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I feel hten "Oh"

"He loved her," he says quietly, and I’lish is perfect, but his accent lifts the words, tilts thehtly guttural He es to sound both polished and crude "He loved her in his strange way, andwhen my mother wanted to attend culinary school But he’s not a enerously; he’s selfish and didn’t want h he had many other women in those years They were at the house, or at his work He was very unfaithful, even while he was possessive and crazy for my mother He said he loved her like no other He expected her to understand that his appetites for other woainst her But of course she was never to sleep with another ine knowing so e Theirs feels like a bleached, sterile landscape corandmother becao home to Connecticut and tend to her until she died"

"How old were you when she left?"

He ss, saying, "Sixteen I lived with an university"

"Did your mother come back?"

I can feel hi was very hard for her, but once she was gone she kneas the right thing She opened a bakery, bought a home She wantedso far away ate at her It’s why I came to the States for law school Maybe she would have come back here if I asked her to, but I couldn’t, no?"

When I nod, he continues, "I went to Vanderbilt, which is not so very close to her, butback so he can look at me "I do intend someday to live there In the States She doesn’t have anyone else"

I nod, tucking my face into the crook of his neck and overcoht-headed

"Will you stay with me?" he asks quietly "Until you need to be in Boston?"

"Yes If it’s what you want, too"

He ansith a kiss that deepens, and the sensation of his hands in ue fills my head with an emotion that feels a little like desperation In a flash, I’s for hiaet over hiood to let the moment turn down at any corner His kisses slow and ta his sh for now I can feel the heavy weight of sleep behind hts My body is sore and feels perfectly used Within only seconds, I hear the slow, steady rhyth breath

Chapter TWELVE

I’M DIMLY AWARE of a fist pounding heavily on the door and I sit up, disoriented Besideaton boxers, and sprinting out of the roo to whoever is there, thick with sleep and so deep I’ve never heard him sound stern before He must have stepped out into the hallway and close the door behind him because his voice disappears after a heavy click I try to stay awake I try to wait for hi’s okay and tell him how much I enjoy his voice But I y thought I have before ain

I FEEL THE air slide under the sheets and sweep over my skin as Ansel clirass, like salt and spice I roll to his side, esand as soon as his cool skin touchesflares low in my stomach I want hi The clock beside the bed tellsunder my pal hand with his, stilling it so that I can’t slide it down his storadually recollect that he had to go to the door "Is everything okay?"

He exhales slowly, clearly trying to calm down, and I sense ht over his bed lets in a bright slice ofonly the very edge of the bed

I pressup over his The muscles of his quads are defined and firm beneath sasping slightly when he arches up intoonly boxers, but beneath h he’s se to normal

I can’t be this close to him--even half asleep--and not want to feel more I want the blankets tossed away and his boxers shoved down I want the heat of his hips pressing to ainst hi beats before I feel his body fully stir

But it does, and with another quiet groan he rolls to face h for him to pull his erection free

"J’ai envie de toi," he says into , before pushing inside with a tight sound of hunger "I alant you"