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Down the hall. Into the bedroom.

The door shuts behind us and the sound is too loud in the quiet villa. I set her down and we're pulling at each other immediately—her hands shoving at my swim trunks, mine fighting with her bra clasp, both of us too frantic to be coordinated about any of it.

Her bra hits the floor first. Then my trunks. Then her underwear, dragged down her thighs and kicked aside.

And then there's nothing.

Just us.

Bare—Wet… Standing in the middle of the honeymoon suite with the moonlight cutting through the terrace doors and three days of pretending we could survive this without touching each other finally, mercifully, over.

I look at her.

I can't help it.

Wet hair slicked back. Skin flushed from the orgasm still glowing in her cheeks. Her breasts full, nipples peaked. The soft curve of her stomach. There’s still water running in thin lines down her body that I’d like to trail with my tongue.

She is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, and for six months in my office, I tried not to see it. Not to see the beautiful woman working for me that I refused to let get my coffee order right.

I close the distance between us. One hand at the back of her neck, the other flat against the small of her back, pulling her flush against me so there's no space left between her skin and mine.

The feeling of her bare against me—chest to chest, stomach to stomach, her heat pressed against my length empties my head completely.

I walk her backward until her legs hit the bed. I lay her down gently and then pull her up the bed until her head hits the pillow, her body soft under mine, devastating awareness that I am about to be inside my wife for the first time and nothing in my life has prepared me for how much I want this.

My mouth moves down her throat–her collarbone. The soft swell of her breast. When I close my lips around her nipple she arches off the mattress so hard her hips grind against mine and a sound escapes me that has no business coming from a man who's supposed to be in control of anything.

I keep going lower.

Her stomach. The dip of her navel. The inside of her hip where the skin is thin and sensitive enough to make her breath catch when I press my mouth there.

When I settle between her thighs and put my mouth on her properly, she goes perfectly still.

One heartbeat.

Two.

Then her fingers slide into my hair and her hips lift toward me and whatever sound she makes is swallowed by the pillow she turns her face into.

I take my time.

Not to tease. Not to prove anything.

Because I want to know her here. The way she tastes. The way she moves. The sounds she makes when there's no fight left to hide behind and it's just her body and my mouth and the slow, relentless build of something neither of us can take back.

She's close again fast—still sensitive from the pool—and when she comes this time it's quieter but deeper, her whole body curling toward me, thighs pressing against my ears, my name barely a whisper on her lips.

I press one last kiss to the inside of her thigh and crawl back up.

She catches my face in both hands and kisses me—slow, thorough, tasting herself on my mouth and not caring. Her hand wraps around me and I drop my forehead against hers because the sensation of her fingers on me after all of this is almost too much.

The condom is in the nightstand. I reach for it, tear the packet with wet fingers and a complete absence of grace, and roll it on while she watches me with those dark, heavy-lidded eyes.

Then I settle between her thighs.

Brace one hand beside her head.

Look at her.