“Have you ever been fucked in the ass?” he asks, running his thumb over the tiny hole, eyes burning with curiosity and lust.

“Yes,” I breathe, realizing that I shed my inhibitions along with my robe. “I love anal.”

His thumb stills, lingering then probing the tiniest bit at the puckered hole but not delving inside. The look suspended between us spins a web of soon-to-be unindulged fantasies.

“We’re gonna get along just fine.” He resumes the seeking, the stroking, the torture above the waist and below until I’m panting, desperate, quivering. Our breaths mingle. Our foreheads press together and he rubs my back, my spine a conduit for the electric charge transmitted from his fingertips to the delicate column of nerves and muscles.

“It would be a shame if a bed is actually here this time,” he says. “And we still don’t use it.”

He kisses me, our tongues parrying and thrusting, our moans meeting in the middle. I barely notice that he’s slowly walking me backward into his bedroom. By the time the backs of my knees hit the firm mattress, I’m nearly delirious, twisting his hair in my fingers, scraping my nails down his back. There’s a savagery in our kisses born of desire long denied. There’s nothing sweet or gentle in it. A starving stroke of tongues, the sharp snap of teeth. Bared. Biting. The taste of blood mingles in the kiss, making it ferrous, feral. It’s more than a kiss. It’s a clash of titans.

“Wait.” He grabs my hair, pulling my head back when I press into him, seeking more. “I want this slower.”

“Jared.” I reach between us and fist his cock. “We can do slower later.”

“No.” He chuckles and pushes my shoulder gently until I’m sitting on the bed. “Slower now.”

I’m shocked when he gets down on his knees in front of me. Both times we made love, Jared put in work, eating me out like a starving man. I’m fully prepared and dripping wet for act three, but he surprises me yet again. Taking my foot in his hand, he kisses the arch. A frisson scuttles along my leg from the place he kissed me, and I twitch. He embarks on a journey that carries him up my leg, sucking the calf muscle and behind my knee, his tongue warm, velvety torture. All the while his mouth worships me, he squeezes my hips, grips my waist, palms my breasts. By the time he christens the inside of my thighs with kisses, I’m thrashing, head flung back, heedless of my wet hair on the bed. The light caresses, the feathery kisses, the careful kneading of my flesh, he’s doing it on purpose. A passionate provocation pushing me to beg. It’s the best battle of wills, one where the end is already decided. Because he can go slow or fast, light or deep, but he will fuck me before this is over.

I win.

But I’m determined to resist as long as I can, gathering the fine linen of his sheets in my balled fists, pressing the tips of my toes into the cool stone floor, caging the moans and whimpers inside my teeth. Not giving him the satisfaction until he satisfies me.

And then the tide changes. Those gentle hands—the ones I want to ravage me, to dig into my ass while he barrels into my body—press my legs open. I tense, completely aware that I have no defense against that tongue, against the skill and patient hunger applied to the needy, weeping center of my body. I urge his head forward, deeper into the V of my legs, unashamed to ask for what I want. Prepared to demand it if he tries to go slow, to go easy.

“Banner,” he says, still kneeling, his hair damp and cool against my thigh. “Watch me eat this pussy.”

Barely hearing him over my heartbeat, I sit up on my elbows to follow his order. His eyes, blue fire, burn as he scoops his arms under my legs, lifting me, holding me immobile and open to him. Never looking away, he dips his head between my legs, and I watch his mouth on me. Watch the calm façade of his expression crack with hunger and fall apart with lust. I realize that in this battle of wills, his composure is as flimsy as mine. At the first swipe of his tongue in the wet folds, by mutual agreement, we both lose all pretense of control. If this bed is our battlefield, we are two white flags surrendering to the demands of the other.

“Fuck, Ban,” he mutters against my slick, wet mound. He jerks me closer to his mouth, and I watch as his tongue darts out furiously, flicking my clit. He drags his tongue from top to bottom, thoroughly enjoying every inch, every drop of me. I grunt, pulling his hair, pressing his head closer, bending my legs and sinking my heels into his shoulders. I’m a madwoman with no sense of propriety, no inhibition or pride. The need to join with him, to mate with him is paramount. I want to feel him aggressive and plunging into my body even more than I want to come, but I don’t have to make that choice. In tandem, his fingers and mouth persist until I unravel. I come loose from all my bindings. Every insult, every criticism, every word spoken against me loses its power in the center of his perfect desire. To be wanted like this eclipses all the times I wasn’t—all the times I felt unworthy. It billows from me, and I feel so completely free.

