“Ma’am? I don’t think anyone’s ever called me ma’am. I don’t look thirty like some people.”
Laughing, I take my vengeance, digging fingers into her side to tickle her.
“Aah!” she shrieks. “I’m kidding! I’m kidding!” We laugh, tussling. Hugging. Kissing.
I have never known happiness like this. I have never laughed this way or felt this light. I’ve never devoured all this joy.
My towel gives up the fight, and, naked, I cover Iris. Our play shifts to touches that explore and inflame. I’ve got one hand under her top when she tries to slip hers down between us to wrap around me.
But before she can, I catch her fingers and drag them to my mouth. “I wasn’t kidding,” I say, kissing her knuckles, my voice steeling with determination. “I’m leading this time.”
She doesn’t respond right away. “And that means I don’t get to touch you?” I can hear a challenge in the question.
“Not there. Not yet.” Does she have any idea what she does to me? Does she know I was milliseconds away from beating her to the finish the last time? My lack of control was embarrassing. And it’s not happening again.
“Beau.” Her free hand finds my face in the darkness, and she traces my jaw with her thumb. I love the intimacy of it so much, I miss the dry tone of her voice. “I have no problem with you leading—cute dance metaphor, by the way, professor—but there’s just one thing you’re forgetting.”
Caution edges my words. “What’s that?”
“It takes two to tango.”
I chuckle at her pun, but then her hand glides down my neck to my chest where she drags her nails over one nipple. My breath goes jagged.
My God, this woman.
Her fingers trace over my pec and down my ribs, and I moan like an animal.
“You feel amazing,” she whispers, all humor gone. “I love touching you.”
My heart seizes. She sounds awed. Spellbound. She sounds like I feel.
“Iris—” I shift my hands to the hem of her top, and she lifts to help me peel it from her. Her arms lock around me as I bury my face in the sweet valley of her breasts, completely fucking gone for this girl.
I kiss and suckle one soft peak and then the other, my hands beneath Iris’s shoulder blades, feeling her arch and writhe under my mouth. When I feel her heart beating between my mouth and my hands, I want to howl.
Love me back.
It’s wrong. I know it’s wrong to want her to be all in with me. It’s not fair and it’s not kind. Because this is going to hurt so bad when she leaves. I’ve already said yes to a broken heart. I’ll even be grateful for it because I’ll get to keep the heart she breaks when I lose her.
But, God, I don’t want to hurt Iris. And at the same time, I don’t want to be in this love alone.
“Beau—Oh, God, Beau—”
The way she says my name makes me wonder if it’s too late. She’s so young. She has no experience guarding her heart. Guilt stirs in me until one galvanizing thought lands solid in my gut.
Do I really want someone else to be her first love?
I clamp down on a roar. Of protest. Of pain.
Hell, no.
This is my purpose in her life. To be her first love. To raise the bar so high, my Iris will never settle for anyone who doesn’t deserve her. My love will be the scaffold for her future happiness. And it will stay with her long after she’s gone.
My eyes sting, but I’m grateful for this new goal. To love her completely. The way she deserves. To show her how a worthy man should treat her.
All of it aligns with my desires.
Shifting beside her, my hands meet at her fly. I undo the button and unzip her shorts. Her shallow breathing stutters when I drag shorts and panties down her legs. I toss the garments aside and part her thighs.
When I sink between her knees, her startled breath tells me no one’s ever given this to her. I kick myself for not taking her this way the first time.
I’ll make up for it.
But when I dip down to taste her, my lips meet the back of her hands. Her body jolts at the touch.
“Beau?” Her uncertain voice kills me. No, it makes me want to kill every man who’s come before me.
“Iris.” I glide one hand down the outside of her left thigh, over her hip, and to her soft