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"I know."

She pulled back just far enough to look at me, and the expression on her face, open and undone and fully present, was the one I wanted to see for the rest of my life.

Then she put her mouth on my throat and her hand between my thighs, and I stopped being able to hold anything except the edge of the counter.

"Eyes on me," she said.

I kept my eyes on her.

She watched my face while she worked, reading every reaction in real time with the same undivided attention she gave game film, and it was unbearable and perfect at the same time, being seen that completely. There was nowhere to hide and no way to manage how much she could see. She saw all of it. And she looked at it like it was what she wanted most.

"Tell me," she said.

"You... I need... please don't stop..."

"Not stopping." She pressed deeper, found that spot, watched my face change. "I want to hear what you need."

"More," I said. "Harder. Please. Cam."

"Like this?" She gave me harder, and I grabbed the back of her henley, and she made a sound low in her chest and kept going, kept watching me, kept me exactly at the edge she'd learned to find.

"You're close," she said.

"Yes."

"Not yet."

"Cam, please..."

"Not yet." Her hand tightened at the base of my curls. "I want to hear you say it first."

"Say what?" I gasped.

"What you said to me last night. On the phone. Before I hung up."

I stared at her, shaking, so close I could barely see straight. I had to dig through the fog for it. The phone call. Her keys. 3C, the dying succulent, and then the last word I'd said before she ran.

"Hurry," I whispered.

Her whole face changed.

"I drove twenty-five minutes," she said, "with that word in my ears. Hurry. Like you'd been waiting for me. Like you'd wanted me to come all along." Her voice broke on it. "Nobody's ever wanted me to hurry to them, Harper. Nobody's ever been waiting on the other side of the door."

"I was waiting," I said. "I was waiting the whole time. Even when I told myself I wasn't."

"Then come for me," she said. "Come for me, baby. I'm here."

She curled her fingers and pressed her thumb hard against my clit, and kissed me, and I came with my face pressed into her neck and her name in my mouth two times, three times, until I ran out of breath to say it.

She held me through it. She didn't stop until I was completely done, until the last of the trembling had moved through me and left, until I had nothing left to give and she'd taken all of it, held it carefully, and given it back.

When it was over, I stayed right where I was, on the counter, arms around her neck, face against her shoulder, breathing.

She stroked my back in slow, steady circles. Her chin rested on top of my head. She was murmuring very quietly, words I felt more than heard, low and solid, and I let it move through me and let her hold me.

"Hey," she said after a while.

"Mm."