I push my jeans down enough to release my granite cock. Winter licks her lips on instinct and I grab her ass and lift her up, crushing her between me and the wall behind her. I waste no time sinking her down onto my cock, growling when her walls clench around me immediately.

“I’m going to miss you, Aleck,” she pants into my ear.

Invisible fingers clamp around my throat, squeezing, stealing my air at the thought of her moving on after me. After us.

“The memory of you will be like a dream I can’t wake up from…” she adds, tightening the vise.

I thrust into her harder, anger-fucking the thought from my reality. “Don’t think about that, baby,” I growl into her lips. “We’re here now. You’re mine and I’m yours.” I hold Winter up with one hand and splay my hand against the tiled wall behind us as I fuck the realization of her words away.

For a moment, I consider not letting us go. We’re happy, why not explore this after the wedding?

Then I remember I’m only the idea of Aleck Fox to Winter. I’m the playful, sexy, charming billionaire she fell for immediately. We’ll be happy at first. We’ll give each other tours of each other’s lives outside of this bubble, and we’ll like it. The newness of us will keep both of us charged for a while.

Then she’ll experience one of my nightmares, maybe two or three. And my relationship with Hayden will get in the way enough for her to start asking questions, just like my mom and dad did growing up. She’ll wonder if I don’t trust her enough to tell her, until needing to know who I truly am, needing to know Aleck Barlow, consumes her. I’ll tell her so she’ll finally stop asking, then feel the weight of knowing she sees him instead of me. Or I’ll deflect her questions until she resents me. She’ll become distant. Then my interest in fucking other women will return when I inevitably become bored with her cold shoulder.

She deserves the love she reads about in books and I, in the end, don’t believe love exists. I’m engulfed in her, sure. I’m craving her entirely, of course. But it won’t last. It’ll fade and she doesn’t deserve that.

I can’t let that happen to her. To us.

So this bubble is where we’ll exist—fucking in bathrooms, sneaking glances and silly text conversations at lunch with her friends. Late night ice cream dates and midnight confessions. Here, we’re fucking perfect. Here, we’re a we, and she giggles about that while I’m mysteriously confident and proud of it.

But here is where we’ll leave us.

Winter’s fingers dig into my shoulders like claws as her release finds her. I grunt, my cock jerking inside her as I find mine as well, nearly spitting into her neck from the intensity as I come inside her.

I take a moment to catch my breath. Keeping my dick inside her, I press Winter into the wall with my body and pull her face into my hands, peppering sloppy kisses all over her gorgeous features. Her cheeks, her eyelids, her nose, and chin. She giggles and I kiss her smiling lips, too.