Sam didn’t disappoint. He slid his hands under my bra and unclasped it, nimble fingers so confident, as if he’d touched me this way a thousand times before. I felt unbound in more ways than one. Without saying a word, I pulled my own top and bra off, the air chilly enough to make my flesh pebble. When I threw my clothes aside and brushed my hair from my eyes, I found Sam gloriously shirtless, too, his eyes expectantly delighted. Matching mine.

So many years of pretending to be someone I wasn’t faded as reality filled the room like oxygen, fresh and clean and rejuvenating. Images of what it meant to be a sexual being tore through my mind like the moment of orgasm, where time speeds up and slows down at once. The headiness and import of this epiphany dissolved as I lit up in a grin, which Sam returned. I decided in that moment that I simply would not be self-conscious. Any hesitation was gone.

Gone.

Like his stilled hands, the butterflies of self-doubt stopped their fluttering.

And something in me just...broke.

Snapped.

Surrendered.

Be still, my heart had a whole new meaning as his eyes took me in and I found him appreciating what he saw. My fingers drank in his skin, parched, seeking to be quenched. Everything outside of this room faded, leaving only the sound of our breath, the rasp of skin against skin and sheets, and the deafening silence of questions unasked but quickly answered through touch.

Oh, how hot and soft and hard and good his body felt against mine.

“Amy,” he groaned, the vibration against my lips as his hands inventoried me, taking what I’d thought of as my ribs, my hips, my waist, my breasts and turning them into some kind of holy path to be traversed and revered. Those hands said millions of words that would never escape from Sam’s lips, but that I knew now in the most intimate of ways.

How many more words could his body say?

Bring on the dictionary. Please. And then a thesaurus...

I felt seventeen and twenty-two at the same time, a scrabbling piece of my brain trying to stop the undeniable—that we were a man and a woman ready to make love, and not stumbling teens dancing around what we wanted. Sam’s strong touch dipped down under my waistband, my throat tightening in a gasp as his finger slid under my panties, the pads of his fingers sinking into my ass and raking up, the sensation making me want him inside me, thrusting and sweaty, calling my name.

His mouth on my breast, his tongue played with my nipple as I tried to catch my breath, each nip and suckle interrupting all attempts at finding any shred of self-control.

Good.

My own hands seemed useless, as if I’d forgotten what to do with them as Sam took every remaining brain cell I possessed and tweaked it with his tongue. His hands now worked to dispense the final barrier between us, my pants opening and sliding down over my thighs as if they had a will of their own, the delicate hush of silken panties against my skin like a chorus cheering us on.

“You are so amazing,” he murmured, coming up to kiss me. A quick kiss, then he gently leaned me back on the futon and nuzzled my belly, trailing kisses up to the underside of my breasts, then down...down...to foreign territory.

That’s right.

No man had ever gone there with his mouth.

And Sam’s sexual GPS seemed to have my clit as its destination.

Don’t recalculate. Don’t recalculate.

All the reading, all the romance novels and sex manuals and erotica and sex magazine stories and articles, had made me want this with a dripping need that made me ache from throat to...

There.

Oh, yes—there. For years I’d wondered what it would actually feel like to have someone do this to me—to want to do this. To enjoy doing this. Sam’s fingers were so gentle, yet commanding. He knew what he was doing, I—I hadn’t had to ask. Earlier, he’d asked me to tell him what I wanted.

And yet he knew.

“Oh!” fluttered from my throat, the sound almost an afterthought, the touch of his lips and tongue on my bare lips and clit so enticing and electrifying it felt more like a shock than an erotic sensation. A flash of heat poured through all the nerve endings in the softer, wetter parts of me, a slower, deeper tightening in muscles through my belly and ass contrasting with the microshocks of pulsing shivers that his mouth elicited.

The feeling of giving my body to him so intimately, his mouth guiding me to a place of pleasure I knew existed in theory but couldn’t imagine was so—

Sam stopped and ran his hands up over my hips, to the edge of my breasts, and kissed my mons, the gesture surprisingly sweet compared to the very erotic nature of what he’d just done with me. “Tell me what you want,” he whispered.

Too shy to look down at him, afraid I would meet his eyes and he’d see the mix of everything scattered inside me, I arched my hips without realizing I did it, let my fingers sink into his hair, and whispered back the only word I could think or speak:“More.”

His hands came back to my thighs, taking in my skin as if he were memorizing it, his hands so worshipful it made me relax. No self-conscious posturing, no worrying about the light and having my physical flaws exposed. We were just here and enjoying each other. That was all this had to be, even if there really was so much more.

“With pleasure,” he said, his voice filled with a playful tone that made me want him even more. As his tongue savored me I inhaled sharply, pressing against his mouth ever so hesitantly, wanting this to last forever, even as I felt the familiar tendrils of an orgasm beginning to grow inside, seeking light and the explosive release I anticipated would come soon.

