Page 31 of Hers By Summer’s End

“Yes,” she breathed, adoring the vulgarity that slipped through Drew’s lips when he wasn’t trying so hard to be genteel. If these were the words he used when he fantasized about her, then these were the words he would use with her. “Fuck me, sweetheart. Please, please fuck me.”

“This first time might be quick,” he warned as he moved on top of her.

“That’s all right.” She stroked her hands slowly along his shoulders, feeling the tension gathered beneath his skin. “We have all night. We have⁠—”

Forever.

The word hovered on the tip of her tongue, frightening in its sweet potential. Despite every effort to keep her heart from running ahead, the thought had taken root. But wanting forever and knowing she could have it were two very different things. She could not bear to put such a word between them now, to turn this precious, breathless beginning into a promise he might not be ready to make. So she swallowed the word and smiled instead.

“We have all night,” she repeated softly.

He guided his prick to her entrance and slowly pushed inside. She widened her legs to accept him, breathing deeply at the brief sting, at the strange feeling of fullness.

“This is right,” he rasped, bracing himself on his forearms to gaze at her like she was everything to him.

“It is,” she whispered back.

He began to move inside her, short, gentle thrusts that coaxed moans past her lips. She raised her knees, cradling him, urging him deeper. They groaned in unison at the burst of sensation.

“Are you all the way inside me?”

“Yes. It’s—it’s almost more than I can stand.”

“Then don’t,” she suggested with a breathless laugh. “I want to feel your climax. I want to know what it feels like inside when you tip over the edge.”

He screwed his eyes shut. “Talk like that, petal, and it’ll happen before I’ve made you come.”

She tugged his face to hers, sucking on his lower lip. “Then let’s find the edge together.”

He fucked her in earnest, and it was exactly as she’d hoped—wild and free and earthshattering.

His hand snaked between them, his thumb circling her clitoris. Her back arched at the overwhelming sensation, her breath coming in quick gasps. Pleasure coiled and wound higher and higher in an endless loop. She buried her face into his shoulder as she peaked, muffling her cry. A heartbeat later, his hands clamped around her hips, his prick swelling inside her. She marveled at the primal groan that ripped from his chest as he climaxed.

He rolled to her side with a sated, drowsy smile. When he lifted an arm in invitation, she cuddled close, pressing her face against his flushed chest with a bone-deep satisfaction she wasn’t sure could ever be duplicated. She watched his belly rise and fall, felt the tell-tale reverberations as he drifted into sleep.

It was funny. Her bedroom had always been a bit…sad. She mostly spent time there when she needed to hide her sorrow from her mother, when she needed to scream her pain into her pillow. But now, with Drew in her bed, the air itself felt different, as if his presence alone were enough to transmute the shadows into light.

She clutched him tighter and willed them a future.

CHAPTER EIGHT

August 28, 1909

Cactus Dahlia Day

Cecelia tamped down the panic clawing at her ribs.

The procession of young women had completed its march from the main gate and now streamed into the Washington State Building two by two, gathering upon the grand staircase like a frothy bed of summer flowers. The crowd rapidly filling the spacious reception hall applauded, murmuring their approval of the ladies’ pristine white gowns, carefully placed cactus dahlia garlands, and delicate bouquets.

“Where the hell is Drew?” she hissed, forcing the words past the lump lodged in her throat. “And stop looking at each other like I’m some wilting rose waiting to be deadheaded.”

Rosie froze halfway through exchanging yet another worried glance with Theo. “I’m sure he’ll be here any moment.”

Cecelia wanted to believe her. She’d spent the last hour telling herself there was a perfectly reasonable explanation. The streetcar must have broken down. Or another, larger procession had blocked his path. Perhaps the Expo greenhouse had caught fire. Some foolish mishap that would have Drew barreling through those doors at any moment, flushed and apologetic. But another thought had begun needling her, one that refused to quiet down.

What if he’d gotten all he wanted from her?

She wanted to believe their intimacy last night meant something. For God’s sake, a faint soreness still lingered between her thighs. Her breasts were still gently abraded by the rasp of his morning scruff. Yet women heard things. Men could spend weeks—in her case, years—pursuing a woman, making her the center of his universe, only to lose interest once she let him into her bed. Once he had won her physically, what was left to want?