We barely make it through his apartment door before his mouth is on mine and all the careful restraint from the car ride—the two-hour drive where his confession hangs between us like something too fragile to touch—detonates into hunger that feels nothing like the tentative exploration of my first time.
This is claiming and surrendering simultaneously, and I understand with devastating clarity that being loved by someone who knows exactly what they want is completely different from being wanted by someone still figuring out if they should.
"Violet." My name sounds wrecked in his voice, and his hands are already beneath my shirt before the door fully closes. "I need you."
"Then take me." The words come out breathless, demanding. "Stop being gentle."
He backs me against the wall before we've even turned on the lights, and his mouth finds my throat while his hands work my shirt over my head. I'm grabbing at his belt with desperate coordination.
"You're so fucking beautiful." His teeth scrape against my collarbone, and I arch into him. "I've been thinking about this all day. Watching you on that boat. Wanting to strip you bare and make you come until you forget your own name."
The explicit language makes heat pool between my thighs, and I fumble with his belt buckle until it gives way.
"Then do it." I pull his shirt off, my hands mapping muscles I memorized last week. "Stop talking about it and just—"
He lifts me before I finish the sentence, and I wrap my legs around his waist on pure instinct. The hard length of him presses against my core through too many layers of clothing, and I grind against him shamelessly.
"Bedroom." His voice is rough, commanding.
"We're not making it to the bedroom." I bite his earlobe, and he groans. "You know we're not."
"Fuck." He's moving anyway, carrying me through his apartment with a purpose that makes my stomach flip. "You're going to destroy me."
"Good." I kiss him harder, tasting salt air and wine and the desperation we've been banking all day. "That makes us even."
We make it maybe ten feet before he presses me against the dresser, his hand working my jeans open with practiced efficiency. Then his fingers are sliding between my thighs, finding me soaked and ready, and I make a sound that's half whimper, half demand.
"Already so wet for me." He circles my clit with devastating precision, and my hips buck against his hand. "Tell me what you want."
"You." The word comes out strangled. "Inside me. Now."
"Not yet." His fingers push inside, and I cry out. "You're going to come on my hand first. Let me watch you fall apart."
He works me with the kind of focused intensity that proves he's been thinking about this all day—thinking about me, about how to make me lose control. When he adds a second finger and curls them exactly right, my orgasm crashes through me with unexpected force.
"Zachary." His name is prayer and possession, and I'm shaking in his arms while he holds me through it.
"That's one." His mouth finds mine, swallowing my whimpers. "You're giving me at least two more before we're done."
Before I can respond, he's lowering me to the floor—to the actual floor—and I barely register the carpet beneath my back before he's stripping my jeans off completely. His mouth follows the path his hands just traced, kissing down my stomach, and when his tongue finds my clit I nearly come apart again immediately.
"Too sensitive." I try to close my thighs, but his hands hold them open.
"You can take it." His voice carries absolute certainty. "Be good for me, Violet."
The command makes something primal unfurl in my chest, and I force myself to stay still while he devours me with the kind of thorough attention that proves the careful gentleman who took my virginity last week was only one version of who he can be.
This version is demanding and explicit and says things against my skin that make me feel powerful and possessed in equal measure.
"That's it." His fingers join his mouth, and I'm spiraling toward another orgasm I didn't know my body could handle. "Come for me again. Show me how much you need this."
I shatter with his name on my lips, and this time he doesn't wait for me to recover. Just retrieves a condom from somewhere, rolls it on with shaking hands, and then he's pushing inside me with one smooth thrust that steals my breath.
"Jesus Christ." His forehead presses against mine, and he's trembling with the effort of staying still. "You feel perfect. So tight and perfect."
"Move." I dig my nails into his shoulders. "Please move."
He does, setting a rhythm that's nothing like the careful gentleness of last week. This is raw and desperate and exactly what I need—him losing control, him taking what he wants while giving me everything I didn't know to ask for.
"Harder." I meet his thrusts, chasing something just out of reach. "I can take it."
"I know you can." His hand finds my throat—not squeezing, just holding, claiming. "You can take everything I give you, can't you?"
"Yes." The admission scrapes out honest and desperate. "Give me everything."
We finally make it to the bed, but only after I've already come apart twice and he's proven with devastating efficiency that he knows exactly how to unmake me.
The sheets smell like him and sweat and completion, and I'm boneless and trembling when he finally lets himself go—burying himself deep with a groan that sounds like my name and surrender combined.
Afterward, we're tangled together in sheets that smell like us, and I realize with cold terror that I'm in love with him too.
The words sit in my throat unspoken, too dangerous to release into the air between us.
Because he already said it first. Already made himself vulnerable in ways I'm not sure I'm brave enough to match.
And because when university starts in two weeks and this ends, being in love with him is going to destroy me.
"What are you thinking?" His voice is rough, satisfied, and his hand traces patterns on my spine.
"That I'm terrified." The admission comes easier than it should. "Of how much I want this. Want you."
"Good." He pulls me closer, and I feel his smile against my hair. "That means it matters."
I close my eyes and let myself exist in this moment—sated and safe and loved.
Even though we're standing on a countdown timer I can't stop.
Even though I know exactly how this ends.