Page 15 of The Year of Us: May

He arched a brow.

“Like what?” I asked again, knowing that both of us needed to hear the words come out of his mouth.

“I want you,” he said gently. “I want you exclusively.”

“I’ve only been with you since January.”

“But I want it said.” He tapped his hand against his sternum, fingers splayed. “I want it known.”

“I know.”

“I want everyone to know.” Cory knee-walked toward me until he was half in my lap, taking my cheeks into his hands and scanning my face with a renewed sense of urgency. “I want my friends to know. I want your friends to know. I want more than one weekend a month with you. I want you to lo?—”

The words died on the back of his tongue.

I kissed him so he didn’t need to say them because, in some ways, he didn’t need to say it. What he wanted was already his. I dragged my tongue across the seam of his lips until he opened and let me in, then I tasted the backs of his teeth and the roof of his mouth. Cory moaned into my mouth, fingers digging into my cheeks as he took over and deepened the kiss until my back was against the wall and he was straddling me. Somehow, I was hard again and so was he, and the weight of him on top of me didn’t do anything to quiet the urgency growing between my legs.

He kissed me into a frenzy and then kissed me calm, slowly untangling himself from my lap before collapsing on the floor beside me. He propped himself up against the wall with his shoulder pressed against mine and stretched his legs out, knocking his shoe against the side of my sneaker.

I pulled my cellphone out of my pocket and opened my social media, setting the device down on my thigh. Cory looked at my profile, then up at me. I smiled at him, my mouth swollen and tender, slick with the taste of him.

“So,” I started, clearing my throat. “Does this mean it’s time for me to update my relationship status?”

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