I looked down at Tilly, asleep in my arms, then at Willa, as she took the stairs beside me to her apartment, at the smile curling her gorgeous mouth, the brightness in her eyes, and knew I wanted more than what we currently had going on.

I never thought I’d want something real, something permanent, not after losing Kate and Louis. I didn’t think I was capable of that kind of feeling, of any deep emotion for another person, or people. That I deserved it.

At first, I thought what I felt for Willa was all twisted up in my feelings of failure, my need to protect every woman and child I came across. But I knew that wasn’t it. What I felt for Willa, shit, I’d never felt like this before, and I wasn’t going to let it go, let her go. Christ, I couldn’t.

Willa unlocked the door and held it wide for me. I walked in and carried Tilly to her room, sliding her in between the sheets that her aunt held back for me. Willa took off Tilly’s shoes and socks and pulled the covers up.

Silently, Willa took my hand and led me to her bedroom door, and looked up at me. The woman dazzled me, had my head spinning, had me pining for her all damn day. She made me high as fuck, drunk on her, when I finally got my hands on her at night.

I swallowed, the sound audible, in the silence. “You have a good night, beautiful?” We’d gotten off to a rocky start at Zeke and Sunny’s, but by the end of the night, she was laughing her ass off with Ruby, teaching Sunny dance moves, and talking about Tilly and Josh with Lulu.

The smile she gave me made my fucking heart skip a beat, when I thought the organ had stopped beating when Kate and Louis’ did. I was gone over this woman and she had no clue.

“I like your friends,” she said. “They’re nice.”

I tucked a soft, pink strand of hair behind her ear. “They liked you.”

She chuckled, and the sound tugged low in my gut. “I think Tilly has a new super fan.”

I grinned. “Josh never let her out of his sight.”

Willa giggled, not something I’d ever heard from her before. She sounded carefree. Happy. “I like that, baby, a whole fucking lot,” I said.

Her head tilted to the side, her color high. “What do you like?”

“Seeing you so happy.” I slid my thumb under her lower lip. “And you. I like you.”

She stepped closer, her fingers curling in my shirt. “I like you, too.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh yeah.”

Her grip on my shirt tightened, and something came over me, something possessive, overwhelming. “Willa, I think we should talk,” I said, the words tumbling from my mouth.

I had no idea what I was going to say, not really. I just knew that I wanted more, that liking her didn’t come close to how I felt. That I couldn’t imagine my future without her. I needed to try and explain how I felt. What she meant to me.

She smiled and pressed her tits against my chest. “Talk? I had something else in mind.” She lifted to her tiptoes and pressed a soft kiss to my throat, sucking and nipping the skin there. My dick throbbed harder.

I gripped her shoulders, needing her in a way that boarded on savage, but I wanted to say this, to let her know it was her and not just the incredible sex that had me coming back to her night after night. Why I couldn’t keep the hell away. I tried to move her back, so I could see her face.

“Willa…” Her head tilted back, her eyes meeting mine, and I saw something that looked a lot like panic. I flinched from the sight of it, my gut twisting. “Beautiful?”

She wriggled in my hold, burrowing back in close, pressing her hot, soft curves against me. “Jude, please…would you just take me to bed. I want you to take me to bed.”

I had no idea what was going through her head, what she thought I was going to say, why it scared her so much, but I couldn’t fucking bear it, seeing that look in her eyes. I’d do anything to never see it again, give her anything, anything, to get back that carefree expression I’d seen on her face when we walked in the door.

I cupped her cheek and stared into her eyes. “Anything you want, just say the word, and it’s yours.”

Her eyes were glistening. She squeezed them shut, then blinked up at me. “I just…I don’t want to think. I need you to…” She pressed her lips together and bit down on them, drawing in a breath through her nose. “I need to quiet the noise in my head.” She gripped my shirt again. “Make it quiet, Jude. Please, make it quiet.”

I didn’t know where this was coming from, what had caused this sudden change, but I fucking hated it. Right now, she was hurting. I wanted her to confide in me, but if that wasn’t where she was at yet, I wanted her to lean on me. Asking me to make it better, knowing I could, Willa admitting to that was a big step in the right direction. Christ, didn’t she know all she had to do was ask, and I’d move mountains to give her what she wanted? It was only a matter of time before she gave me all of her story, but until then, I’d do whatever it took to bury whatever haunted her.

“Please,” she said again.

