Oh, fuck.

Tessa wishes she could clamp her traitorous mouth shut and never open it again. She watches Dash blink several times, rapidly, and then a subtle movement of his hand reaching up to his bicep and pinching the skin hard.

“Seriously?” she asks.

Dash opens his mouth, but no words come out. He’s looking at Tessa like he’s not entirely convinced that she’s real, and she can feel the heat rising in her neck, making her want to hide her face.

The elevator dings and she turns away from Dash, quickly walking out and making a beeline down the hallway to her room. She hears Dash’s muffled footsteps following her, and before she can turn, he has her by the small of the back and he’s pushing her toward his room. And she goes. She doesn’t even try to resist because the feeling of his hand on her back is enough to make her weak at the knees.

The moment he closes the door, Dash is on Tessa, pressing her against the wood. She can feel every inch of him against her body, and she wants to push herself closer, but there’s no space between them. If this were any other man, she would be afraid to have him looking down at her with the intensity that Dash has in his eyes. But all she feels like right now is a roar of flames igniting her insides.

“You love me?” he asks. His voice is all awe and confusion.

Tessa feels her shoulders rising with the sudden, irrational desire to hide her face. “Yes, Dash. I love you.”

“Tess…” he says, all rough and quiet like he’s afraid too much noise will break the bubble that they’re in.

“I don’t think you’re only good for sex,” Tessa tells him because, after the conversation she’d overheard, she thinks that he needs to hear it at least once. “But that seems to be all you want from me—”

“No!” Dash says. Their lips are so close that it wouldn’t take any effort at all for her to lean up and kiss him. He reaches up to play with a loose curl that has fallen out of Tessa’s intricate bun. “No, I don’t just want that.”

“But you don’t want things to change?”

“I… yes. And no. I want you, just like you want me. I’m completely in love with you, too. I swear it.” Tessa feels a swoop in her stomach at his words. “Sex is… well, I’m good at it, you know? It’s easier to just sleep with you, and be your friend than try to be good enough for you. Because I know that I never will be, and I don’t want to lose you when you figure that out.”

Not good enough, she thinks because it’s been so much drama and crap when they could have easily just talked it out like adults. Is she willing to cut him some slack? Is the precedent of Black Lilith fucking up, enough to get him a pass and a scolding instead of flat rejection?

“The best things aren’t easy,” Tessa tells him. She leans up so close that her lips are brushing his as she speaks her next words, “But they are worth it.”

It’s Dash who closes the distance. It’s Dash who takes her by the back of her head, and guides her mouth to his, enjoying the feeling of their lips and tongues moving together, before quickly taking control of the kiss to the point where all Tessa can do is curl her fingers into his shirt sleeves and hold on for dear life.

He grinds against her, and Tessa can feel the delicious size of him pressed up against her pussy. And all she can think about is getting him into bed and out of those clothes. Even after assuring him that sex is not all she needs from him, right now it’s the only thing on her mind.

“Dash,” she mutters, gasping out the word when he lets up enough for her to move her lips. “Dash, should we keep talking or—”

“Fuck the talking. Later,” he mumbles. She opens her eyes and sees that he has his own eyes closed like he’s savoring her. “Later, I promise. Right now—”

“Right now,” she agrees.

And then he’s kissing her again, with even more frenzy. There’s a possessive streak to the way he’s holding her, pulling her closer as though he wants to erase the taste of other men from her lips. Tessa can barely even remember her own name, much less the name of the man she’d kissed earlier.

The only thing in her mind is, Dash, Dash, Dash.

“Take me over to that bed right now,” she says.

Dash doesn’t need to be told twice. He releases her head and reaches down to pick her up by the waist, tossing her across to the mattress with as much ease as if she’d weighed the same as a book. He rips his shirt over his shoulders, and she almost dies. Scooting backward, she admires the trail of hair that runs down his abs and the way his well-muscled chest heaves when he looks down at her. He’s a wall of muscle like she always pictured he would be in person. But there’s a comfortable layer of softness all over him.

 “Tell me you love me,” she says.

Dash crawls over her legs and looks up at her with a wicked grin. “I love you.”

“Now, tell me you were wrong to turn me down,” Tess says biting her lip. Knowing damn well she’s pushing it, but couldn’t give two fucks.

“So wrong,” he agrees, smiling back on the verge of a laugh.

He pushes the leg of her jeans up and kisses her exposed ankles, the left and the right, alternating between each side before biting down on her ankle. Tessa closes her eyes and leans back on the bed, letting her head fall on the pillow and become completely focused on the delicious sting. He’s then reaching up to unbutton her jeans, and she simply raises to help him work them off, along with her G-string. She’s not even a little bit self-conscious when she feels the cool air on her completely exposed lower half. It’s nothing he hasn’t seen—and praised—before.

Dash presses his lips to Tessa’s thighs, alternating between both legs.

“You’re only mine, right?” he asks. To anyone else it might be dirty-talk, but Tessa can hear the brief edge of vulnerability to his tone. He wants assurance.

“Only yours,” she moans.

“Good answer,” he replies without hesitation.

He presses his lips to her thighs again focussing on her completely, kissing the parts of her that now belong to him and him alone.

Tessa pushes herself up to her elbows and runs a hand through his hair. Just to let him know that she’s there and she’s enjoying what he’s doing. At her touch, Dash shivers. He licks his way up her thigh, right up to the edge of her hip.

“Wait here,” he says.

