“Okay. I appreciate the honesty, Ivan, but you’re not alone either. I’ve made choices that I’m not proud of. Some of them deeply shameful. It happens to the best of us, but you still haven’t told me how I’m different and why I make you forget about practicing safe sex.”

“You make me forget my own name, Miss Hargreave, in case you didn’t know that already. You are special to me in a way that others are not, and you’ve managed it in a very short period of time, so just on that alone makes you unique among all women.”

She laughed again. Just a sweet, soft laugh that told me everything I needed to know and reaffirmed everything I already knew about her. I’d be keeping her.

“I’m teasing, Ivan. Sometimes you’re an easy mark and I can’t help myself. But back to the main point of all of this; you need to know that I’ve been careful, so please don’t waste any more time being concerned about knocking me up, okay?”

“Like Ethan and Brynne as soon as they started shagging?”

“Yeah, exactly like that.” She shook her head slowly back and forth. “I don’t know how Brynne has kept it together, to be honest. A real shocker for them both—having an unplanned pregnancy drop in their laps within weeks of meeting each other? No, thank you.”

“Oh, I think they’re both pretty thrilled about the whole thing, actually. I’ve never known E to be so grounded and dare I say… happy? He’ll be a great dad, and I’m sure Brynne will be an amazing mum. They’re going to do it all up splendidly.”

“I know. You’re right, of course, they’re so happy and I shouldn’t compare myself to Brynne. What I meant was that I’m not ready to be a parent yet. I’m still in school and have career goals to manage. Especially now that I’ve just landed the best conservation job of the century. For real. I think I’d need to be sedated if I turned up pregnant.”

“Why, because you’re so young? By the way, how old are you, Miss Hargreave? How badly am I robbing the cradle here? I need to know only so I can add to my ever-expanding list of sins.”

She laughed some more and thrust her hips up to make her point that she was still in charge no matter how hard I tried to master her. Again, I was captivated. “I’m twenty-four years young and I just don’t feel ready for that kind of surprise in my life right now.” She pushed on me until I got the hint she wanted me to roll onto my back. Which I did, helping her to settle into position against my side where I could hold on to her more comfortably, even if I had to pull my cock out of her to do it.

“So, how great is my sin if I’ve got a whole decade on you?” Ten years wasn’t too large of an age gap. Was it?