Gripping her waist, I hauled her off her feet. She wrapped her legs around my waist instantly, her arms curling around my neck, clinging to me. I carried her into her room and shut the door behind us, pressing her against it. “You don’t need to beg, Willa. All you need to do is ask and it’s yours, you know that, right?”

She bit her lip again, harder, and nodded.

“As much as I want to, I don’t know if I can give you quiet, baby, but I can try. I’ll make you come so many times you can’t think anymore. I’ll fuck you so hard all you can do is feel, then I’ll hold you so tight you know you’re safe. That with me, you’ll always be safe. Is that what you want?” I asked, voice hoarse.

She blinked, a single tear streaking down her cheek. “I’ve never met anyone like you.”

“Ditto, sweetheart.”

She offered up a beautiful smile, eyes glistening, cheeks flushed, and it hit me with force. Christ, I wanted to climb in her head and uncover all her secrets right then and there. I wanted to make everything all right.

I brushed the tear away and leaned in, kissing her softly, slowly, not taking it deep, not yet. My cock was a hard as hell behind my zipper and I ground it against her jeans-covered pussy. When I lifted my head, her eyes were starting to glaze over, becoming unfocused. Which meant I was doing my job right. She was feeling, not thinking.

Willa liked it when I took control, loved surrendering it to me. I fucking loved it as well. The woman fought me on everything else; Jesus, she resisted every step of the way, locked me out, even when I saw the longing in her eyes, for me, for what I could give her. What I wanted to give her. But not in this, she never fought me on this. She was open and giving and free.

When I covered her body with mine, buried so damn deep inside her, and looked into her eyes, I saw what she wasn’t ready to say. She needed me as much as I needed her.

Tonight, though, what she needed from me, was to let go of it; all of the resistance, the fight.

And I knew exactly how I was going to give it to her.

“I want you to strip off your clothes and stand by the bed, understand?” I said, voice harsher than I’d intended, but the lust coursing through me had me almost shaking. Hanging on to my own control wasn’t going to be easy, but I knew how good it was going to be, how damn perfect Willa was going to be.

She blinked up at me, then nodded.

I stepped back and tilted my head to the bed. “I need to get something from downstairs. Make sure you’re naked by the time I get back.”

Willa shivered, and sinking her teeth into her bottom lip, nodded again.

I strode out, my heart racing a mile a minute, my cock so hard at the thought of what I was going to do to her, I was struggling to control my breathing. I rushed down to my place, got what I needed, and headed back.

The door to her room was ajar when I got back, just a small gap, and my pulse raced faster as I pushed it open.

Fuck. She was gorgeous.

Willa stood by the bed like I’d asked her to. Completely naked. Her lips were puffy from her biting them, her eyes wide, chest rising and falling with her panted breaths, making her tits jiggle.

“Turn around for me,” I demanded, voice guttural.

She did without protest, giving me a look at the rear view. Christ, I loved her ass. It was pert and perfectly round, a perfect peach. Enough to overflow my hands.

“Face me again.” She did what she was told and I yanked off my shirt, flinging it aside, and crooked my finger at her. “Come here.”

Her lips parted with her indrawn breath, and as soon as she was standing right in front of me, I slid my fingers in her hair, fisted lightly, and took her mouth in a hard, bruising kiss, gripping one of her tits while I did it. That warm, smooth flesh was the perfect handful, her tight little nipple pressing into my palm.

I tilted her head back farther and thrust my tongue in her sweet mouth, a wet hungry kiss that drove us both insane and had Willa trying to move closer, trying to rub her bare pussy against the fucking near obscene bulge of my aching cock through my jeans.

I stepped back and she whimpered.

I dragged my mouth up the side of her slender throat. “You’ll get my cock when I say so and not before.”

Usually, when I took control, Willa still played, smirked and pushed me. Not tonight. Tonight, she nodded, eyes so sexy and heavy with lust, it was a struggle not to reach down and start tugging on my dick.

“Spread wider for me,” I said, and she did as I asked. “You aching, beautiful?”

“Yes.”

I glanced down and bit back a moan. Her inner thighs were slick. “Fuck, baby, I can see how much you need it.”

“Yes, I need it. Now, Jude, I need you now,” she said, voice shaky.

I made a tutting sound. “I promised to make you come so many times you couldn’t think anymore, and you know I always keep my word.” I circled one of her nipples lightly, in a way I knew would make her insane, would make her desperate for more.

Her stomach trembled. “Jude. Please…”

I grabbed the fleshy underside of her tit, lifting it as I lowered my head, sucking as much of it into my mouth as I could, pressing that hard nipple to the roof of my mouth with my tongue and tugged.