I’m still floating, drifting, when he joins me on the bed, scattering kisses over my shoulders, my neck, and the freckles on my nose. I smell myself on his face, and it spikes the frantic desire all over again. I clutch at his shoulders and urge him to position himself between my legs.

“Do I need a condom?” he asks, his voice urgent, hopeful.

“No.” I pull his hair and squeeze the firm roundness of his ass. “Please fuck me.”

“In a bed and with the lights on,” he says. “How do you want it?”

I know immediately.

“I want to be on top.”

It’s not that I’ve never been on top, but the self-consciousness never really went away. Am I too heavy? Can he breathe?

“I’d love that,” he replies.

“So you want me to ride you, Jared?” I ask playfully as he stretches out under me and I straddle his strong thighs.

“Do I want you to ride?” He challenges me with one cocked brow. “Hell, no. If you’re taking the top, you better drive.”

We laugh like the kids in that laundromat, hearts free and minds clear. And for a handful of seconds, it’s simple between us, but as I hover over him, the humor evaporates. I’m on the threshold of something I’m not sure I’m ready for. Not him being inside of me. I’m panting for that, but this intimacy with nothing between us. Not secrets, no lies, no misunderstandings, no one else. The path to him is clear, and I’m afraid once I start down it, there is no turning back. Jared is a one-way ticket.

I take him in my hand and into my body, and the hot, tight clasp has us both gasping, foreheads smashed together. The first thrust gives me that almost-too-much feeling, that slight stretch you first mistake for pain, but it’s actually the ache of your body begging for more. I’m wet, so I’m ready, but I’m not prepared to feel even more than I did before. I’m not prepared for the click in my soul, the key turning in my heart. I’m a door flung open when I rise and fall over him. He spans my back with his hands and buries his face in my neck, nuzzling me, licking me, biting me, growling and claiming like an animal. With every push in and pull out, he taps into something I didn’t know was there. Something I didn’t know needed to be found.

With one hand, he brushes the damp hair back from my face, and with the other he grips me by the hip.

“You’re so beautiful,” he gasps. His face contorts with pleasure, and he pistons up into my body, his pace bruising. I lift my legs and hook my ankles at his back, needing him even deeper, even harder. Steadily invading and withdrawing, he finds my fingers, linking them with his and leaning into me until his lips brush against my ear.

“Chinga,” he says, a salacious whisper, a memory from our first time together.

A breathless laugh escapes my lips, and I squeeze the fingers tangled with mine.

“Chinga,” I whisper back.

Fuck.

We exchange the vulgar word like an endearment, passing it between us, incited by the sound of it on each other’s lips. And then there are no words. Just our eyes holding as our bodies reunite—a sweet, sweaty merger. One heart slamming into the other. Breaths congregating between our mouths. The wills we both master with so much pride collapse, yield, give way. A détente between our bodies and a truce between our hearts. And with one final plunge, one last kiss, finally peace.

29

Jared

Classic rule of negotiation: when the terms are more than you bargained for, consider abandoning the deal.

Banner Morales is more than I bargained for. We’d had sex twice in ten years, and I remembered every vivid detail of both encounters. Last night was . . . more. Her stripping down to nothing, dropping her robe and her guard, not just showing me her skin and the ripe curves of her body but showing me herself, she completely bared her inner self to me. The trust of that act heightened the intimacy between us in a way I’ve never experienced.

“I think I’ll have steak.” She smiles at me in the glow of lit candles. The restaurant, one of the island’s finest, features a private terrace, which hangs over the Caribbean with its gradated shades of blue, a startling bed of aquamarine, cerulean, and turquoise. The balmy breeze off the water toys with loose strands of Banner’s hair and carries her clean scent across the table to me. If it weren’t for the solicitous server checking on us every few minutes, I could imagine we are the only ones here.

“Points be damned,” she says with a laugh. “I’m on vacation. What are you having?”

I stare into those long-lashed espresso-colored eyes, and all I can think of is how she looked down at me when I was between her knees, head buried in her pussy, slurping at her like one of the intoxicating island drinks that deceive you with their fruity sweetness. That’s Banner. She’s so sweet, you don’t realize how dangerous she is at first—that she goes to your head until you’re reeling from the effects. You don’t realize she’s a beautiful snare, and once you’re trapped, not only can you not get out, but you don’t want to.