OH MY GOD. “TY.”

Stretching, hurting, aching, relief, I had no other words. Just his name.

He was everything.

And I was an addict.

Exactly as he’d said I was a drug to him, he was mine. Every breath since we’d left that house in Key West had been a struggle. I no longer cared if I was addicted to him because he’d saved me. I didn’t give a damn if everything fell apart tomorrow. He was here and this was now, and oh my God, I needed him.

I needed him so bad.

Thrusting deep, hitting the very core inside of me, he growled, “Goddamn.” His huge, rough hands gripped my hips harder as he drove into me again. “Goddamn.”

“More,” I begged, grasping the edge of the table.

His back covered mine and his mouth found my neck. Biting my flesh, then swirling his tongue, he gave me fair warning. “Don’t push me, woman. You can’t handle me rough.”

He was wrong. I could handle it and I needed it. I needed every ounce of roughness he was willing to give me. “Don’t stop.”

His hands ran up my sides and one sank into my hair as he fisted a handful. “I’m not going to.” He tightened his grip. “Not now, not tomorrow, not next week.” He thrust so hard, my feet left the floor. “You feel me?”

Every inch. “Yes,” I panted, my fingers curling into the wood.

“I don’t think you do.” Pulling back until my feet touched tile, he only gave a split-second’s reprieve before he blessedly thrust deep again. “I’m asking again.” His hand slid around my thigh and landed between my legs. He circled my clit. “Do. You. Feel me?”

“Yes.” Oh my God, yes.

“Which part?” he demanded.

My throat, my body, they hummed with need as the moan crawled out from deep inside my chest. “All of you.”

“My words,” he growled, throwing his response down like a gauntlet. “Do you fucking feel me, Ludeviene?”

He didn’t say my name.

He devoured every syllable. The deep rasp of his voice dominated the first half the same way he was dominating my body, before he purred through the last syllable like saying my name was the air he needed to breathe.

I felt it everywhere.

But nowhere more than my heart. “Not now, not tomorrow, not next week,” I repeated, giving him his words back.

“Fuck, woman.” He shuddered.

I said it again. “Not now, not tomorrow, not next week.” Then I begged. “Promise me.”

His mouth, his lips, they found my ear as his heat covered me in assurance. But then his words tested me again. “You should tell me to leave you alone.”

I made my own promise. “Never.”

Letting out a sound that was half roar, half growl and all man, he pulled out and spun me around. Lifting my leg and capturing me around my back, he cradled my head and sunk inside me as he gently laid me on the table.

His gaze bored into me, but when he spoke, he took every last piece of my heart. “You look at me when I come inside you, beautiful.”

My hands tangled into his hair, and I fought tears. “Okay.”

His stroke long and slow, he cupped my face. “Those tears brewing—are they for me or because of me?”

Fear, hurt and insecurity I didn’t know I was still harboring let loose, and a tear slid down my cheek. “You walked away from this.” From me.

“I’m not walking now.” He pushed deep inside me and ground his hips.

I had to ask. “What changed?”

His eyes wary, his expression holding a thousand pounds of grief I may never understand, he stared at me for a single heartbeat. “I decided to be selfish.”

Nothing about what he’d done for me was selfish. “You saved me.”

His entire body stilled. “Return the favor.”

Not a question, not a statement, not a demand, he laid the three words out.

This man, this warrior, strong and fearless, he laid his vulnerability in my hands.

And he waited.

Silent, stoic, but unguarded and unprotected and completely exposed, he was giving me a choice. I’d never felt closer to another person in my entire life.

“With honor,” I whispered as tears washed away all doubt.

Surging forward, his mouth slammed over mine and he didn’t hold back.

He took me, he fucked me, he made love to me. Over and over, he thrust into my body with his hard length and his tongue, leaving a piece of himself I was sure he’d never given to any woman.

I got lost in it.

I reveled in it.

I came alive in it.

My back arched, my legs shook and a tidal wave of physical need and emotional trust burst from my core.

Gripping two handfuls of my hair, pulling back from my mouth, his fierce, dominant gaze met mine and I came.

And came and came and came.

His nostrils flared and his lips parted and he thrust hard one more time. Hot and deep, his seed pulsed in to me and his eyes, oh my God his eyes, they held me captive. Staring, no words, no smile, he came inside me.

And I fell in love.