Page 82 of Claim to Fame

By the time she was through, there was a short knock on the door and Micah poked his head inside. “It’s time for the showing. Are we all set here?”

“I have what I need,” Elizabeth-Ellen said.

“I’d like to say one more thing,” Hannah said. “Please tell your readers... I spent years, decades really, being ashamed. At first, I deluded myself into thinking my behavior was normal dieting, but I knew something was wrong for a long time before I got help.”

“Why’s that?” Elizabeth-Ellen asked.

Hannah glanced at Ethan, the familiar shame slithering beneath her skin. He tipped his head in the barest of nods, his eyes fixed on her with an intensity that felt like the sun—warm and cleansing, because he saw her,allof her, and was still standing by her side. She filled herself with the heat of his gaze, allowed it to banish the shame back to the recesses of her mind, and turned back to the reporter patiently waiting for her answer.

“I was embarrassed. I thought people would look at me and decide I wasn’t thin enough to have an eating disorder, or there must be something really wrong with me to be incapable of properly feeding myself. There’s an immense amount of shame that comes with mental illness. But I was also afraid of giving it up. Who would I be if I wasn’t always on a diet? What would happen to me if I let myself eat the way other people did? My eating disorder was the thing that terrorized me, but it also comforted me. It made me feel in control. But I wasn’t, and I couldn’t see it until I got help. So, I don’t know, tell your readers I’ve been there, and I’ve seen how incredibly freeing recovery can be. If I can do it, so can they.”

Hannah glanced around the room, taking in this surreal moment where she’d spilled her guts to a complete stranger, signed releases so the details of her most private struggles could be published for the whole world to read. She had expected to feel nervous, unsure, but she just felt...right. Ethan winked at her from across the room, his worry face transformed into the picture of beaming pride, and she wanted nothing more than to leave the theatre right then and go home with him.

As they got to their feet, Elizabeth-Ellen held her hand out for Hannah to shake. “Thank you, Ms. Matthews, for your honesty and for trusting me with your story.”

“Thank you for listening.”

Elizabeth-Ellen gathered her recording device and notebook. “What’s next for you, after the premiere? I imagine your phone must be ringing off the hook.”

“Hannah is in very high demand,” Micah confirmed.

Hannah looked between Micah and Ethan, then settled her gaze on Elizabeth-Ellen. “I don’t know what comes next,” she said honestly, “but I can’t wait to find out.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Ethan woke in the morning to the heat of Hannah’s mouth as she took his already hard cock between her lips. He swam up through the remnants of sleep towards the pleasure already gathering at the base of his spine.

“Good morning,” she said, when she noticed he was awake, before dragging her tongue from his base to his tip. “Happy birthday.”

In all the excitement and emotion of the night before, he’d nearly forgotten it was his birthday, but clearly Hannah had not. She lowered her mouth over him again and he slid a hand into her hair, groaning as he hit the back of her throat.

“Good morning,” he said, his voice hoarse with disuse and an impending orgasm.

“How did you sleep?” she asked innocently.

He chuckled at the absurdity of the question, the sound breaking off on a hiss when she flicked her tongue over the ridge at his crown, pressing her tongue into the slit at the top before taking him between her lips again.

“I always sleep well when I fall asleep inside you.” He strained to hold back the wave of his climax. “You’re gonna make me come,” he groaned.

Her eyes sparkled and she moved faster, hollowing her cheeks and urging him closer to the edge.

“You want me to come in your mouth, sweetheart?” he asked, his thumb tracing the corner of her lips where they stretched around him. “What if I want to come in your pussy instead?”

She slowed her movements, considering, and he bit back a grin.

“What if we stay in bed all day and I fill all your pretty holes with my cum? What if the thing I want for my birthday is to taste myself on your lips while you come on my cock, over and over and over?”

She replaced her mouth with her hand, stroking him slow and tight, his tip pressed to her cheek. “What about seeing the City?”

“The City’s overrated,” he said. “I want to spend the day with you, inside you.” He ran his thumb over her bottom lip. “But if you want to spend the day outside this bed, we can do that too. Just know, if you make me come in your mouth right now, we’re not leaving this room until you come for me at least three times. We’re not going anywhere until I’m dripping down your thighs.”

She smiled and her tongue darted out, lapping up the precum beading at his tip. “Is it your birthday or mine?” she teased before taking him all the way to the back of her throat again.

He was a man of his word. No sooner had he thrown his head back, roaring his release as she swallowed him down, than he flipped her over on her back and buried his face between her legs. He licked her to orgasm over and over, until she was shivering and gasping each time his tongue approached her clit, until he was so hard he thought he might pass out from lack of blood flow to his brain. She welcomed him inside her with a soft moan and a smile, her limbs loose with pleasure.

It felt like coming home, like knitting together the pieces of himself he hadn’t realized had been fractured for so many years. He twined his hands with hers, pressing them into the mattress above her head as he worked himself into her, slow and deep, and peppered her face with kisses.

“One more, sweetheart,” he whispered against the underside of her jaw.

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