Chloe nodded and followed when I took her hand and gently pulled her toward the parking deck, but she was smiling mysteriously all the while.

The entire drive to her place, she tickled her fingers up and down my thigh, leaned to lick my neck, slid her hand over my cock, and talked about the tiny red panties she put on this morning, needing that little confidence boost.

“Will it shatter your confidence if I tear them off?” I asked, leaning to kiss her at a red light. The car behind me honked just when it was getting good: when her lips were giving way to tiny bites and her sounds filled my mouth and my head and—fuck—my entire chest. I needed to get her naked and beneath me.

In the elevator on the way up to her apartment, it was wild. She was here, holy f**k she was here, and I’d missed her so much; if I had my way, this night was going to last for three days. She pushed her skirt up over her hips, and I lifted her, stepping between her legs and pressing my aching c**k into her.

“Going to make you come so many times,” I promised.

“Mmm, promise?”

“Promise.”

I rocked my hips against her and she gasped, whispering, “Okay, but first—”

The elevator dinged and she wiggled herself free, slipping to the floor. With a hesitating look, Chloe smoothed her skirt back down, and walked ahead of me into the hallway and toward her apartment.

My stomach dropped.

I hadn’t been back here since we were apart and I’d conned her security guard into letting me up to talk to her. I’d ended up spending the entire time conversing with the outside of her door instead. I felt strangely anxious. I wanted to only feel relieved at our reunion    , not think about everything we’d missed out on in our months apart. To distract myself, I bent low and sucked at the skin beneath her ear and began working on the zipper at the back of her skirt as she fumbled with her key.

She swung the door open, turning to me. “Bennett—” she started, but I pushed her inside and back against the nearest wall, quieting her with my mouth. Fuck, she tasted good, a mix of the lemon water she’d been drinking and that familiar taste she always had: soft mint and softer, hungry lips. My fingers teased at the back of her skirt but I lost my finesse, yanking the zipper down and shoving the fabric to the floor, immediately reaching for her blazer. Why the f**k is she still wearing this goddamn thing? Why is she still wearing anything?

Beneath her deep purple dress shirt, her ni**les hardened as I stared, and I reached out to circle one with a fingertip. Her sharp gasp pulled my eyes to hers.

“I missed this. I missed you.”

Her tongue peeked out to wet her lips. “Me, too.”

“Fuck, I love you.”

When I kissed her throat, her chest lifted and fell with quickened breaths, and I wasn’t sure how this was going to go down, how I could possibly slow down. Would I take her here, fast and hard first, or would I carry her to a couch or chair, kneel down, and just taste her? I’d been thinking about all of it for so long—playing out in my head how every scenario would go—and in the moment I felt a little paralyzed by the reality of her here, in the flesh.

I needed it all. I needed to feel her sounds and her skin, lose myself in the comfort of her hand wrapped around me, watch the sweat bead her brow while she rode me, showing me how much she’d missed me, too. I’d see it in the way her rhythm would falter when she got closer, or she would clutch me when I would say her name in that quiet whisper she always liked.

My hands shook as I reached up and carefully slipped her top button free. It registered somewhere in the ever-shrinking evolved portion of my brain that I didn’t want to destroy the buttons on the shirt she’d worn for her thesis defense.

I also wanted to savor this. Savor her.

“Bennett?”

“Mmm?” I undid another button, ran a finger across the hollow of her throat.

“I love you,” she said, her hands braced on my forearms, eyes wide. My hands faltered, and I lost my breath. “But . . . you’re going to hate what I’m about to tell you.”

I was still stuck on the I love you. My grin felt a little out of control. “What . . . ? Whatever you have to say, I’m sure I won’t hate it.”

She winced, turning to look at the clock on the wall. It was the first time it occurred to me to take a look around her apartment. I stepped back in surprise; her place looked nothing like I expected.

Everything about Chloe had always been impeccable, stylish, current. But her apartment could not be farther from that description. The living room was tidy, but full of worn furniture and things that didn’t look like anything she would own. Everything was brown and tan; the couches looked comfortable but like they were made out of the same material as a stuffed animal. A small collection of wooden owls was clustered on a shelf near a tiny television and, in the kitchen, the clock that she’d glanced at had a big smiling bumblebee on the face with the words “Bee Happy!” in garish bubble letters.