Page 22 of Diesel’s Desire

That’s all the permission I need.

I find the zipper at the side of her dress, drag it down slow enough to feel her shiver under my knuckles, and she helps me get the rest of it over her head, until she’s laid out beneath me in nothing but her underwear, her skin warm under my hands. I take a second just to look. Almost twenty years, and I’ve imagined this a thousand different ways, and none of them come close to actually having her here, breathing hard, watching me watch her.

“You’re staring,” she says.

“Earned it.”

I kiss down her body, over her collarbone, the curve of her breast, her stomach, and she arches under my mouth, fingers tangling in my hair, tugging hard enough to sting. I peel her underwear down her legs and toss it somewhere behind me, and when I settle between her thighs, she goes rigid for a second like she forgot this was coming.

“Evan—”

“Let me.”

I put my mouth on her before she can argue, and the sound she makes echoes off the walls of a house I’ve never been in before tonight, loud enough that Thunder lifts his head from across the room before deciding this isn’t his problem. I work her slow at first, relearning the shape of her, the way her thighs tremble against my ears, the exact rhythm that used to make her fall apart when we were kids who thought this was the most illegal thing we’d ever do.

She’s not the same. Grown, sure of herself, telling me exactly what she wants instead of letting me guess.

“There,” she gasps, hips rolling up into my mouth. “Right there, don’t stop.”

I don’t stop. I chase that sound until she’s shaking, until her hand fists in my hair hard enough to hurt, until she comes apart on my tongue with a cry she tries to muffle against her own forearm and fails.

I don’t give her long to catch her breath.

I strip out of my shirt, my jeans, everything, and she watches me do it with her chest still heaving, eyes dark, hungry in a way that matches exactly what’s been sitting in my gut all night.

“Condom,” she manages. “Drawer, bathroom⁠—”

“Got one.” I dig it out of my wallet before she finishes the sentence, and she laughs, short and disbelieving.

“You brought one like you knew this was happening.”

“Hoped.” I roll it on, settle myself over her, and any humor left in her face melts into something else when I line myself up and push in slow, giving her time to adjust, watching her face.

“Evan,” she breathes, nails digging into my shoulders.

“Right here.”

I move slow at first, deliberate, savoring every inch of this because some stupid part of my brain’s still waiting for her to wake up and remember all the reasons this is a bad idea. She doesn’t. She just pulls me deeper, hooks her ankle behind my thigh, meets me thrust for thrust until slow stops being an option for either of us.

“Harder,” she says against my ear, voice wrecked already. “I’m not made of glass, Evan.”

“Never said you were.”

I give her what she’s asking for, drive into her deep enough that the couch frame knocks against the wall, and she cries out, loud, unashamed, nothing like the composed cop who spent two hours across a restaurant table pretending this wasn’t inevitable. I like this version of her. The one who claws at my back, who says my name like a curse word, who forgets every ounce of that careful control she wears like a uniform.

“You feel exactly the same,” I growl against her throat. “Better. Christ, Penny.”

“Don’t stop talking.”

“Yeah?” I pull back just enough to watch her face. “You like hearing it?”

“I like—” She loses the sentence when I shift my angle and hit something that makes her whole body arch off the couch. “That. Right there, don’t you dare stop doing that.”

I don’t. I chase that reaction until her orgasm has her shaking under me, walls clenching tight enough that I have to grit my teeth and think about anything except how close I am to following her over that edge.

I pull out before I lose the fight entirely, flip her onto her stomach, and she goes willingly, propping herself up on her forearms, glancing back at me over her shoulder with an expression that’s pure challenge.

“Well?”