I tilt my head in confusion. “The one?”

“The one who went to one of your art school’s showcases and freaked out about you right in the middle of it, right?”

“How did you know about that?”

“Uh, I probably shouldn’t admit this at the risk of sounding pathetic, but I was there.”

I can feel the shock on my face. He was there? I knew that the majority of our group had been there, but I didn’t remember seeing him. Then again, I had been about as close to freaking out as it got when the Annabelle Kingston, the owner of the largest gallery in Atlanta, had started dancing and screaming in front of one of my pieces. She had taken me under her wing before I even finished school, each of my paintings turning in a higher and higher profit. Here I am, two years later, debt free, in my own home, and my own show proving that I am—in fact—a successful artist.

Finally able to find my words, I open my mouth. “How come I didn’t see you?”

He wipes his mouth before dropping his napkin over his plate and leaning back. “I didn’t want you to see me.”

“I see.” The hurt I feel from his answer is not something I’m proud of.

“Stop whatever you’re thinking, Ember. I went because I wanted to support you, but I knew things were still weird between us and I didn’t want you to look back on that show and remember me making it awkward for you. I went and celebrated for you in the shadows.”

“I wish you would have been at my side.” I think out loud.

“Yeah, I wish I would have been too, but the time wasn’t right.”

“You’re coming next weekend, though?”

He stands and offers me his hand. Once I’m upright, he bends to look into my eyes. “I’ll be by your side every second. I’m so damn proud of you, and I want everyone to know that I’m the man in your life.” I shiver—something he doesn’t miss. “Clean up in here first or dessert?”

“Dessert. You could burn the kitchen down for all I care, just as long as I get dessert now.”

He bends and with a squeal, I’m in his arms as he walks to my bedroom.

“I WANT YOUR COME IN my mouth,” I tell her, feeling her hum against my cock. All fantasies I had over spanking her ass before she had me in her mouth vanished when I first felt her mouth take all of me. Her head moves up and down quicker, but I don’t miss her hand moving between her legs. “You touch my pussy, and I’m going to spank your ass, Ember.”

My cock touches the back of her throat before I feel her relax her neck and take me so far down that I feel the breaths from her nose on my skin. My head slams against her headboard when she swallows my cock. The sensation of her wet mouth sucking hard on me, her hand playing with my balls, and the hum of her enjoying the fuck out of this was becoming way too much.

“Jesus fuck. That’s right, baby, take all of me.”

She continues bobbing her head and hollowing her cheeks until I fist her hair in my hand and thrust into her mouth. She whimpers against the bite of pain I’m sure my hold brings her, but just sucks a little harder before she pauses in her sucking to lick against the sensitive flesh she’s consuming.

Through the narrow slit in my eyes, I catch her free arm moving, and I know she’s ignored my warning. With a noise of protest from her, I pull her up off my cock, ignoring my own jolt of displeasure when I lose the heat of her mouth, and lean forward so that she is looking directly at me from her kneeled position between my legs in the center of her bed.

“I told you not to touch yourself. You don’t come unless I tell you, and you damn sure don’t get to take your sweetness from me by coming against your own hand.” She doesn’t speak, but her eyes spark with the knowledge of something, although it’s a mystery to me what that something is.