The conversation with her parents tonight had been emotional and intense, but also freeing. She’d understood, for the first time ever, that there was no use changing herself for them. Either they were going to figure out how to love her or they weren’t. She couldn’t make them. And in the meantime, she had this big, broad-shouldered, mean-faced, sweet-hearted man who wanted to leave with her. Would go anywhere with her, she knew. This man who was clutching at every part of her he could, who was trying to get his bleary eyes to focus as he gasped for air.

Mary reared up and spread her legs over his hips, teasing him with her wetness. They’d decided to forego condoms just last week, and she couldn’t have been more grateful for the decision than she was at that very moment. When she sat herself down, took him in one inch at a time, the look on his face was worth it. It was worth every moment, every misunderstanding, every bit of doubt she’d had to wade through. Because here she was, right now, fully seated on a man who, she just knew, had decided she was everything he’d ever wanted.

She started to ride him, but he grunted and she fell forward, her palm over his lips and her mouth at his ear. “Quiet,” she demanded. She reveled in the role reversal. Usually she was the one screaming her head off during sex.

They rolled halfway, a tangle of limbs, no clear position, and the bed started to squeak. John stood, arms banded around her, keeping her linked to him, and cast around for a quiet place to keep this party going. Mary looked too. There was nothing. Not even a dresser. Just a director’s chair under the window that was not going to hold them.

“Bed,” she demanded. “We’ll be quiet.”

He fell back onto the bed, and she ground herself against him, attempting to fuse them. Her fingers and hands everywhere and the same with his. They twisted onto their sides, and then him on top. They got a little too vigorous, the bed squeaked and they brought it back to a frantic, grasping glide against one another. Somehow the lack of a thrusting plunge was even hotter than if they’d been able to have sex the way their bodies were screaming at them to do. Mary felt that every inch of her was consumed with him. His quiet, restrained breath, his teeth clamping onto her shoulder, his heavy fingers in her hair, clasping her hip.

She tightened her legs over his back and held him in place, working herself against him barely a half inch at a time, the pressure unbelievable, his flavor in her mouth, his whispered name on her lips as she catapulted herself over the edge.