I had to bite the inside of my lip to keep from responding. He might have been right, but I wanted to tell him he was wrong. I wasn’t sure, so I said nothing.

“And even though you think you want a free pass to walk inside my brain and fix me, you’re wrong. I am exactly what you need because I’m not going to give you that pass. All my broken pieces are going to love you, just as I am now, without ever being fixed.”

“What is so terrible that you can’t tell me? What is this big secret?”

“It’s not one thing. It’s not one terrible thing. It’s a series of messes that you’re better off knowing nothing about.”

“But….” I choked, swallowed, and tried again. “Alex, you…you can’t…I don’t expect you to change who you are….”

“Yes you do. You would, if you knew.” He threaded his hands through my hair, pushed it away from my face with devotion, kissed me again. “You would insist on it. And I’m….”…” Alex looked away, searching without seeing. “I’ve got a lot of missing pieces, parts that were never there to begin with. There is no fixing that, and I can’t fight against the futility of never being complete. I can’t do that anymore. I just want to be.”

I sighed, closed my eyes against my frustration and his stubbornness. We were at the same impasse as before, except this time, he was the one pushing, and I didn’t think I had the resolve to turn him away.

When he spoke next, his voice was closer, against my neck, and it sent lovely shivers down my spine. His fingers moved under the hem of my dress. “Let me make love to you.”

I swallowed, uncertain. “Why now? What’s changed?”

“Everything.” He sighed, kissed my chest. “I just want to be…with you.”

“I don’t know if I can be happy with that.”

“Happy with what?”

“Just being. I want more. I want….” I searched my brain for the scariest thing I could say and settled on, “I want a family. I want kids.”

“Then I’ll give them to you.” His tongue dipped between my cle**age.

I was giving in. In fact, my body had already said yes and was behaving accordingly, reaching for the button of his pants. “I want monogamy, partnership, ’til death.”

“Sounds great. Sign me up.”

“Alex, you’re asking me to take a giant, almost unfathomable leap of faith here.”

“Sandra, I’m asking you to take the same leap that I’ve already taken, and believe me, I took that leap and plunged in, and it was so worth it. I’m better for it.”

The sound of my fingers unzipping his pants surprised me. But I didn’t stop. “You propose to push me off this cliff kicking and screaming.”

His hand hiked my dress higher, his fingers reaching and caressing my bare bottom. I bucked against him, the movement instinctual.

“Yes. But you’ll be screaming my name.”

“Not likely, virgin.” I said the words, but they were breathless and lacked conviction.

“I’m going to enjoy proving you wrong.”

I hoped he did. Alex was nothing if not surprising.

CHAPTER 23

Our mouths fused together, his tongue stroking me higher, tighter, and his center rocked against mine, the delicious pressure a promise. Layers of his clothes still separated us, and I struggled to remove them.

My hands were in his pants, specifically on his very nice ass, and currently sidetracked from my original goal of pushing them off his hips. No one would blame me. It was the first time I’d been allowed to touch it, so touch it I must.

Alex shifted to one side, most of his weight supported on his right, his left hand free to explore—except he wasn’t exploring.

And that left my body rioting for his touch. Police cars were tipped over, fires started, small businesses raided. I moaned my disapproval as one of my hands slipped around to the front of his boxers.

Then, it happened. Praise all earthly creatures, oceans below, heavens above, and nebulas beyond—I was finally, finally touching the steel pipe he’d been carrying around in his pants. But then I panicked a little.

It was ginormous.

My eyes bulged and I gasped into Alex’s mouth.

No. Do not want. Please un-supersize my order.

Alex tore his mouth from mine and his attention followed; he cursed and sat back on the bed. It became obvious that he was trying to extract something from his pants pocket.

I watched him, wide-eyed; then my attention shifted to the monster between his legs, and I gasped again.

This was his first time. However, a three-year dry spell paired with the turgid and proud Cyclops bobbing and weaving before me—like a boxer making ready to ram through all obstacles in its path—and it might as well have been my first time too.

