Her chin jerks in a swift, desperate nod, but, fuck, I need to hear it. I need her voice breaking on it.

I lean down, catching her nipple between my teeth, biting just hard enough to make her cry out. Her back arches, her thighs clamping around my hips like she’s afraid I’ll pull away. As if I could.

“Dallas,please—”

That’s all it takes.

I push inside, slow, so fucking slow, letting her body stretch around me. Her breath hitches, her nails scoring down my back, and I groan against her skin. Tight. So tight. She’s a vice, a sweet, suffocating grip that threatens to unravel me before I’ve even started.

I pull back, just enough to tease, then sink deeper. Her hips jerk, her walls fluttering around me, and I hiss through my teeth.“You’re gonna kill me at this rate. If you don’t suffocate my cock, you’re going to give me a heart attack.”

Slowly, she relaxes. Letting me in, my shallow thrusts grow deeper until the sweet sounds of her moans fill my ears.

I shift, wedging my hand between us, my thumb finding her clit in rough, circling strokes. Her gasp is sharp, her body bowing off the bed, and I take advantage—driving into her faster, deeper, until every thrust punches a broken sound from her lips.

Her legs lock around me, her heels digging into my ass like she’s trying to pull me closer, take me deeper. I bite her nipple again, just to feel her clench around me, and her moan is my undoing.

“Look at me,” I grind out, my voice raw.

Her eyes fly open, hazy but holding mine, and I know I’m not surviving this. Not the way she’s taking me so well, like her pussy was made for my cock.

I thumb her clit harder, my thrusts turning erratic. “Come for me, Tulip.”

Needing the release as much as I do, I watch as her eyes pinch shut and her brows come together.

Tulip’s head tips back into the pillows, her lips parted around a sound I’ve only ever dreamed of pulling from her. Every muscle in her body tenses—her thighs trembling around my hips, her fingers clutching at anything she can get her hands on like she’s afraid she’ll float away if she doesn’t hold on.

It’s her face that does the final blow, wrecking me completely..

Eyes squeezed shut, then fluttering open, dazed and dark, like she’s forgotten where she is. Like the only thing left in her world is this—me inside her, the slow drag of my hips as each pulse of my release coats her walls.

My name fractures in her throat, sounding sore from all the cries that left her lips earlier.

She clings to me, boneless and breathless, and I swear I’ve never seen anything more beautiful.

“I love you.” The words slip out like they’ve been waiting years to be free. No hesitation, no second-guessing—just pure, stupid certainty. That’s the terrifying beauty of it; my heart doesn’t need permission anymore. I know.

One day, she’ll be my wife.

Her eyebrows nearly disappear into her hairline. “Woah.”

My mouth quirks. “Woah?”

We shift apart, the loss of contact drawing twin shivers—but before I can retreat, she’s already closing the distance. And there it is, that spark in her eyes, the one that first made me fall for her. The one that says she’s happy to push my buttons.

“A love confession and a marriage proposal all in one go?” Shetsks, dragging a fingertip down my chest. “A woman needs a warning before you drop the emotional equivalent of a grenade.”

A laugh punches out of me. “Wait—did I say that last bit out loud?”

Heat floods my cheeks. Months of carefully banked restraint, gone in sixty seconds flat. Crazy to think one night can change everything in one go.

“You did.” She swings a leg over my hips, settling into my lap with deliberate grace. The second her skin brushes mine, my body betrays me—a single, lazy roll of her hips, and I’m already hardening beneath her all over again. “If it’s not obvious… Same. Like, a thousand times, same.”

Her words hit me square in the chest, and just like that, the last frayed thread of my restraint snaps.

I crush my mouth to hers before she can tease me further, swallowing her laugh, her sigh, the way she murmurs my name like it’s both a scolding and a surrender. Her fingers tangle in my hair, holding me close, and for the first time in my life, I don’t overthink it.

No more quiet glances in the library stacks. No more biting back words that burned my tongue.