, I could only think of one thing: I shouldn't have slept with him.

It had seemed like such an easy decision at the time, to sleep with Beau and then walk away. I hadn't thought much of it. Maybe that made me a bad person, but I'd imagined that was all college guys wanted anyway.

Of course Beau would be the one guy unlike any other. Of course he wanted to see me again, take me out.

No one had ever taken me out on a date before. Like a real one, not something set up to avoid being a third or fifth wheel. Why would I ever assume that Beau wanted to go on a for-real date?

I wanted to regret it—everything we did last night. But even though I could acknowledge that we shouldn't have done it, I couldn't imagine not doing it.

Last night would ruin me in the long run.

But that was okay. I was already ruined.

—

"Collins!"

The front door slammed, and I looked up from my painting technique textbook just in time to see Beau storm into my room, find me sitting on the bed, and sag against the wall.

"Beau?"

He raked an unsteady hand through his hair, and although he was clearly irritated, he tried to tame it as he shoved his other hand in his pocket before greeting me.

"Hey, baby girl." His voice strained to get out. Something was off about it, and a curious pause lingered. The delay wasn't long enough for me to get a response in, but just long enough to emphasize how his thoughts were churning. "How was your weekend?"

I stood and gave him an encouraging smile.

"It was good, I guess. Hung out with Nessa and Madie mostly. We went to The Grounds and kept Bren company while he was working." Pausing, I watched as Beau's lips thinned. He nodded along while listening. "I missed you, though," I added quietly.

That made his expression soften. "Missed you too, sweetheart. How'd you sleep last night?"

Restlessly. Uncomfortably. Bren and Madie's couch had nothing on my bed or Beau's bed. But it wasn't that big of a deal.

"I slept fine."

A pause. "You sleep in here, or did you claim my bed while I was gone?"

"I slept in—"

I barely caught myself before lying. It had come out so easily, and Beau was hanging on my last word—the one I couldn't get myself to say. His walls had shot back up quickly, and he straightened himself, standing rigidly. Part of me wanted to know why he hadn't gotten his ass over here to kiss me already, but his next words explained it.

"Not gonna tell me the truth, huh?" he asked dryly.

I stiffened. "What do you mean?"

Fuck, I knew what he meant.

"Goddamnit, Collins." Beau rested his head against the wall, looking down his nose at me. He looked pained, and guilt flooded me. "You were about to fucking lie to me."

I swallowed. "You talked to Bren."

It wasn't a question. Sure, it could have been Madie or Nessa, but they didn't know who Denver was or the significance of him showing up like that. It was Bren.

"I talked to Bren." He heaved a sigh. "I went to his place first. Why the hell aren't you still there?"

"Because I told him you were almost home—which you were. I wanted to be here when you got back."

He frowned slightly—not the reaction I was hoping for. Beau took a step back, peeking down the hallway. "Is Nessa here?"

I gritted my teeth, knowing he wouldn't like the answer. "No."

"She's at Grayson's, right?" He didn't wait for a response before continuing. "Because she knows it's not a good idea to hang around alone when there's a creepy asshole in town trailing you."

Retreating again, I sat back down on my bed. "I get that your first interaction with Denver wasn't good—"

"—that's an understatement."

"—but he isn't going to hurt me, Beau. He wanted to talk. I told him I didn't want to talk. That was it."

Beau didn't like that answer. It was meant to reassure him, but at the same time, it was a defense of Denver. And I could tell that he hated that.

"I still don't like that he's following you around like that. Maybe another punch to the face will convince him to leave you the fuck alone."

Worry threaded through me at Beau's threat. "I don't like it, either. But I don't think—"

"I also don't like that you didn't tell me." His eyes fell to mine, pinning me with a glare. "I hate that you were clearly going to hide this."

"I would have told you, Beau."

"Would you have?"

God, the way he saw right through me. I probably wouldn't have, and he knew it.

Bren's words from last night bounced around in my head, but I couldn't help the urge to shy away. To tell Beau not to worry about it. To deal with it on my own. I wanted Beau to stay that happy-go-lucky guy he was when I first met him. I didn't want to turn him into someone he wasn't just because I couldn't handle my shit.

"This isn't a part of my life that you need to be involved in, okay?"

"No!" Beau's hand flew up, punching the air a little. "Not okay, Collins. I want to be involved in every part of your life. I don't want to hear shit like this from Bren; I want to hear it from you."

