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“Of course,” I answer.

“Why did you want to come here tonight? Instead of going home?” he asks.

I smile. “Brittany offered to keep him for the night since it would be a late one. And while I love him more than anything, it’s nice to have a night off,” I answer. “A whole night…”

A smile tugs at his lips slowly. “And what would you like to do with your night of freedom?” he asks me. I smile at him before pressing my lips fully to his. It doesn’t take long after that. Our tongues find each other, his jaw working my mouth open, his hands reaching around to the zipper on my back. He tugs it down, our lips still connected, and the dress falls to the floor at my feet.

I step out of the puddle that is my dress, and his eyes rake over my body. My matching black lace bra and panties. Strapless, nearly see through, high-cut, giving the illusion that I have curves that don’t belong to me.

I’ve never been very confident in my body. And while I know that statement would earn me a room full of eye rolls, it’s just the truth. Curvy girls don’t want to be curvy. And it’s the same for girls who have lived shapeless lives. Honestly, it’s all a shame. That any girl, any woman of any size would be made to feel undesirable for any reason at all.

But standing here, in front of Marcus, in front of Ash, I don’t feel shame. I don’t feel like I’m too small, too skinny, too plain. I’ve never felt too much or too little when I am with him. Not now, not the night in my apartment, not in the showroom at work, and not in the gondola of the Ferris wheel five years ago.

And so I unbutton his shirt and he undoes his slacks. I slip out of my panties and he shoves down his briefs. I unhook my bra and we throw it all aside.

“God,” he lets out the singular, gritty word, and it seems to almost choke him. He wipes his hand over the bristles around his mouth and swallows hard. I step closer, running a finger down his chest, and goosebumps prickle over his skin. “You are fucking unreal, you know that?” he asks, his eyes skidding down my body again.

And by this time, I am over the slow burn of the evening. I place both of my palms against his chest and look up at him through my eyelashes.

“What are you going to do about it?” I ask. That lights the fire I was waiting for. A deep, dark flame inside his eyes that spreads over the rest of his expression and over me as well. My lips part in anticipation, my eyes wide with something equally dark and hungry.

Marcus bends to pick me up, spreading my legs wide around his waist. Then he carries me away from the window. Despite my assumption that he was leading me to the oversized couch, we do not go there. After all, it’s big enough, it’s close, and it’s showered in moon and city light.

No. He takes me past the couch, down a hall and to a bedroom that opens itself to the rest of the condo. He pushes past the French doors and walks over to the massive king-sized bed in the center of the room. There are wide windows on the walls in here too, but they are shaded by blinds. The only light is coming from what must be the bathroom. It’s enough to still see his eyes, the sharp angles of his jaw, the ripples of his muscles, but not enough to showcase us. It’s private and intimate and actually quite perfect.

We are alone.

But we are together.

Marcus lays me back on the bed and stands over me for a moment. He strokes himself, once, twice, with long glides of his large hand over the girth of his cock. The sight of it is enough to make me hot, wet, and desperate. I squeeze my knees together and swallow hard as my chest rises and falls jaggedly.

But Marcus shakes his head.

“Don’t hide yourself from me,” he says, though that’s not really what I was doing. I’m clenching my legs together to stop myself from coming undone. To come to grips with the fact that simply looking up at this man, watching him stroke himself, knowing what his hands are doing to his nerves, and what they could do to my nerves, is enough to make me come on its own.

And I don’t want that. Obviously. I want this night to last as long as possible. I want it to last an eternity. I want the moon to sit still in the sky and the sun to sleep in and everything to simply pause while Marcus and I move through the space, exploring and touching and kissing and giving and taking. That’s what I want.

So I let my knees fall open. I let him see me. I show him that he can have me, all of me, inside and out.

“Who do you belong to?” he asks with another stroke. And it’s like he can see inside my thoughts. Hear the words in my head.

“You,” I say.

He groans. “Yes. You are mine.”

“I am yours, Marcus,” I say.

“Call me Ash,” he tells me.

“I am yours, Ash,” I say.

And it should be weird. Because that name is the name he introduced himself with on the night we met. It’s the name I gave Jamie as his middle name. But it’s not weird. It links us back together. Because I am his. And I’ve never been anyone else’s. Not since that night, and that’s not going to change.

Ash spends the next hour or however much time passes, pampering and teasing every inch of me. It feels like a country song as he explores me at a meandering pace, starting with my feet that he massages, knowing how sore they are from dancing the night away in heels that were a little more sexy and a little less practical than I usually opt for. I’ve never been a beauty is pain kind of girl, but sometimes, you have to make exceptions.

Then he moves up to my knees, kissing the sensitive skin around my kneecaps and the underside, making me giggle and squirm in pleasure because I’m finding that some parts of my body that I thought were ordinary are actually quite erogenous and that turns out to be one of them. Who knew?

From there, he trails up my thighs, and I can feel the burning anticipation as he nears the part of me that needs and wants the most. Of course, he only whispers a tease over those spots, his breath being the only thing he actually lets touch my skin as he makes his way past it to my navel.