am one hundred percent, without a doubt in love with him.

I reach up and wrap my hands behind his neck, pulling him down for a searing kiss before he sees the fresh wave of tears and assumes the worst again. The last thing I want is for him to stop now.

He doesn’t move at first. Instead, he keeps kissing me while buried deep in my center.

It feels good, but I need more; I need friction.

I whine as I writhe against him, desperate for more.

Thankfully, my boyfriend has mercy on me and pulls back to thrust into me.

He doesn’t hold back as his hips rock forward, and, inside me, his cock hits something that makes the sparks of need explode into full-body fireworks.

I moan, and that sound shreds the last remaining threads of his willpower. He thrusts into me again and again with abandon as he kisses me like he might steal my soul from my lips.

“I’m sorry, Kor. I’m not going to last like this,” he says with an agonized tone.

I don’t get it. Isn’t that the whole point?

As soon as the words leave his lips, his body tenses, and his thrusting stutters to a stop.

He buries his face in the crook of my neck and lets out a groan.

A still beat passes with us locked in a sweaty embrace.

He kisses my neck and pulls his body off mine.

I whimper again when he pulls out; I still feel that all-consuming need for him.

I’m not empty for long. He discards the condom, and before I can move, he has a finger inside me and another on my clit.

“Wh-what are you doing?” I ask.

“Getting you off too.”

“You don’t need to do that. I can’t come.” Halfway through my sentence, he hits a spot that makes my whole body shudder, and my words come out all kinds of shaky.

“You can’t, or you haven’t? Those are two very different things.” He doesn’t stop moving his fingers as he speaks. With each brush of those sensitive spots, a pleasurable feeling builds in my center.

“Haven’t,” I admit, and thrust my hip to meet his hands. He hums and focuses on the task at hand.

They feel good—no, they feel more than good.

It’s nothing like the sharp poking and prodding I’ve experienced before.

Slickness coats me as the desire blooms inside me.

That feeling grows and grows, and I writhe on the mattress, seeking more.

I don’t know what more looks like, only that I need it, or this feeling will eat me alive.

The noises that come out of me are desperate and needy and so unlike any I’ve made before.

“That’s it, Low. Let it happen. You can let go. I’ve got you,” Gage swears.

He leans over to kiss me again, and that’s the trigger to make that hot, tight feeling detonate inside me.

Ecstasy washes over me in waves so intense that darkness creeps along the edges of my vision.

All the while, he holds me and whispers reassuring words.

He pulls his fingers out as my body stops seizing, and lies down beside me, pulling me onto his chest.

So that’s why there’s so much hype around orgasms. I get it now.

We lie like that for several minutes as our breathing and hearts even out. I trace my finger over his tattoo and listen to his heartbeat, still riding the high from that release.

“Does this have meaning?” I ask as my finger passes over one of the roses.

“I got it after I won my first fight. I spent the entirety of my winnings on this thing and didn’t even take care of it right, but that’s beside the point.

I heard someone call me a bear in the ring at one point, and I liked that, so I got the bear.

The flowers are for my family, though. There’s one for each of them on there.

Mom, Dad, Layne.” He points to each of the roses that form a triangle around the beast’s head, with the point right below his sternum.

“Do you think I’ll ever get to meet them? Your mom and Layne, I mean.”

He stiffens underneath me, and the hand that was rubbing circles along my back freezes with it.

“I don’t know, Kor,” he starts. His words are too controlled, like he’s actively thinking to say the right thing. “Maybe one day, but this distance makes it hard. Who knows if you will still want to be with me the next time I visit.”

My bliss is sucked away by the gaping void his answer summoned. He doesn’t know if we will still be together then. Doesn’t see this lasting long term. My heart crumbles into a pile of dust in my chest. Here I was thinking about love, but clearly, Gage isn’t on the same page.

I nod and try to keep my face neutral despite my inner turmoil. The last thing I want to do is ruin tonight. Everything has been so perfect up until now. I must do a piss-poor job of hiding my reaction, though, because he sits up and rolls over so he can look me in the face.

“You’re freaking out on me. What’s going on? Did I hurt you? Are you having regrets?”

I shake my head but don’t give him anything else. If I open my mouth now, I think I’ll lose it and start crying all over him again, but this time in a bad way.

“Don’t ice me out. I can’t fix it if I don’t know what’s wrong.” The hurt look on his face pulls at something in my chest.

“I didn’t realize you didn’t see things between us going long term.” I’m proud of how steady my voice sounds, despite everything.

“What? Where did you get that impression?” He looks so confused that I think maybe I’m the one who is misunderstanding things.

“You literally just said I might not ever meet your family because I might not be around. How else am I supposed to take that?”

“Kori, you are everything I never let myself dream of having. I don’t know why you are wasting your time with me when you could do so much better, but I thank whatever forces brought you into my life every day that you are choosing me.

The only reason I said you might not be around is because, at some point, you are going to realize I can’t offer you everything you deserve. ”

As quickly as it was broken, my heart mends, but anger floods in where the void stood.

“Gage, I mean this with all of the possible affection, but you are the biggest fucking idiot I’ve ever met.

I am with you because I like you . I don’t want anyone else.

There is no one out there who is better for me than you.

I don’t want to hear shit like that out of your mouth again, you hear me? ”

He opens his mouth to protest, but I glare at him, and he closes it again.

“I hear you, Low,” he says with a sigh.

“Good. Would you be open to meeting my parents since they live closer?”

He thinks for a second before reaching out and grabbing my hand. His thumb runs circles over the skin there for a moment, and then he brings our hands to his mouth to place a kiss on my knuckles.

“Of course. I’d do anything for you. When are you thinking?”

“How about fall break? We could do a long weekend at their house. I haven’t been back home since the semester started.”

“Yeah. Okay. I’ll talk to my boss at Cutter’s and Coach David to organize the time off.”

“Really?”

“Of course.”

“Thank you,” I tell him with a smile and tackle him on the mattress while I pepper his face with light kisses.

“There’s no need to thank me. If you want me to meet them, I will. Now let’s get cleaned up and head to bed. Just because I’m used to being up this late doesn’t mean you are.”

“Okay,” I say with a yawn, but I don’t get off him.

I want to soak in this moment for a little while longer.