That’s true, but there’s so much more to it. The most blissful experience is being not just buried inside her body but welcomed into her heart. She lifts her head, meeting me for a kiss and bearing down extra tight on my hard shaft.

We’re together, two hearts beating as one and two souls fully together.

My hips rise and fall, thrusting deep with each clench of my muscles, but I go slowly, watching for any sign that it’s too much for her. Not just emotionally, but physically. Her body is recovered, but I can’t help but be gentle with her. Zoey isn’t having it that way, though. She pushes her hips against the bed, bucking her hips into mine. “Deeper . . . harder.”

I can’t deny her, and the power of our joining makes her necklace shake with each thrust. The sight is one that I will always hold dear, a memory of the first time I took my Zoey with no walls, no defenses, just pure and open eyes and hearts and passion we cannot contain.

The world blurs, sweat dripping down my forehead, but I blink it away, unwilling to not see her clearly in this moment. Zoey reaches up with one hand to cup my cheek.

“I love you,” Zoey gasps out in between strokes of my cock. “Forever.”

“Love you too!” I barely have time to grit the words out before my cock swells and I’m lost to blackness. I throw my head back, my climax coursing through me. I feel myself explode deep into Zoey’s tight body, and then her own orgasm comes right behind mine, her walls pulsing around me.

We stay that way, her in my arms and me in her body as we come down, our lips meeting in a soft kiss. Sensing she’s falling prey to her desire to sleep after sex, I roll, keeping her impaled on my softening cock.

“Whoo!” she yells with a laugh, but she settles back over me, resting on her knees and sitting up.

Her hair is wild, all the tamed curls released. Her makeup is smeared, the smoky eyes now looking more like smudges. And she’s nude, save for the wooden pendent above her breasts which sit proudly on her chest.

With my hands on her hips, I tell her, “You are so gorgeous.”

She flinches, a tell so tiny she probably doesn’t even know she did it. And my heart breaks for her.

“You really are. Gorgeous.” I say it vehemently this time, with all the love, respect, and care I feel for her entwined in the too-important word. “Inside and out.”

She’s silent for a moment, thinking as she traces her hand over my chest aimlessly. Finally, she quietly says, “Do me a favor? Keep telling me. Take away all the bad feeling of that word and replace it with your love?”