“Tell me anything, Winter.”

“I lied about Dylan.” The silence rings in my ears, the anticipation of his response aching in my chest. “I didn’t sleep with him.”

The sound of Aleck expelling a breath like he had been holding it in for a week makes me smile and I don’t know why, but the thought that Aleck knows the truth makes me feel safer than the lie did.

“You’re not seeing him?” he asks. “You two aren’t—”

“No. The last time I spoke with him was when I told him I had feelings for you.”

“So, you didn’t fuck him?”

I don’t know why, but I laugh, feeling like the answer should be obvious by now.

“No. I’m sorry I hurt you. I only said it to get you to leave because I knew I would screw you in my kitchen if you stayed.” I chuckle at my confession.

“Thank fuck,” he breathes. “You’re still mine,” he says so quietly I almost don’t hear it.

The silence that follows is palpable.

Thinking of that day, of his lips on my neck, his body pressed against mine, and his hard veiny arms caging me in resonates between my legs, making me clench my walls tightly around nothing.

Then he speaks, intensifying the ache in my core. “I hated the thought of anyone’s hands on you but mine.”

His hands on my body… Clench.

“You should have just let me stay and screwed me in your kitchen,” he says, luring me into his warm, seductive web.

Jane Austen’s ghost. I need a release. The kind only Aleck knows how to give.

I giggle, nervously. “That wouldn’t have ended well.”

“Really?” His tone deepens, zeroing in on the ache between my legs like a sniper. “I think it would have ended beautifully. And it would have felt a lot better, too.”

“Shit,” I breathe. “I miss how good you make me feel,” I say, knowing it’s a mistake the second the words leave my lips.

“I miss making you feel good. Do you remember how well our bodies responded to each other, Winter?” His voice lulls me into a daze of comfort, lust, and Aleck. “I could come over… Make you feel good over and over. You want me to fuck you six ways to Sunday before the sun comes up? I will. And if you want me to leave afterward, I’ll do that too. But for the record, I’d want to stay. I’d want to stay and do it again in the morning.”

My hand immediately slides over my throbbing sex, putting pressure on it to stop the pulsing ache.

“I know exactly how you like it, Winter. Hard and fast at first… You like it when I slam into you like it would kill me not to. But when you come, you like it when I fuck you slow so you feel every long stroke of my cock drag over your G-spot. I could come over and fuck you like that…”