I go into the bathroom and change. I spend a long time looking at myself in the mirror, feeling like…
Like me.
I’m wearing a pair of plain but very cheeky black boy shorts, cut from the softest cottony fabric you can possibly imagine.
And a cropped, snug t-shirt that says, in letters that swerve across my chest:
Not fragile like a flower. Fragile like a bomb.
“Hell yes,” he says, when I come out. “Fuck yes.”
I can’t hold back my smile. It’s busting out all over the place, like my boobs in this shirt, like my ass in these shorts. And from the look on Easton’s face, he wholeheartedly approves.
It’s the best fucking thing, the way he’s looking at me; I could eat it for every meal the rest of my life.
And I think, with a burst of joy and a spasm of fear, intertwined like vines, that maybe I never wanted to be anyone’s princess. I just wanted to be Easton’s Hanna.
“Hanna,” he says, and he strides toward me, takes me in his arms and kisses me.
No messing around with this kiss. He’s hungry and bossy, his hands already all over my body—on the boy shorts, on my ass, at my waist, on my breasts. He’s greedy and giving by turns—devouring my mouth, slicking my tongue with his, clutching my curves—and then teasing along the seam of my lips, finding my nipple with two talented and determined fingers, stroking a featherlight hand down over my mound and pressing just for a second to give me a zap of pleasure.
Not sure how we got there, but we’re on our knees, now, unable to stop kissing, moaning into each other’s mouths.
“Take them off,” he commands, tugging at my new t-shirt.
“I just put them on.”
“Take them off.”
“You take yours off!”
“I will if you do.”
I’m surprised neither of us tears anything, given the haste with which we lose our clothes.
“Oh, Jesus, Easton,” I say. “You’re—”
He’s beautiful. Hard muscle, thick through shoulders and chest, ridged down his belly. A just-right smattering of golden hair on his pecs, and a line of darker hair that starts under his navel and dives toward his jutting cock.
Like the rest of him, his cock is pretty. Perfect. Thick and well-formed, the head shiny with how hard he is. For me. He’s that hard for me.
“Just hold still for a minute,” I say, and I reach a hand out.
He groans as my fingers touch the bare skin of his arms, his shoulders, his chest, his abs. I want to feel the solidness and the give, the smoothness of his bare skin and the just-rough-enough feel of his body hair.
“This is the fantasy I never let myself have,” I admit. “Getting to touch the pretty.”
He snorts laughter, but I’m dead serious. “You don’t understand, Easton. I’ve only ever had sex with mortal men.”
Now he’s really laughing.
My hand slides down over the ridges of his abs and finds his cock, and he stops laughing.
“I’m going to have this inside me,” I say conversationally, fisting him. And then because turnabout is fair play, “Tell me what you want. Exactly what you want.”
“Your mouth,” he says without hesitation, then, “if that’s okay?”
I burst out laughing. “Alpha with a side of twenty-first century consent.”
“I mean,” he says, “it’s where we are.”
“And on that note, before I suck your cock—”
“Hanna…”
“Health status report required,” I say.
“Whiplash,” he says, laughing. Then he sobers up. “Doctor’s visit a month ago, all clear, nothing since.”
I raise my eyebrows.
“If we’re being honest, not all that much for a while before that, either. For, I don’t know, getting on towards a year.”
“Really.”
“Really and truly.”
“Why?”
He looks away from me for a split second, then back, and his eyes hold mine. “It wasn’t working for me.”
“What wasn’t?”
“Having sex with anyone who gave me attention.”
“Then why’d you do it?”
“It just happened,” he says. “I was good at it. And you know how it is in a big family. Everyone kind of gets their role, and people latch onto it. Maybe so they can tell you apart. Boss, bad boy, whatever. In my case, good-times brother.”
I feel a small, sharp stab somewhere in my chest as Easton slips into sharp relief. The man I thought I knew—who flirted with and probably fucked anything that moved—becomes something else. Someone else.
“Not so easy being the youngest Wilder, huh?” I ask.
“Not so easy being the youngest Hott, either,” he says.
It’s not a question.
We look at each other for a long time, and even though he is a thing of beauty and it’s very tempting to stare at his body, I discover I don’t want to look away from the tenderness in his eyes.
“I guess that’s part of why we like each other, huh?”
“Part of it,” he says. “Not all of it.”
“So how does this fit in? Sex with me?”
He closes his eyes. His face is both so pretty and so masculine; it’s impossible for me to look away, or not to want to kiss his lush mouth and touch the hard, honed jaw. But I leave him alone for the moment because I want his answer more.
He opens his eyes. “I realized…” He hesitates. “I realized it’s better with someone you like. Someone who makes you laugh. Someone who… who knows you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He touches the curve of my cheek, then runs a palm down the front of my throat, dropping it down to cup my breast and toy with my nipple.
“Mmm,” I say. “Keep doing that while I…” I drop to all fours, bringing my mouth within a whisper of his cock.
“Hang on,” he says.
He grabs a throw blanket from the arm of a nearby chair and spreads it on the carpet, then tugs me down.
I slide along his body, taking the head of his cock in my mouth. I explore with my tongue, warming both of us up.
He makes an incoherent sound I love.
I swirl my tongue, caress the head of his cock, suck up and down his length, until his breath is short and raspy. He’s shiny-hard in my mouth, and I know he’s not going to last. And then I stroke his balls and urge him to just come for me. Let go.
Which he does, calling my name and coming in spurts against my tongue.
“You should have told me how good you were at that,” he says breathlessly, when I ease myself back up his body and lay my head on his (perfect) chest.
“Because what?” I ask. “You would have suggested we do this sooner?”
“Yeah.”
I don’t point out how that never would have happened. I’m not sure exactly what alchemy led to us being together like this, but I know it’s a brew of Bear’s interest in me and him knowing he’s leaving anyway. Jealousy on one hand and nothing to lose on the other.
“Give me a minute to catch my breath,” he says. “Then it’s your turn.”
I rest my head against the thrum of his heart, in no rush for this moment to end. Right now is perfect, and the future is… complicated.
But Easton’s as good as his word. As soon as his breath eases back to normal, he rolls me onto my back and props himself on one elbow, looking down at me. His other hand slowly explores the contours of my body—face, throat, breasts, belly, thighs, then back up again to settle between my legs. The weight of his hand heavy on the softest part of my sex, his fingers idly, almost innocently, teasing between my folds. After a moment, it’s just one finger, which he dips to my core, then brings back up to my clit, slick and light. So light that at first, I want to tell him it won’t work, it’s not enough, but as I open my mouth, the protest dies away. That one finger, a slow, silky, brush, back and forth, with infinite patience. The tension builds from nowhere, becomes a rush of heat, a fierce burn, and then, Easton magic, yanks everything taut in my pelvis, my belly, my thighs, and I’m coming, whimpering, burying my face in his neck and crying his name.