“He’s shy now. Still not cute, but shy.”

“Shy, my ass. He wasn’t so shy in the shower a little bit ago.”

“He needs his ego stroked.”

“Wow.”

“No, really. I think you’ll find he is quite receptive to stroking.”

“Now see, I was thinking maybe he just needed a good tongue lashing, but if you think stroking will suffice…”

“No, no, I think a tongue lashing is quite in order. He—Goddamn, Caroline!”

I leaned in, brought the shy one forth, and immediately surrounded him with my mouth. Feeling him grow harder still, I settled myself on the edge of the couch, wrapped my arms around him and dropped the towel. Pulling him closer, and therefore deeper into me, I hummed in satisfaction as I felt his hands come up into my hair and trace my face. Reverently, he placed his fingers on my eyelids, cheeks, temples, finally burying one hand in my hair and the other, well, wow. He held himself. As I concentrated all my attention on the tip of him, he stroked himself at the base, something that was quite possibly the sexiest thing I’d ever seen. Seeing his hand, wrapped around himself as he moved in and out of my mouth…oh my.

Sexy isn’t the right word for it. It is inadequate in the face of the pure erotica playing out in front of me. And speaking of in front of me, I hummed again in appreciation, feeling myself getting worked up just at the play my mouth was getting. Lucky mouth.

I fell back against the couch and pulled Simon with me. He responded by using both hands to brace against the back of the couch, thrusting in and out of my mouth with conviction. The angle allowed him to penetrate more deeply, and made it easier for me to take more of him in. I grabbed his backside, feeling the thrill of attending to him, knowing it was me, only me, who got to have him in this way.

I could feel him getting close. I was already beginning to know his tells intimately. I wanted him again. I was selfish this way. Releasing him with a final strong pull, I pushed him down on to the couch and straddled him. Feeling me against him, he thrust upward as I sank down, and there was that moment—you know that moment? When everything feels stretched and pulled in the most delicious way? Your body reacts: something that shouldn’t be inside is now inside and for a split second, it’s alien, unknown. And then your skin senses a returning champion, your muscle memory takes over, and then it’s so good, that feeling of fullness, of wonder and awe.

And then you begin to move.

Grabbing his shoulders for leverage, I rolled my hips into his, noticing not for the first time that he’d been intelligently designed with my exact measurements in mind. He fit inside me perfectly, two halves of a whole, some kind of sexual Lego. He sensed it too, I could tell.

He placed his hand flat against my chest, directly on top of my heart. “Stunning,” he whispered as I rode him, sweet and hot. He kept my heart in his hand as I rocked into him, his other hand on my hip, guiding me, positioning me, feeling me attend to us both. He struggled to stay with me, to keep his eyes open as his release rushed in. I took his hand from my heart and placed it further down, where he began to trace those damnable perfect circles.

“Jesus, Simon…oh, God…so…soooo good…I…mmm…”

“I love watching you fall apart,” he groaned, and I did. And he did. And we did.

I collapsed into him, watching until the room stopped spinning and the feeling returned to my fingers and toes, warmth snaking through my body as he held me to him.

“Tongue lashing. What an idea.” He snorted, and I giggled.

8:17 p.m.

“Ever think about changing the paint color in here?”

“Are you serious?”

“What? Maybe a lighter shade of green? Or even a blue? Blue might be nice. I’d love to see you surrounded by blue.”

“Do I tell you how to take pictures?”

“Well, no…”

“Then don’t tell me how to pick paint colors. And as it happens, I’m planning to change the palette in here, but it’s going darker. Deeper, you might say.”

“Deeper, you say? How’s this?”

“That’s pretty good. Mmm, that’s really good. Anyhow, as I was saying, I’m thinking of maybe a deep slate gray, with a new creamy sugar marble countertop, deepening the cupboards to a rich, dark mahogany. Holy shit, that feels good.”

“Noted. Deeper is good, and very deep is even better. Can you put your foot on my shoulder?”

“Like that?”

“Christ, Caroline, yes, like that. So…new countertop, you say? Marble might be a little cold, don’t you think?”

“Yes, yes, yes! What? I mean, what? Cold? Well, since I’m not usually laid out like a jelly roll on the counter, the cold won’t bother me. Besides, marble countertops are the best for rolling out dough.”

“Don’t,” he warned, turning his face to kiss the inside of my ankle.

“Don’t what, Simon?” I purred, my breath hitching as I felt his pace begin to quicken slightly, unnoticeable to anyone but me, the one he was currently inside of.

“Don’t try to distract me with dough talk. It won’t work,” he instructed, letting go of the countertop with his left hand and running it lightly over my br**sts, back and forth, teasing my ni**les into hard peaks with his fingertips.

A frantic energy began to settle low, low in my hips and in my thighs, the pit of my stomach and points in between. “No dough talk? No dirty dough talk for Simon? Mmm, but don’t you think a little distraction is good from time to time? I mean, can’t you just imagine me, bent over the countertop, working so hard for you…” I trailed off, running my fingers through his hair, bending him to me to kiss him with a wet mouth, tongue and lips and teeth intent on bringing him deeper into me.

I was perched on the edge of my kitchen island, very much naked, as was our fair Mr. Parker, buried inside and determined to make this last as long as possible. We wanted to see how long we could carry on a conversation while…well…doing it. So far seventeen of the most intense, sensual, fantastic minutes of my life, and that wasn’t counting the foreplay. O was dancing in the periphery, wondering why she wasn’t being granted immediate access. But now I had control of the bitch, and this sweet torture was incredible. Worth enduring.

That is, until Simon asked me to place my foot on his shoulder. Holy hell, he was wrecking me. One leg on his shoulder, the other leg he held open to one side, his hips rotating in maddeningly tiny circles, increasing in the smallest of increments. He was the one who insisted on the conversation, and I’d been able to keep up, until the foot on shoulder. Suddenly, parts that hadn’t really been a part of it before were now being stimulated, and it was getting harder and harder to keep my wits about me. But really, who needed wits? I could be witless. As long as I could be under Simon, I was okay being witless.