Page 62 of The Final Cut

“I’m sorry,” I say.

Her fingers curl in my shirt. “Me too.”

“For making us crazy?”

“For making it harder.”

I shake my head. “Do not take my apology and turn it into yours. That is theft.”

“Fine.” Her chin lifts. “I’m sorry for exactly forty percent.”

I nod solemnly. “Accepted.”

“That is generous of you.”

“I’m known for grace.”

Ever mutters, “That is new information.”

Reva does not look away from me. “Still think I can’t last three minutes?”

My pulse kicks. “Sweetheart, I think you’re confusing mercy with confidence.”

Her smile widens, and she shimmies out of her leggings, panties going with them, and then climbs onto my lap. Every thought I have ever had leaves.

Her knees bracket my hips. Her hands slide around my shoulders. I grip her waist because gravity has become unreliable, and she is warm through damp clothes, warm and solid and mine for the length of this ridiculous dare I should never have accepted.

Nash moves behind me. For one wild second, I think he is about to commentate. Instead, a small foil packet lands on the counter beside my hand.

Reva looks at it. Then at Nash.

“I’m on the pill, you know. We are well past this.”

He lifts his hands. “Just trying to be helpful. And I thought…ya know…reduced sensation might help our boy here last longer.”

Deacon chokes on his coffee.

I grab the packet. “Everyone shut up.”

Reva leans close enough that her mouth brushes my ear. “Bossy.”

A shiver goes through me. She feels it. Her laugh is soft and mean and alive.

We deal with the practicalities with as much dignity as one can manage while three dangerous men stand around us and make zero pretense at not watching. Ever and Nash watch us with a mix of hunger and amusement. Deacon watches Reva because Deacon has never cared about pretending.

Then Reva sinks down onto me.

Slow.

Tight.

Hot enough to make my hands clamp around her hips and every joke in my mouth turn to ash.

Her breath catches against my cheek.

Mine stops entirely.

She settles fully in my lap, thighs pressed around mine, body holding me in a way that should be punishment and becomes immediate spiritual collapse.