"Goddamnit, Bren," I muttered beneath my breath, which awarded me a slight chuckle from Beau.

"That's kinda how I feel about you right now, sweetheart. Not gonna lie."

I rolled my eyes, glancing away with the tiniest smile. Even when he was mad at me, he made me feel better somehow.

"I'm your boyfriend, baby." Beau finally kicked off the wall and walked toward me, closing the distance between us. "I want to know every little part of your day. I want to know the good and the bad. For crying out loud, I want to know when someone is trying to hurt you."

"I told you—"

"Not just physically," he clarified.

Beau cupped my face, and that was when I melted.

Physically.

It was such an irony in this conversation what Beau was able to do to me when he touched me. When anything physical came into play between us, it had the ability to break me down and turn me inside out.

What was it about us that made touch so impossible to resist? That tore down barriers before we even had a chance to fight them.

"I'm sorry, Beau," I breathed when he lowered his head to mine, knocking my forehead as our eyes fluttered shut. "I'm sorry for not telling you."

"I was worried," he groaned. "I was so worried that something would happen to you when I wasn't around to help. Please, can I help you with this? I want to help you."

"Everything is fine, Beau." That was a lie, and we both knew it, so I pivoted the conversation. "How are you?"

He sighed before pulling away to kick off his shoes and throw his shirt over his head in a surprising move. I appreciated how his muscles shifted and moved as he wrestled with yanking his shirt off, and my fingers itched to touch him. I needed us to be touching again.

"To be honest, I had a crap weekend. My brother showed up, and shit's weird with him and my parents." He wrapped an arm around me, pulling me down onto the bed. "I was already in a crappy mood when Bren texted me, and now all I want is to hold you."

I sucked in, too surprised to even really say anything. Beau had only ever mentioned good things about his family, and he barely spoke about his brother. I circled my arms around him, drawing us closer together so that, at the very least, I could give him what he wanted. We faced each other, side by side on the bed.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I asked into the crook of his neck. "The stuff with your brother and your parents?"

He ran a hand down my back before slipping it beneath my shirt. "My parents cut him off a while ago, so he asks me for money. It's not really a big deal. It's just annoying."

His tone made it easy to tell that he didn't really want to talk about it and that, yeah, it probably was more of a big deal than he wanted to let on. But I didn't press it much further. Especially because Beau had unsnapped my bra while we were talking, and now both my shirt and bra were being tossed to the floor. Lips pressed against the side of my neck. His hand cupped one of my breasts with an appreciative squeeze. And talking....Well, I didn't know how to do it right now.

"Fuck, I missed you," he murmured, trailing lower on my body with his kisses. "Tell me if you want me to stop. Otherwise, I think I need to reacquaint myself with every inch of you."

"It was only two nights, Beau," I said with a breathless laugh.

"Are you telling me to stop?"

"Definitely not."

"Then quit it with the technicalities, will ya?"

Gladly. If I were honest with myself, two nights felt long to me, too.

Beau's mouth didn't waste any time finding my breasts, and I gasped as his tongue toyed with a nipple, one after the other. I moaned softly, closing my eyes as he worked silently to taste every inch of me, seeming to not want or be able to talk, either.

By the time he pushed my sweatpants off and nestled his head between my legs, I was all but panting. If he pulled away right now, I was confident I would scream. Because the way I needed Beau right now was beyond words. A new level of desperation.

"Leg over my shoulder," he demanded, and I obeyed, hooking my knee around his shoulder so he could bury his face in my thighs. "Such a good girl in bed for me, Collins." His palm rubbed my ass, and then his fingers dug in almost painfully. "Now, only if you listened to me out of it."

He smacked the underside of my ass at the exact moment he took my clit into his mouth, and my entire body arched in response. I knew he was upset with me, but all I could think about was the exquisite mixture of pain and pleasure and how it made me want to hand myself over to Beau completely, so he could do it again and again and again.

But Beau decided to torture me in a different way this time. While his tongue lapped at my clit, his hand came gently back to my ass, dragging his fingertips down its rim lightly enough to cause goosebumps.

I moaned his name, lost in all of the different sensations. When I looked at him, I found dark eyes watching me carefully, his mouth working between my legs. A finger swiped deeper between my cheeks, and I sucked in, shocked. And then I groaned loudly as the combination of his tongue and his fingers took me to someplace totally new and earth-shattering.

"Needed this yesterday morning," he mumbled with a smirk. "Ain't nothing like the taste of your pussy to start off the day."

