I couldn’t reply.

I cried out sharply then fell silent, the orgasm rolling over me, stealing my ability to do anything but feel Toby moving inside.

He dropped the vibrator, shifted his hands to my hips and held me steady, slamming into overdrive.

“Yes, Toby,” I whispered my encouragement.

He slid both hands up, cupping my breasts, the pads of his fingers digging in, shoving his face in my neck, the sounds of our flesh connecting through the power of his thrusts splintering through the room.

“Yeah,” I breathed, floating down, no longer about what I was feeling, what we were doing, now just about him.

I tightened my pussy around him.

“Fuck, Adeline,” he groaned, baring his teeth and scoring the length of my neck.

I put both my hands to the wall and reared into his drives.

“Fuck,” he barked, then came, his teeth sinking into the flesh where my shoulder met my neck.

Nice.

Very nice.

His thrusts tapered to pulses then to glides and finally he slid in.

Once in, his lips and beard moved on my neck, and after he found the vibrator, turned it off and dropped it back to the bed, his hands moved everywhere—breasts, chest, belly, ribs, sides, hips, the curls between my legs.

And that was beyond nice.

“How’m I supposed to make it about you when you make it about me?” he grumbled, low and gruff, in my ear.

This made me exceedingly happy for a couple of reasons.

“You’re just gonna have to deal,” I replied.

One of his hands swept up to my jaw.

He turned my head and kissed me.

When he was done, I felt his words against my lips when he said, “Clean up and sleep. Yeah?”

I nodded my head.

But he didn’t move away.

“You on birth control?”

He wanted to end it with the condoms.

Although it was messier for me the other way around, I wasn’t hip on any barrier between Toby and me, so I wanted that too.

But regrettably, I had to shake my head.

“I have a prescription,” I told him. “I just didn’t have the copay money to fill it.”

Or any reason to do it since sex with anyone but Toby (and I couldn’t have Toby) was the last thing on my mind.

“I’m payin’ for that too.”

“To—”

“Shut it.”

Then he didn’t exactly shut it for me, but he stopped me from speaking by kissing me again.

After that, he shifted away but touched his mouth (and beard) to the small of my back, a move that was so sweet, it made my molars hurt, before he got out of bed.

I located then put the vibrator on my nightstand.

Earlier, I’d introduced Tobe to my version of winter-warm bedwear, something he took off me about five seconds after I appeared in it. But right then, I reached for it where it was draping off the edge of the bed and tugged the cream, low V-neck nightie with the bell-ish long sleeves and slight slant hemline that went mid-thigh on my right, low hip on my left.

I found my panties and pulled those on too.

I did this ending it cross-legged and thinking.

I had to give him the copay.

I had to make that compromise.

He got more out of it than me, and not only the fact he didn’t have to buy condoms. I wasn’t a guy, so I didn’t know how much sensation wearing a condom took away. I just knew no guy who’d said, “Great! I get to roll on a rubber before doing you!”

This wasn’t, I told myself, about swallowing my pride. Taking a handout.

This was giving Toby something he wanted that I would not spend money on if I didn’t have a hot guy who wanted to fuck me.

So I had to chill.

I stopped thinking about this when the bathroom light was extinguished, and he came out naked.

I watched him go to his bag (precisely I watched his chest then his ass as he went to his bag), reach in and shake out a pair of flannel pajama bottoms.

He tugged them on and then strolled to me.

“What’s on your mind?” he asked when he spotted me sitting cross-legged in bed and not lying in it.

“How much sensation does wearing a condom take away?” I asked.

He stopped beside the bed. “You don’t want me to quit usin’ ’em?”

“That wasn’t what I said.”

He nodded once.

“Right. They suck. Most women I’ve been with, puttin’ them on, they take me out of the moment. You, I’m so in the moment, it doesn’t matter, nothing will take me out of it. They still suck.”

That was sweet.

But . . .

“Outside of taking you out of the moment . . .” I prompted.

“You ever had your fingers inside you?”

“Hmm . . .”

His eyes flared, and he muttered, “You’ve had your fingers inside you.”

He entered the bed on hands, then knees, and watching him do that, I wondered if he had more condoms right then.

When he got to me, he pushed up and sat on his ankles with his thighs splayed.

And I again hoped he had more condoms.

“You get really wet,” he said, taking my attention back to our conversation. “And there’s a lot of good to feel inside you. But just sayin’, I’m gloved, I not only can’t feel you like I should, that bein’ I mostly feel tight and warmth and friction, not a lot more, including your wet, you can’t feel me.”

“I’ve never noticed the difference.”

His eyes shut down.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“What?” he asked back.

“You just shut down.”

My open, out-there Toby, he didn’t make me work for it.

“I don’t wanna ask if you’ve had with another guy, especially the one you picked to marry, what you got with me,” he explained.

Two could be out there.

“I’ve never, not once, had with another guy what I have with you.”

His expression opened right up, he reached, caught me at the back of my neck and pulled me up to his mouth so he could kiss me.

He kept his hand at my neck to settle me back down and murmured, “You’ll feel the difference too. But if it’s too soon for you, we’ll wait.”

“I was just curious, Talon. Seriously.”

“All right.”

“I’ll get the prescription filled tomorrow at lunch.”

“Okay, baby.”

I understood shutting down when I had to ask, “Do you need to be, um . . . tested? Because I’ve had my annual exam since getting quit of Perry so I’m good. But . . .”

“Right, we’re here,” he muttered.

Oh shit.

Again, he didn’t make me work for it.

“I was into you the second I laid eyes on you,” he announced.

I felt my own eyes get big.

“I’ve always been careful with protection,” he carried on. “More like obsessive.”

“Well, that’s good,” I murmured.

“That’s not all.”

“All right,” I said.

“Never went that long without pussy, but didn’t want it, it wasn’t yours,” he continued. “So I haven’t been checked, but I also haven’t fucked anyone since I met you.”