It suddenly became imperative—the most important thing in the universe—that he, Aldo Moretta, give Gloria her first orgasm. And her last. And every single one in between.

He didn’t know what to say. A gauntlet had been thrown. One his competitive side couldn’t ignore. But the wounded, damaged side was terrified he couldn’t deliver. He would have to fight through this fear of failure, vanquish the beast, and give Gloria the satisfying sex life she deserved.

Oh, God. The pressure was going to kill him.

“That’s a whole lot of inner monologue you’ve got going on in that pretty head of yours,” Gloria teased.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Just relax. Okay. Now that I know you’re not physically repulsed by me, I can be patient,” Gloria told him.

He looked at her, shocked. “You seriously thought that?”

“Uh, hello.” She waved. “Damaged goods here. Don’t you know that everything is because of me? Textbook battered woman trauma. We believe everything everyone does is because of us.”

“You have a very healthy sense of humor, you know that?” he pointed out.

“That’s what my therapist tells me. You could talk to her, you know. I mean, we already have matching tattoos. It probably wouldn’t be any weirder if we saw the same therapist.”

“It took me this long to work up the guts to tell you. You want me to turn around and tell a complete stranger?”

Gloria held up her hand. “It’s only a suggestion. I’ll remind you I spilled my guts to a complete stranger, and it maybe kind of helped.”

Aldo dropped his forehead to the steering wheel. “Can we forget the last five minutes, please?” He knew how fucked up this was. Knew it was asinine of him to pursue her when he wasn’t sure he could give her everything she needed, be everything she needed. But, God, he didn’t want to miss his shot again. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place. The idea that, after all this time, he might disappoint Gloria was too much. But dammit, to be the first man to give her an orgasm? That was an honor he wasn’t letting any other man attempt.

“Already forgotten,” she promised.

They sat in awkward silence in the dark in front of Gloria’s apartment building. Each pretending everything was peachy keen.

“So you know you still get…hard,” Gloria ventured.

He gripped the wheel again, waiting to die from embarrassment. He was hard as fucking steel right now. He had no problems getting hard around Gloria…it was the rest of the process he wasn’t sure about.