"Oh my God, Beau." I tangled my fingers in his hair needily. "Don't stop."

Beau chuckled but returned to his magical work, building up an intense storm inside me.

He was the only one I wanted by my side. Through any storm. All I needed was Beau.

And he proved it when he held onto me tightly as I came, holding me through my orgasm like he could contain it. Bottle it up for a rainy day. He absorbed my shakes and shivers, and then he came up to rest beside me again, licking his lips with the sexiest knowing expression. Beau knew what he did to me, and he fucking loved it. Reveled in it.

But as long as he didn't stop doing it, I didn't care. He deserved that bit of cockiness because even though he wasn't touching me, I still felt like I was spiraling.

I hooked my leg around his waist, wanting to urge him closer. I wasn't done with this feeling. The one of safety and security and everything Beau Martin.

"Yeah?" Beau questioned, seeming to understand what I wanted.

A brow raised, his eyes lighting up. I didn't realize until now just how much he needed me, too. His body was tense and rigid and tight. He'd been holding everything in, taming the fire until I said that little word.

Yes.

"You want it?" he clarified.

"Yes. Please," I begged. "I need—I need—"

"Shh," he said, brushing wet lips across mine. "It's okay. I know what you need."

Beau reached between us and pushed down his sweatpants, kicking them off and onto the floor. "Condom?" he asked.

I shook my head. I didn't want anything to separate us. Or, God forbid, to take more time.

"Baby girl wants to be filled up, huh?" he muttered, keeping his voice low as he palmed my thigh and hoisted it up higher so he could bring us together. "I fucking want that, too."

That was the last thing Beau said before he thrust into me, his erection stretching me so fully that I forgot to breathe until Beau kissed life back into me. The taste of myself on his lips made the kiss erotic, nothing sweet or tender about it. It was raw and needy like he wanted to remind me of what we'd just done. As if I could ever forget.

He rocked against me slowly at first, a savoring to his movements. I followed his lead, wrapping my arms around his neck and pulling him close until absolutely nothing was left between us.

Beau was holding back, though. I could feel it in his tight muscles and restrained thrusts. But at the same time, he seemed content in simply feeling.

It wasn't the sex he wanted; it was me. And that revelation nearly brought tears to my eyes. Because it was exactly how I felt, too. I wasn't even chasing a high. I couldn't care less about the rise, the climax, the fall. Did Beau know that? When he said he knew what I needed, did he know that all I'd needed was him?

His lips found new bits of my skin to kiss. My neck, my ear, that dip near my collarbone. And oh, God, these little kisses shouldn't affect me like this, but I was left gasping from them.

"Collins, baby," he whispered, and it was said so reverently that I got lost in it for a moment.

I shifted my hips, needing to feel more of him. Or maybe it was that I wanted him to feel more of me. I wasn't sure exactly what it was, but I knew I needed more. And Beau followed along, thrusting harder and swearing between gritted teeth when I tested out how it might feel to clench around him.

"If you keep doing that, I'm going to come before I get you off again," he groaned.

"That's okay," I said, wanting to make him lose it and not caring about anything else.

Beau grunted, not happy with my response. "No it fucking isn't."

I couldn't help but laugh, which only made Beau swear again as my body tightened everywhere. Around him. Against him. But looking into his eyes, I saw them soften.

"I wish you could always trust me like this, Collins," he said with staggered breathing. "I wish you could let go."

"I'm trying, Beau," I whispered. "I'm trying."

And then somehow I did let go, though not in the way he'd meant. I pulsed around him, making Beau groan and tighten his grip on my hips before he took me with fast pumps of his own. He stiffened when he came, his release hot as he buried himself as deep as possible. Deep, deep, deep. Even as he began to relax, Beau stayed there, that deep. And even as I relaxed, I stayed there, too.

We were still working everything else out, but all I wanted was him. And all he wanted was me. And there was something about that, wasn't there? Something so simple but so good.

I had a feeling that it was something like how love worked. And I wanted to tell him.

Maybe not today. But maybe soon.

✨

I'm just going to throw it out there that i know this book has a lot of smut (for me, anyway).

part of that is because of how I dragged out their one night stand to cross over so many chapters, so it seems like a lot. But still. I considered cutting out the spicy part in this chapter because I don't want it to get repetitive, but decided to keep it for a few different reasons. hope I made the right choice.

as always, thanks for reading!

xoxo Amelie