When my lips hit Ben’s, it’s to bring him back. Ben is bordering on hysteria, drowning in memories he didn’t know he had, so I do the one thing guaranteed to bring him back to Earth.

I kiss him.

Hard, desperate and deep. My nails claw into his biceps, my head tilts, and my tongue coaxes his return.

Ben’s landing is in the form of his arms wrapping around my torso and lifting me off this Earth, so my legs wrap around his waist, his head tilts up, and our lips don’t break apart.

His tongue fills my mouth, curling and flicking like I’m imagining he’d do down below, and I’m instantly wet.

I grind against his abs, wanting the rub, the pleasure, and he whispers into my mouth, “Bed. Now.”

“No,” I say through our heavy breaths. “Floor.”

“Here?”

Ben’s palms cup my ass, and he balances me like I’m nothing but a beach ball as he looks around.

I grab his face and yank him back. I missed his taste the instant he let go. “Yes. Now.”

He moans as he bends down, and with more grace than a ballet dancer, he lays me on the cold wood, spreading himself on top.

“Rough,” I say, and my voice mimics my wish. “I don’t want it gentle, or nice. I want you hard. I want it to hurt—”

“No, you don’t.”

“Don’t act like you know what I want. I’m telling you.”

“And I’m responding,” he says, and lowers a hand between my legs. He gives a single, firm, erotic swipe outside my underwear, and I arch into it like a cat. “By doing that.”

My back’s torqued off the floor, and I’m begging him to do more. Not in so many words, but in moans.

Ben answers by moving my underwear to the side and dipping his fingers in, one by one. I bite my lower lip to stop the shout. I don’t want to give him the credit.

“Just because I won’t be an asshole to you,” he says above me. “Doesn’t mean I can’t get you to come so hard you’ll rip your G-string in half.”

I can’t answer. I’m too busy moving when he moves, meeting his thrusts, and thinking if he puts his whole fist in me, I won’t even notice, I’m so wet.

And then I think—I want his everything in me. Always.

“Ben, fuck me. Do it now,” I manage to say through my gasps.

“In my own sweet time, Astor,” he says. “I want to savor you. You’re gorgeous. Sexy. Lethal.”

My eyes are closed and I mutter a laugh. I don’t want to watch him while he says those things—compliments that would’ve speared my heart a few years ago, but now can only hit a wall of ice.

I won’t thaw. Not for him.

When one of his fingers slides down, hits my anus, my eyes fly open and land straight on his.

Ben cocks a brow. “I don’t treat women like shit. I’m not gonna slap you around or demean you. Shove my cock down your throat until you gag. You want rough, but I’ll give you different. And I’ll still work you so good, you won’t be able to walk straight tomorrow. Got it?”

“Yes,” I say before thinking. And that’s a first.

“Turn around.”

I comply, and when I’m on all fours, he pulls my G-string down to my knees. There’s rustling, and I turn to notice he’s taking off his jacket, then shirt, then jeans. His boxers go next.

He’s stupid hot. There are no other words for it, no kind of description that could encompass the kind of man that makes Hercules look like an afterthought.

“Straight ahead, Astor,” he commands, and I realize I’m licking my lips at the sight of his dick.

I do as he asks, my sweater the only thing I’m wearing. Ben moves behind me, grazing his rough palms on the sensitive skin of my ass, up my soft stomach, and cups the mounds of my breasts and squeezes. Hard.

“You’re not wrong,” he says. “I don’t know what else to do other than fuck until I’m blind. Forgotten.”

“It’s just you and me,” I say, turning my head slightly. “Ben and Astor. That’s all.”

He dives between my legs again, fingers pushing deep, and curls them to center my pleasure. Anything else I was going to say gets caught in a feline purr.

Ben slips out, toys with my butt, paints it with my scent. My head rises with realization.

“You want this?” he asks.

I swallow. Not because I’m afraid, but because I’ve never done it before. And ever since—then—I’ve wanted to be nothing but an expert in front of Ben. Cool, confident and composed. Not timid. Not all tremulous and googly-eyed.

