“Done that before?” I ask drolly.

Then his hands slide around to cover me, his palms hot against my nipples, and I don’t think about anything at all.

He stops only long enough to ease me back until I’m sitting on the bed, then lying, staring up at him.

His hands go for the bottom of his own shirt.

“Wait!” I sit back up quickly, loving the way his eyes glaze over when my boobs bounce.

My hands bat his out of the way and I stand back up. “I’ve been waiting a long-ass time to see your abs, Beefcake. I get to do this.”

His eyes crinkle a little, and he lifts his arms, mimicking my motion just minutes before. I slowly inch his T-shirt up, revealing each inch by firm, chiseled inch. Even on my toes, I can’t quite reach, and he finishes the job, tossing it aside so we’re standing chest to chest.

Bare chest to bare chest.

I breathe, my hands resting light against him. “Beefcake. You’ve earned your name.”

He smiles down at me. “How do I compare to your fantasies?”

“How do you know I have them?”

He lifts an eyebrow.

I stand and press a soft kiss to his mouth. “Disappointing. So disappointing. In fact, I think I should leave. Find someone with actual muscles.”

He growls and then I’m on my back again, on the bed, laughing, and he’s laughing, too.

And then he’s on top of me, his mouth on mine, and there’s no more laughing.

Just kissing.

Really hot, tongue-tangling kissing.

I’m not sure at what point I lose my pants, nor at what point he loses his, but I never seem to get to that point of awkward dread when someone sees me naked. And when his hands move from my breasts, and along my sides, until his fingers hook into the side of my panties to tug downward, I realize why: I am meant to be naked with this guy.

I’ve always been meant to.

When he lifts a questioning gaze to mine, I lift my hips so that he can move the bikini panties down and off, and he does. Slowly. Taking in every inch of my legs, and I let him.

When they clear my feet, he tosses them aside, his own boxers quickly joining them on the ground.

He kisses his way back up then. Starting with my ankles.

Up along my calves, lingering on my inner knee. Painting the inside of my thighs with his tongue.

He moves up, tastes me, carnally, unapologetically. My fingers tangle in his hair, and I let him lick, because, um, obviously.

He tastes and teases, and I let him drive me up and over the edge, as I turn my head, bite my finger, and shatter into a million orgasmic pieces.

When I finally stop shuddering, I open my eyes, and he’s there, looking down at me.

“What are you smiling at?” I ask, my voice all ragged.

“I would have bet serious money that you were a screamer.”

“Why’s that?”

He kisses me. “It makes no sense. You’re the noisiest girl I know, except when you come.”

“Oh. Sorry?”

“Don’t apologize,” he says, nudging my chin aside, along with my apology. “I think it was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen, you biting your finger like that, locked in a silent scream.”

“You make it sound weird,” I mumble, my arms around his back even though my limbs still feel heavy.

“It wasn’t weird.” He kisses my shoulder. “Trust me.”

He reaches above my head, and I hear rummaging in the nightstand before I hear the unmistakable sound of a condom wrapper tearing.

Is this actually happening? Am I having sex with Michael?

He smiles down at me and my breath catches. When did that happen? When did he make me feel that way?

And then it hits me.

The whole time.

It’s been that way the whole damn time, and I’ve been too stupidly clinging to an ancient crush to see it.

I pull his head down for a kiss, and he hesitates only for a second, as though wanting to hold back. And then he gives in, sinking into the kiss.

His lower body nudges mine, and I move my legs apart. “Do you even know how to do it all standard missionary-like?” I ask as he settles between them.

He lifts his head, his eyes half-exasperated, half-aroused. “What?”

I brush my fingers along his cheekbone. “You’re just so … I don’t know, I figured you only did it against the wall or from behind, sort of like an animal.”

He cracks up, his forehead dropping to my shoulder. “Chloe. You kill me.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” I say, lifting my hips to his. “I like it this way.”

His breath turns ragged as my wiggling moves my wetness over him. “Do you now?”

“Mmm-hmm,” I purr in his ear. “I like—”

He pushes inside me in one solid stroke, and whatever I was going to say is gone.

Instead I can only moan.

He pulls back then, almost all the way, before sliding inside me again, and just when I think he can’t possibly feel any better, he slides his arm beneath my neck so that my head is cradled in the crook of his arm, his face pressed against my neck, and he plunges and stays, deeper than before, as though wanting the moment to last.

“Michael, I—”

“Don’t,” he whispers pleading. “Please.”

Before I have a chance to be disappointed that he silenced me, he starts to move, his hips rotating in the perfect rhythm, his breath hot against my neck as my nails dig into his back.

It’s good—it’s so good, and then his hand hooks behind my knee, lifting and spreading me wider, and then it’s so much better that I can barely breathe.