I opened for him, softening with every touch, releasing every bit of tension that had weaved itself into my bones since the night he walked away from me. And as if he could sense that was where my head had gone, he intertwined his hands with mine, holding them beside my head as he pressed his chest hard against my own.

“This was why I left last week,” he whispered into the space between us, his forehead to mine, our breaths labored between. “I walked away from you even when everything in my body begged me to stay. Because when I took you for the first time, I didn’t want it to be under the guise of any of this between us being fake.”

He squeezed my hands in his own, kissing my chin until I tipped it up and allowed him access to my neck.

“This isn’t fake,” he swore against my skin, kissing and nipping it along the way. “Nothing between us has ever been fake.”

His mouth was on mine in the next breath, and then I was being carried through my apartment — mostly blindly as I hadn’t had time to even turn a light on. The only one was from above my stove, and it just barely lit up the space, darkness battling with the light in every corner.

Clay was careful as he lowered me onto the bed, and I sat at the edge of it as he backed away from me, taking his heat with him.

With his eyes watching me, he reached for the back of his hoodie and tore it over his head, flinging it to the side before he did the same with the t-shirt underneath. I reached out, my fingertips just barely getting a taste of his abdomen before he peeled them away and sat them at my sides again.

“Strip for me.”

His words were hot, confident, and sealed with intention as he stepped even farther away and kicked off his sneakers before carefully ridding himself of his sweatpants.

He was a masterpiece there in nothing but his black boxer briefs, briefs that were strained as they held back his thickening erection. Clay’s eyes heated more when I grabbed the wrist of my hoodie, tugging it off one arm and then the other before I peeled it overhead.

My nipples were peaked under my tank top, the thin fabric easily disposed of in the next second. I snapped my gaze to meet his when my chest was bare, and his eyes dropped to take me in, a low groan rolling from his throat at the sight.