His mouth knew exactly how to play my body, though, and then just as I ached for him to enter me, to make love, I felt a finger slip in, slow and measured, as Sam’s tongue teased and laved, his other hand sliding over my belly, my hips beginning to shift in concert with his tongue.

Oh, God. Perfect. This was like rich, melted chocolate poured over the core of my sexuality, like wet velvet and—all the clichés seemed simultaneously deeply true and exceptionally shallow to describe how it felt to be licked and suckled and the flittering touch of a man who clearly loved to go down on a woman. His hands, his mouth—his whole being—transmitted that fact with his slow motions, how he took his sweet time, how he checked in and treasured all of this.

All of me.

And then—some shift inside made my mind go blank, my body arching up, an uncontrolled shaking taking over. Reflex made me pull away but Sam followed, his hand pressing deeper into my navel, his mouth pursuing my clit as I began to writhe, the waves of heat like a nuclear cloud, both explosive and expansive at once.

I needed to freeze. I needed to twitch. I needed to pull away. I needed to shove myself deeper onto his tongue. All those states needed to exist at the same time and it defied the laws of physics to even try, yet that’s what happened as every muscle in my body tightened at once, my walls clamping on his fingers, my legs squeezing together, my arms reaching up to grasp a pillow and pull it apart, the harsh sound of the sheets ripping off the corners of the bed as I balled them in my fists.

The tension abated and all my muscles melted as Sam’s mouth changed against my lower lips, as if I could feel him smile, his tongue slowing, and then—the pulse began again, my entire body riding this new wave. This time, though, the wave didn’t crest. It built and built, Sam’s ribs embraced by my thighs, his mouth a mystery that solved my need, and the climax he pulled out of me shattered everything I thought I knew about life.

All I wanted was him. His skin, his flesh, his tongue, his whole self as the orgasm took over all my blood, a heated rush trying to escape through my core, my mouth, my hands, my—anything that would unleash what was in me. What Sam had found in me.

What Sam had put in me all those years ago.

“Sam!” I moaned, his name replacing the word more, because I had enough right here, right now, and as I said his name a second time I thrashed, my head twisting from side to side as the room spun and swayed, my body exploding vessel by vessel, nerve by nerve, with a pleasure that made me part of everything.

And then it was too much. Too intense. Too—just too.

“No!” I begged. “Please. Stop, stop, stop,” I pleaded, scooting back and sitting up fast, my core on fire and my legs shaking. “It’s too much. I just—wow.”

Sam sat up, too, and I realized he was still half-clothed. I was completely nude and wet and my scent was all over him as he crawled to me and took me in a breathtaking kiss, my own taste in me without warning, the boldness making me ready for more instantly.

With hurried fingers I dispatched with the snap on his jeans, the hiss of the zipper like a gasp to match my own, and then Sam kicked off his pants, never breaking the kiss. My own taste seemed normal now, and his rock-hard erection was in my hands in a second, his mouth a groan that rewarded my own boldness.

“Amy,” he sighed.

“No one has ever done that to me,” I ventured. A grateful, astounded, dumbfounded part of my brain was reeling even as I began to stroke him, the thick veins and hard heat familiar and new at once.

He pulled back and caught my eyes, my impulse to look away so close, but I resisted. Sam stared back, and it was Sam—the real Sam I’d loved for so long and wanted.

“No one?”

I shook my head.

“Your boyfriend never...?”

Shake. “No.”

Sam’s eyes narrowed, his hair a mess, his chest heaving with desire and slick with the warmth our bodies generated. Thickly muscled arms and pecs carved from marble were like eye candy for me in the muted moonlight, and his kind, quiet eyes morphed into something wolfish and hungry.

“Then you have years to catch up on. I’ll be happy to help.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it—this was just too real and raw and mind blowing and I was nothing but rawness and eager need. He chuckled, too, and then gave me a look of such earnest adoration and sexual fire that I felt like the only woman in the world. Every touch, each move, all our sighs and strokes and sounds of joy and primal joining felt like a lover’s language and culture we were making up as we went along. Which we were.

So I did the only thing I could think of, which was to bend down and put my lips on him. Time to hold his pleasure in my hands.

Or, um...my mouth.

“You don’t have to—” he whispered, the words fading as it became very clear that I most certainly did have to, his entire body tensing, neck veins popping out as he tipped his head back and inhaled with a shuddering tremor that made my heart swell.

Along with other parts.

“I want to,” I whispered back as I pulled my mouth off and stroked him, the slickness making him grow harder (which seemed impossible, but he did). I meant it—this I knew how to do. Giving a guy oral pleasure meant having the root of him in my hands, between my lips, ensconced by my tongue, his hot demand in my control.

Plus – it was fun.

As my mouth descended down his shaft, I focused, at first, on what I knew felt good. As his back began to arch and his hands to sink more urgently in my hair, I experimented with my hands, seeing what might optimize what my mouth was doing.

The resulting groan told me I’d been right.