“Why the hell did you go?” I gasped out, clawing into his back with my nails. I couldn’t tell what I needed most: to rake his flesh, to punish him and pound his chest… or for him to pound me. Maybe the only thing that mattered was that we were finally skin to skin again, and the only thing I knew for sure was that I wanted more. I needed more. And I had for a long, long time. “...Why the hell did you go…?”

“You told me where I could put your ring, as I remember,” he shot back, catching his breath, smiling as I hitched my leg higher on his hip. “Not the best idea you ever had…”

He let go of my ass and lifted one aching breast with his huge hand. My nipple caught in the vee of his strong, lean fingers and he tightened his hand punishingly. The sensation went straight down my belly and I felt my pussy tighten…then expand. I dug my heel into the small of his back and pressed my belly against his furious cock. I felt something hungry and determined break free inside me; all those feelings I’d repressed just to survive without him.

“You should have stayed,” I moaned softly. “You should have picked me and you should have fucking stayed.”

“You told me to go,” he said harshly, leaning down to suck my nipple into his mouth. I was buoyed by the water, overheated with desire and emotion. I wrapped my legs higher still and felt the head of his cock butting the inside of my thigh. I was dizzy, my heart pounding away with anger and lust and the rush of adrenaline his hard, chiseled body always produced in me. He dragged his mouth from my breast and kissed me again. “But fuck, Em… you were always my only choice,” he growled.

I felt his body stiffen as he shifted his hips and centered himself underneath me. He held me in his hands like I was weightless, like I belonged to him. He gripped my ass and spread me wide. And I closed my eyes, knowing all that was coming. His cock was like a rod of steel; it was long and thick, sweet and punishing. He was the only man I’d ever been with, and more than I’d ever dreamed of. I looked in his beautiful blue eyes and watched his pupils dilate with his arousal, dark and wide and teasing. “You like giving orders,” he said, his lips so close they brushed mine. “So tell me what it is you want from me right now…”

Except he didn’t wait for an answer. He bucked his hips hard as he pulled me down on his shaft. “Fucking right, I never should have gone,” he snarled into my neck, into my open mouth. I dug my fingers into the ridges of hard muscle that roped his arms. He was stroking my body up and down along his length, I was tight… and he was enormous…

“I should have put that ring right back where it belonged and taken you to bed.” He gripped a handful of hair at the nape of my neck and licked his lips. “This is the way to settle our differences, babygirl.” He tightened and bucked again, driving himself in to the hilt. I couldn’t answer, I could barely breathe. He filled everything in me until there wasn’t space left for anything else. It was the way it had always been for us. All I could do was to clutch him to me and lose myself in the sensation.

“We can’t…” I gasped out, his thrusts making my words come out too soft, too breathy… meaningless…

“This doesn’t change anything, Jason… It… never… did…”

He curved one strong arm around me, moving inside me relentlessly. He’d always known just how much I could take, and he pushed me to that same limit again. He took my face in one huge, roughened hand and held me prisoner.

“Can you tell me that you don’t still want this?” he asked, his voice a deep, lusty growl. “Can you say you don’t still love me, Ember? The same fucking way I still love you?” He buried himself and held still inside me. It felt like his cock had a heartbeat of its own, strong and pounding, throbbing inside me and threatening to explode…

“You’re mine,” he said, biting into my lip, making me feel the vibration of his words in the sensitive flesh of my mouth. “It doesn’t matter if you push me out of your life… it doesn’t matter if you leave me and try like hell to forget,” he said. He pulled his cock almost all the way out, leaving me collapsed, empty… frantic. “This doesn’t change,” he snarled, and he filled me again with a single, all-powerful thrust.

“I love you, Ember. And we belong to each other. No matter where you go…” He started thrusting again, building his pace with every stroke. “No matter where I go. No matter what happens between us…”

I dug my nails into his back and held on. My brain fought his words, but my body knew better. His hard chest burnished my nipples as the friction between us increased. The hot spring only served to push us even closer to the flame; the steam like a smokescreen all around us. His cock was pulsating steel, with a power over me I couldn’t deny. He was right and I knew it. I’d always known it…

I just didn’t know if I could survive it.