“You’ve done it before?” I ask him.

He doesn’t hesitate. “Yeah.”

“So you know what to do, then. To…prepare me?”

Jesus, I sound like a scared virgin. The exact opposite of the dominant, hot sex I—

“I believe, Astor, you put me in control, so I get to choose what I will or won’t do to your ass. Understood?”

The threat makes my thighs shake. In a very, very good way.

I nod, and he moves behind me. Tangles a hand in my hair to pull my head back. Uses his other hand to lubricate me, a mixture of spit and my dampness, of which I’m giving him plenty.

I’ve never anticipated anything like this before. I’m both curious, turned on, and terribly unsure.

I feel him as he uses his dick to explore. Rests in my crevice and moves back and forth, lubricating himself. He moans, and I push my ass back against him, asking for more.

He goes in soft, at first. Delicate, because as he said, he’s not a jerk in bed. At my murmurs of approval, he pushes deeper, and deeper. I clamp tighter, on instinct and in pure pleasure.

Ben pulls out, and I’m pissed at my whimper.

“I have to stretch you out a little more,” he says, then uses his fingers. “I can’t just go all in. Believe me on that.”

“Because you’re so big?” I joke with a smile.

“Well, yeah, that, and it’d fucking hurt if I stuck a pencil in there without massaging you a bit. Now be quiet.”

I’m about to retort, but then his other hand starts doing sinful things to my clit, and I shudder at the sparklers going off at the end of his fingers.

“The only sounds I want from you are those,” he says.

In all this time, I still haven’t looked at him. He’s a disembodied voice with the skilled fingers of a pianist—or pro athlete. And his coaching makes me grind, and dig my teeth into my lower lip, becoming the animalistic side of myself I figured I’d long evolved out of.

When he slips his dick in, I’m in a wondrous whirl of delight, and the surprising fullness only adds to my demise.

“Yes…” I say, then hiss as he moves deeper, “Yes.”

“This is how you want it, huh?” The growl swirls from his throat. “Really, truly, fucked from behind.”

“Faster,” I whisper in response.

“You sure?” Ben sounds like he’s speaking through his teeth.

“Hell yes.”

He’s all the way in. I groan, but not in total pain. It hurts in a way that feels good. Ben starts moving, in and out, in and out, and after getting used to the new stretch, the elicit goodness that’s building into my core, I’m able to meet him, pound for pound.

“Fuck,” he hisses above me, and moves faster.

I’m fueled by the unexpected power of having him this way. When he pulls my head back harder, the yank has me searching for my pleasure center, to add sweetness to the pain. I rub. I twist and flick. I arch in a way yoga instructors would be proud of.

Ben twists an arm under me, reaches under my baggy sweater and grabs one of my breasts and tweaks the nipple. I open my mouth to tell him—harder, always harder—but he shocks me when he pulls my torso up with his own, so our knees are on the hardwood, and he keeps thrusting, pounding, shouting—

Ben digs his face into my neck. Uses a hand to tilt my face up at the jaw, and bites down. I cry out at the same time he releases, feeling so exposed, so fulfilled, so thoroughly sexed—

He lets go, and I fall boneless onto the cold floor.

As my cheek hits the wood and Ben thunks down on his back beside me, I swear I see steam wafting off our bodies.

I muster the energy to utter, “That was…”

Ben turns his face toward me. His chest heaves. “You sure you haven’t done that before?”

“Pretty damn sure.”

“‘Cause you’re fucking awesome at it.”

I laugh into the floor, thinking maybe today didn’t have to be so bad, if it can end like this. Even if I do always end up letting Ben do things to my body no other man has.

Another piece of me he can keep for his own.

Neither of us hear the ding of the elevators, and by the time I register a key slipping into the lock and the resulting click of the door, I’ve only made it to a seated position.

The lights flick on, and Ben and I both hiss like vampires.

“Well,” Mike’s ominous voice says through the glare. “I guess this is one way to fuck a fiancé out of a relationship.”