Willa’s fingers thrust into my hair and she moaned. Best sound I ever heard. I did the same to the other side, playing with the one not in my mouth while I sucked her nice and deep.

She cursed and tried to squeeze her legs together.

I shoved my knee between hers, stopping her from getting the pressure she needed, the relief, and kissed the frustrated whimpers from her lips. “Keep your legs apart,” I said against her puffy lips, and slid my hand over her trembling belly. I circled her belly button, not going any lower. “You can’t wait any longer?”

“No,” she said, head jerking from side to side, skin flushed.

I swallowed the boulder in my throat. The way she was looking at me, like she would die if I didn’t touch her, like I was the only one that could give this to her. It nearly did me in.

Yeah, no fucking way could I delay this any longer, not with her pleading eyes damn near begging me to touch her. I dropped my hand lower, cupping her pussy in a possessive hold, giving her the pressure she was craving. Fuck, she was wet. She jerked, her hands coming down on my shoulders to steady herself, a cry bursting past her lips.

“More,” I rasped.

She nodded frantically.

I spread her pussy and dipped my middle finger between her slick lips, tracing her delicate folds, spreading her juices, purposely avoiding her clit, her tight little opening.

Her whole body was shaking now.

I shoved my fingers back in her hair and tilted her head up to me, making her back arch and her tits thrust out. She was right there, right on the edge, and the minute I touched her where she wanted me most, she was going to go off in my arms. “You’re so wet, sweetheart, so ready for my hard cock, aren’t you?”

“Yes, God, yes.”

I dipped my finger into her hungry opening, just to the first knuckle, and hissed at the way she bucked against me. She had surrendered to me, had surrendered her body over to me in a way she never had before, and it was the most exquisite thing I’d ever experienced.

“You’re perfect,” I said through the lust choking me. “So fucking perfect.” Then I dipped my head, sucking a hard, peaked nipple into my mouth, as I pushed my finger into her tight pussy as deep as it would go.

She arched harder against my hold, crying out, and started coming for me. I hadn’t even touched her clit, had barely moved my finger, and her pussy contracted around the digit wildly. My woman. The words swam around my head. She was mine, and she was coming for me so fucking sweetly.

The pulsing slowed, so I pressed my thumb down on her clit, and started finger fucking her. She bucked. I covered her mouth with mine, swallowing her cries as she went off again, her pussy clutching and releasing me with renewed strength.

Finally, she collapsed against me and I scooped her up and carried her to the bed, laying her down. She blinked up at me as I straddled her waist, a sexy as hell expression on her face. I grinned as I reached back and pulled my surprise from my back pocket.

Her eyes widened when she saw my cuffs.

I wasn’t going to do anything she didn’t want, no matter how hot the idea of seeing her cuffed to the bed and at the mercy of my mouth, and my cock, was. It was only hot if Willa was just as excited.

“You don’t want this, I’ll put them away and carry on with my plan to fuck you into the mattress. Either way works for me,” I said, and I meant it. Everything worked for me when I was with her.

She licked her lower lip, her eyes moving between mine and the cuffs dangling from my fingers.

A smirk curled her lips. “Have you cuffed a lot of women to their beds?”

She said it lightly, but I could tell the idea of me with another woman didn’t sit well with her, and I was a bastard because I was pleased as hell about it, about any emotional response from this woman, that might mean she cared, no matter how small.

I shook my head. “Never.”

What I was asking took a lot of trust. Shit, it took total trust, not something that came easy to Willa. The idea of seeing her in nothing but handcuffs was hot, and it took the control she craved from me one step farther, but I realized it was also a kind of test. I wanted that level of trust from her in a bad way. I’d been patient with her, waiting and hoping she’d give me more of her, so much more.

I held my breath, waiting for her answer.

And released it when she nodded slowly, then lifted her hands, pressed together, wrist up, holding them out for me.

“Cuff me, officer,” she said.

Did she have any idea what she’d just done? Any idea what this meant?

How much it meant to me?

I opened the bedside drawer and pulled out the tank she liked to sleep in, wrapping it around her wrists. The fabric would protect her skin if she tugged on the cuffs. I clicked the first one in place, not making it too tight then, keeping her wrists together, lifted her hands over her head, threaded the second cuff through the wrought iron headboard, and secured it around her other wrist.

I ran my hands down her slender arms. “All right?”

Her chest was rising and falling rapidly. “Yes.”

