I return to moving on top of him, his hand still guiding me. The discomfort is moving to the back of my mind, leaving only pleasure.

“I won’t be able to hold off for long,” he says through gritted teeth as he lets go of my hand to cup one of my breasts, thumb flicking the bud.

His words give me even more confidence, so much that I start riding him faster, trying to take hints from the sounds he makes or the expressions he gives me to know what he prefers.

Eventually, his fingers tighten on my skin, and he closes his eyes as he orgasms, soft groans leaving his mouth. I continue moving until I feel him soften inside. Then, I slowly climb off and lay next to him, languid.

“Jesus, Wren,” Aaron croaks, eyes still closed.

I laugh as I put a hand on his chest. Somehow, that simple movement feels almost too intimate, which is crazy considering what we just did.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

He turns to me, face so serious it scares me for an instant. “I’m the one who should thank you.” There isn’t a trace of a smile on his lips.

I bite my lip.

This is much more than just physical pleasure. Preventing my feelings from growing will be near impossible, being this close to him, feeling him like this.

But now that I’ve tasted this, I know I could never back down, not even if I wanted to.

Chapter 22

CHAPTER 22

Aaron

“Hey, what’s up with you?”

I lift my head to find Finn standing in front of me, his fists on his hips. A black wool hat covers his buzz cut, the rest of his face bitten red by the cold.

“Huh?”

With a dip of his head, he says, “You’ve been looking at that trap for the past five minutes.”

“Oh.” He’s right. I haven’t even installed it properly.

Since Christmas season has come and gone, I’ve spent most of my time inside, working on accounting bullshit. For a week, I’ve only been looking at numbers after numbers. I’ve never been a fan of this type of work, so yesterday, I went on a walk, hoping it would clear my mind, and in some part of the woods, I found some of our trees had had their bark ruined with scratches and holes, despite the plastic protectors we put on last October. Exactly what it might look like if we had a squirrel problem. It might not seem like a big deal, but when people pay a nice amount for our products, we like to give them trees that look perfect.