“Oh my God,” I whispered, my hands clutched to my chest.

Alex, oblivious, fished out the object he’d been searching for and three more followed, spilling on the bed. Condoms. He ripped the one in his hand open with his teeth, and I died a little at the sight, because it was damn sexy.

He focused on his task, and I lay mesmerized beneath him. He extracted the latex sheath, grabbed himself with his other hand. I automatically pressed my knees together at the sight of his impressive fingers gripping his even more impressive manhood.

Alex fit the circle atop the head of his penis and began rolling it down, but then, the unthinkable happened. The condom was too small. It didn’t fit.

I covered my face with my hands and tried not to laugh, mostly succeeded. Of course, Alex would never assume he was magnum sized. Of course.

He cursed, and I heard the rubber hit the wall when he threw it across the room. I uncovered my face to find him picking through the other condoms on the bed.

“Are they all the same size?”

He nodded, exhaled bitterly, didn’t look at me. “This is unbelievable.”

I paused, just for a split second, and considered my options.

This was my chance to put the brakes on his hijack attempt. If his condom had fit, we would’ve been rocking and rolling already. But now, the choice was truly mine. Granted, it was already mine, but now, it was truly up to me. I wouldn’t be able to claim swept away by passion or lustily insane—because I had magnum-sized condoms in the drugstore bag by the side table. In fact, I had all the sizes, not knowing what to expect and wanting to be prepared.

But then Alex said, “Fuck this.”

And he slid off the bed, tugging my h*ps to the edge as he went. One hand pressed against my stomach, the other gripped my thigh, and before I could comprehend what his actions meant, his tongue was against me.

I gasped, again. My toes pointed, my back arched, and my hands gripped fistfuls of the comforter behind me.

I was the honey-soaked fig, and he employed his master tongue and made everything within me ebb and flow as his mouth moved over the best inch of my body.

When he seemed sure I wasn’t going to push him away, he loosened his grip and traced light circles on my thighs, just above the backs of my knees through the stockings, then down toward my bottom where my skin was bare.

This lasted…oh…less than twenty seconds, because I came with the unexpected force of a car crash. I didn’t even have a chance to savor the sensations, the winding and tensing and warming. His textured tongue touched my velvet inch, and twenty seconds later, I had the female equivalent of premature ejaculation.

Tremors wracked every part of me, and my brain asked, What the hell was that?

He lifted himself from the floor, his pants off but his boxers back in place, his impressively sized penis now hidden, but still thick and insistent, tenting his shorts.

While I was dazed, he flipped me on to my stomach and unzipped my dress. His hands then moved under the hem and he pushed it up, exposing my bottom, back, shoulders, until it was over my head and discarded on the floor.

“Let me know when you’re ready to go again,” he said.

My body shuddered at the thought, with amazement and gratitude.

Then, as he caressed my bottom, squeezed it, he added darkly, “Because I’m ready now.”

Alex moved his hand lower between my thighs. I felt his middle and index finger invade me, and I panted like a German shepherd bitch…in heat.

Lustily insane.

“Over there!” I blurted, “Look…look in the bag.”

He moved his fingers in and out of my center. His voice sounded distant, distracted. “What?”

“I have your size, I think. Look in the bag.”

I mourned the loss of his hand, whimpered. I listened, but did not look, as he picked up the bag, opened a box, tore open a packet.

“You’re going to pay for that.” His voice was dark, menacing, but not precisely angry. In fact, it might have held a hint of appreciation.

I felt the bed depress behind me, his bare chest against my back, his knees nudging my legs apart. Anticipation cut through the remaining orgasm fog and my muscles tightened, my stomach clenched. I caught a glimpse of him in my peripheral vision, kneeling over me.

Then he lifted me so that I was kneeling and upright in front of him, and he whispered with his mouth against my ear, “Now you have to beg.”

I was still panting, but I managed. “That will never—oh!”