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He watched me for a long moment. “If we introduce it, then it will be contained. Negotiated. And we’ll check in after.”

“Yes.”

“You will not use it casually.”

“No.” Fuck no.

“And if at any point it starts to blur in ways that feel unsafe, we stop.”

“Yes.”

The silence had weight now.

He held my gaze. “Do you still want it?”

I swallowed. “Yes.” God, I wanted it, not because it was edgy or hot, but because it felt like belonging.

To him.

He nodded once. “Then we proceed carefully.”

My chest felt so fucking light.

He didn’t shut me down. He didn’t flinch. And he listened.

Max

That was the moment something shifted inside me. My chest tightened. My pulse quickened.

He isn’t asking for ownership. He’s asking me to see him. He’s telling me who he truly is.

And I liked the man I was learning so much about.

Except I’d passed like. What I was feeling now was so much more than that.

“Is there anything you need?” I had to bring everything down to a practical level, because if I didn’t, there was a real danger I’d let go and kiss him until dawn.

And the rest.

“Now that you ask…” Quinn locked gazes with me. “I need a shower.”

I smiled. “You know where it is.”

“And then I want to eat something.”

I smiled. “That can be arranged.”

Quinn trailed his fingers down my chest, all the way to where my cock lay encased in denim.

“And then I want this inside me.”

Chapter Twenty

Max

The shower ran while I stood in the kitchen trying to convince myself this was still simple, still temporary. Except there was a problem with that.

Quinn had stopped feeling temporary several conversations ago, and this was anything but simple.