Instead, when I feel myself detonate into a million pieces, I open my mouth and do what I was told to do.

“NATE!” My voice breaks at the end, and I sob as I come, and come, and come. “Nate, Nate, Naaate,” I continue, unable to even think about saying anything but his name.

Just when the intensity almost becomes too much, I feel his rhythm falter before he gives one final thrust forward. His fingers dig into the tender flesh at my sides, but all that is forgotten when I feel him pulse inside me as the heat of his come enters my body.

My vision clears to a hazy fog when he falls and covers me with his weight. The feeling welcome and wanted. I look up and search his face, unsure what to say after that, but words aren’t needed, not when our bodies said everything for us. He adjusts his weight until he’s leaning on one elbow and turns my head to look at him with a gentle touch of his hand cupping my face.

“Ember,” he whispers, ghosting a kiss over my lips. “My Ember. I’m never letting go, baby. Not now. Not ever. And pretty soon, your head is going to catch up with your heart and you’re going to understand that. I meant it; I want all of you. I’m going to make it my mission to show you, prove to you, that I’m worthy of getting that gift from you again.” I open my mouth, not even sure what I’m going to say, but he just bends and gives me a slow, wet, and beautiful kiss.

A long while later, after he had switched us so that his back was to the bed and I was in his arms, I rested my head against his chest as he breathed slow and deep. Even in his sleep, he held me tightly, and at that moment, I knew he didn’t have anything to prove to me because my head had already caught up with my heart.

He’s had it since I was seventeen years old. Even when I thought it would never heal when he turned me away a year later, he still held it. He will always have all of me.

Always.

MONDAY

“I WISH YOU DIDN’T HAVE to go,” I whisper against his chest, my body still coming down from the fourth climax he’s given me. We haven’t been able to get enough of each other since the first time he took me a week ago.

His arms tighten around me, and I feel him press his lips against the top of my head. He had just shown up a few hours earlier, right as I had been making my way out to the studio, and he took me roughly against the front door the first time until I was screaming out one hell of a hello.

The second time was when my back was on the couch; he held my legs apart as he kneeled on the floor between them.

The third was against my own hand as I swallowed every drop of him as he pulsed in my mouth.

And the last, we had finally made it to where we are now, a tangle of sweaty limbs in my bed.

“I wish I didn’t have to go,” he agrees. “I thought it would be easier to spend less time at Dirty now that we have Dent on as a manager, but things have just been crazy. I shouldn’t complain, but fuck, I would rather be here with you than doing a bunch of paperwork.”

“We’ve had plenty of time together, Nate.” We haven’t, but I don’t want to make him feel bad when I know he’s stressed about finding a balance between being the owner of a very popular club and my boyfriend.

Boyfriend? Is that what he is? I mean he’s said that he was mine and I was his, but he’s never spoken the words.

“Slipping into your bed in the middle of the night does not equal plenty of time. I haven’t even taken you on a date, Em.”

I push up on the hand that had been resting against his chest and look down at him. “Did I complain?”

I feel the rumbles of his silent laughter against the palm. “It’s been a week since I promised I would prove to you that I deserved the gift of you. Two weeks since we decided to be together, and so far, the only thing I’ve been able to do is have dinner at the club between the little time I had to take a break. You are worth more than a rushed dinner, Ember. It’s frustrating the hell out of me.”