“I’ve been practicing.” He pulled off her sweater and her bra and nuzzled her boobs, but earned no reciprocation.

“I think condoms are overrated.”

He did an irony-scan of her face. “Unless you’re on the pill or whatever, I don’t see how I could . . . you know.” He pulled off his jeans and his cock poked out of his boxers. “I’m so addicted to you. I need to have you, every day and night . . .” He laughed. “Four, five times a day if I could. I want to tie you to my bed, never let you leave, and come all over your gorgeous face till you beg me to stop.”

He lashed his tongue inside her mouth, bracing her face tight in his hands, until she felt a beautiful kind of suffocation, and weakened. They remained new to the game; each kiss still had the power to amaze. They gave each other bedroom eyes—dark-rimmed, shadow eyes that looked relaxed and ravenous at the same time. He locked his hands around her buttocks and rubbed himself against her so her jeans rode down her thighs, releasing soft, taut flesh. He helped himself to her panties, pulling them down her legs, pushing two fingers inside her slickness, planting kisses on her bush.

“Arik, being with you is like the only beautiful thing there is . . . in all of this darkness.”

“You know, Rose, you’re real different. There’s something so mysterious about you that’s just so . . . fucking addicting.”

She wanted to correct him—addictive—but held her tongue. Some of his beauty faded.

He sat up and peeled off his clothes. The hickey she’d left on his collarbone from their last time came level with her eyes. She reached to feel if it was bumpy or smooth—it was smooth. She wished she could be marked like that but every bite he gave her vanished within seconds into her sand-colored flesh. He probably had blunt teeth.

Suddenly he disappeared and returned with a metallic square in his hand. His boner hadn’t waned.

“Arik, I don’t want us to use them.”

“What do you mean?” He ripped open the foil packet and exposed the rubber disc. “I’m not letting all my practice go to waste.”

“I don’t like the way they smell.”

“Well, fuck . . . Maybe you should’ve said something before I wasted all my money on, like, a box of fifty . . . I mean, how am I going to come inside of you?”

Rosemary said nothing. She massaged the small of his back and licked his neck, culminating at the depression just behind his left earlobe, a spot that always drove him to the edge. He whimpered, and dropped the half-opened rubber.

“Rose . . . you scare me.”

She raised her hips so that her crotch met his, then opened her thighs so he could enter her. With one leg hooked over his butt, she reeled him down on top of her.