I let my gaze move over her naked body, loving the way she squirmed, the way her nipples tightened, how her thighs squeezed together. I gently cupped her jaw and kissed her sweet mouth, over her chin, her throat, working my way down. I sucked on the tender skin between her neck and shoulder. A spot where she was extra sensitive, and I loved the way she moaned softly when I took my time there.

I worked her tits over again, grinning when I heard the clink of metal on metal, the curse that followed. She tried to arch up, silently asking me to suck harder.

“More,” I muttered against her skin.

“Yes, more…please.”

I trailed my hand down between her legs again. “You want me down here, beautiful?”

Her legs spread for me instantly. “God, yes.”

I wanted it too, in a bad fucking way. Settling between her thighs, I sucked and licked her inner thighs, her scent filling my head, making my mouth water. Nothing, no one, tasted as good as Willa. I’d eat her morning, noon, and night if I could.

“Love this perfect little pussy,” I said. “Can’t get enough of it. If I’m not touching, feasting, or fucking it, I’m thinking about it, what I want to do when I have you under me again. How many ways I can make you scream my name.” I dipped my head and sucked her clit between my lips softly; not enough to make her come, which wouldn’t be hard after already getting her off twice, but enough to make her desperate for more. Make her beg for it.

“You think about me, beautiful? When I’m not in your bed?” I shouldn’t have asked. I was pushing for something from her I wasn’t sure she was willing to give, trust or not, but yeah, I wanted her to want me, need me, as much as I did her.

I spread her with my fingers and traced the inner lips of her pussy, then leaned in and lapped at her opening, again only enough to tease.

She was panting hard, and I noticed, still hadn’t answered my question.

I sucked her clit back into my mouth again, harder this time, but not hard enough. “Answer me.”

I kept my eyes on her, as she thrashed. “Yes,” she gasped. “Yes, I think about you.”

Another suck and lick of her slick clit, but softer this time. “Yeah?”

Her thighs started to shake, her belly quivering. “Yes,” she said louder. “I think about you all the time. I think about you when…when I’m…” She bit her lip, cutting herself off. “Ahhh, a lot.”

She was keeping things from me, things I didn’t have a right to demand from her, but this, this was about me, and I wasn’t going to let it go.

“That wasn’t what you were going to say, was it, Willa?” I lapped at her opening again, keeping her spread wide for my mouth, my tongue. “When, Willa? Tell me.”

She shook her head, hair wild on the pillow. “Please, Jude.”

“I’ll let you come when you tell me what I want to know.” I circled her clit, not giving her what she needed, watching her while I did it. She was flushed, tits shaking with each panted breath, as close to the edge as you could be. Spectacular.

I didn’t know how much more I could hold off. I was so fucking hard, desperate to get inside her, but I wanted—no, needed—this from her. I pushed two fingers inside her, not deep, just enough that she felt the stretch. “Willa,” I said, voice hard. “Answer me.”

Sweat slicked her skin and she shook harder. “I think of you when I’m…when I’m dancing. When I’m on stage. I’m…I’m dancing for you. In my head, I’m dancing only for you.”

Jesus. Fucking. Christ.

“Were you thinking of me that first time, your first dance?”

“Yes.”

Fuck waiting. I reared up, yanked my jeans open, freeing my cock. It sprang free, thick and long, and now, thanks to Willa’s confession, leaking precum like a tap. Tearing a condom from my wallet, I rolled it on and came down on top of her.

“Because you were honest with me, I’m going to reward you, beautiful.” I dragged my cock along her slit. Her legs came around my hips and she tried to grind up against me.

“I need you inside me. Now,” she said, so lost in her need, I doubted she fully understood what her confession meant.

My cock, the hungry bastard, found its way to her opening all on its own, and I was lost.

“Don’t scream,” I managed before I slammed up inside her.

Her head jerked to the side and she bit down on the bunched-up duvet, a muffled sound bursting from her as I filled her hard and fast, and I kept up the brutal pace, my balls slapping her ass, my cock driving in deeper with every thrust.

I kissed and sucked her shoulder, her neck, her jaw, then finally lifted up on my hands and stared down at her when I slammed in again. Her eyes were screwed shut, her smaller body jolting every time I fucked into her. “Too much?” I gritted out.

Her eyes popped open, wide, her lips parting.

She started coming again.

Her tight pussy clamped down on me hard, squeezing and releasing my cock in a way that was so intense, there was no way I could hold off my own release.

I dropped back down and buried my face against her throat, slid in deep one last time, and groaned against her smooth skin as I shot hot and so damn hard I shook.

Christ, I shook all the way down to my soul.