The word hits me like a freight train and I feel it all over again, the sudden weight of wanting to do right by her, a duty I don't owe in the least, except it feels like I do. Like I need to prove somehow that she hasn't made a mistake letting this happen, even if she probably has. It doesn't have to be that. It's one stupid night, an idea that I can let myself by startled by later, that this is actually happening, but I'm determined to make it worth her while, however limited my skills are.

It's all I can do, though, not to just leave my head resting against her shoulder, the slick heat of her pressed against me maddening as I stammer some kind of hurried agreement. She doesn't need to ask, but the fact she does is intoxicating in its own right, and I feel a kind of desperate gratitude. Mostly, though, it's buried under everything else, under wanting this more than I want air. Trying not to fumble over much, I reach down and slide into her, one hand moving instinctively to her hip, clutching her against my side as I thrust into her again and again. I don't want to let her go, don't want to do anything but stay inside her and listen to the sounds she makes, the soft, ragged, girlish noises that sound better than probably anything else in the world.