And Tessa obeys, even when he gets up off of the bed and walks over to his bag. He rifles through it for a moment and then returns with another, smaller bag. He dumps its contents onto the bed.

Tessa shies away. “Did you buy that stuff just for me?” she asks.

“Yes, and I plan on using them all with you when you’re ready,” Dash says. Confidence is clear in his voice. “Do you trust me?”

He kisses her knee, and the movement is so soft that Tessa feels like melting.

She tries not to let the fear she feels show on her face as she answers, “Sure.” Tessa has this miniature feeling that Dash hides behind these toys as a façade.

But if Dash needs to fall back on what he thinks he’s good at, then Tessa will let him. Hell, it might be fun for now. But eventually, he will have to drop the mask and the scripts and show her the real Dash Todd. But maybe he’s not ready for that yet.

But if he loves me he will be soon…

And then Tessa is barely thinking at all because Dash is leaning up to kiss her and pressing the vibrator against her at the same time. She’s so wet that it slips right in, probably faster than he would have intended it to, and she gasps into his mouth as his kisses become rougher, greedier.

Dash leaves the toy inside of her. It starts vibrating, and it’s enough to set her hips lifting off of the bed. “Fuck! Dash…”

While the toy is inside of her, its extension is applying steady pressure to her clit, Dash reaches up with both hands to pull her shirt off. She raises her shoulders and arms eagerly, desperate to make this move faster. Her bra is gone before she even gets the chance to think about it. Dash sucks a nipple into his mouth and that, combined with the pressure on her clit, makes Tessa moan.

But it’s not enough.

More…

“You want more?” Dash asks. Tessa’s too messed up to wonder if she’d said it out loud. She just nods desperately.

Dash leans back on his knees and hoists her legs up around his hips. His jeans are tented with a huge bulge, and Tessa wants to demand that he get to work with that, but he seems fairly intent on going at his own pace and ignoring his own needs in favor of driving Tessa insane. He takes the vibrator and twists it inside of her, earning himself a long groan.

“Dash…” Tess moans. “I need you.”

“You’ve got me, baby. I’m right here.”

“No, Dash… I need you.”

His eyes flicker, then he shoves the toy forward, so it presses down hard on her clit. Tessa gasps. She’s aching for release, and she thinks that she probably looks like a mess—chest heaving, skin flushed, eyes rolled back, and pupils probably dilated to the size of saucers.

But if there’s one thing Tessa knows, it’s her own orgasms. She’s close, but this isn’t enough. The toy is too impersonal. She should have realized from the moment Dash slid it in her that it wouldn’t get her going the way that it should. The way that she knows he could if he’d just take her himself.

“Are you hiding behind that toy, Dash?”

“Baby, I don’t need to hide,” he says, scoffing. There’s an edge to his voice as he twists the toy again.

Fuckkkk!

“I’m not going to come like this.”

“Oh, challenge accepted,” he whispers biting down on her hip.

“I mean it, Dash. I want you. All of you.”

Dash seems to think about that. There’s a flicker of doubt behind his eyes and Tessa remembers that she’s already decided to just let him have his way. That if the sex-god persona was what he was comfortable with right now, then she should leave him to it. But in her daze, she’d just blurted out what she wanted.

Dash turns off the toy and pulls it out of her, making her gasp. Then he licks the toy with a wicked grin on his face and Tessa thinks that she might spontaneously combust.

“Jesus.”

“Dash, actually,” he replies. He leans over and kisses her neck, her collarbone, and the curve of her breasts. She reaches up to run a hand through his hair and tugs slightly. “I’m going to have to get you relaxed first, Tess.”

He’d seemed comfortable with the toy, with making her come on the railing during the show in Houston, but when he leans back to survey her, he looks less confident. Not necessarily out of place, though. It’s as though the veneer of his script and his plans for her have gone out the window, as though he’s dropping the act and he’s gone back to being her sweet Dash—or at least, her best friend who’s on the edge of going full sex-god. He looks like he’s hanging on the edge of his sanity as he looks down at her, but there’s still a tiny sliver of concern in his eyes. He even chews his lip a little as he tosses the toy to the bottom of the bed, and hoists her hips up again so she can wrap her legs around him.

 “Dash, I need you so bad right now,” she says.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Then fuck me. Not having you inside me right now is hurting!”

Dash just shakes his head at her. He looks slightly in awe, as though he would never have expected her to say something like that. Though at this point what else is there to say?

“You’ll have me,” Dash says.

As he says ‘have,’ he presses his thumb to her clit and all Tessa can think is finally before her eyes roll back in her head and she’s gasping and writhing. Dash is not even moving his hand. He doesn’t need to. Her hips move of their own accord. The more he touches her, the more she wants. She wants to be enveloped in Dash, to be consumed by him, she wants to be as close to one as two people can get.

“Holy shit, Dash.”

Finally pressing in a finger, she squirms at the intrusion. It’s as though her body, recognizing the difference from the toy, is behaving differently now that it knows that Dash is the one filling her up. He pushes in and out of her, rubbing her with his thumb at the same time, watching her with such an intensity that she has half a mind to cover her breasts, she feels so exposed under his gaze.

“You’re tight,” he says. Like he’s in awe. “I didn’t… God. How long has it been, Tess?”

“Too long,” she moans. Her voice is thin and breathless. “It’s only been you since you messaged me that night, Dash…” she trails off when he reaches for hair and pulls with ferocity.

“I’m going to make you so ready for me, baby,” he growls into her neck. It’s like since she just told him he’s been the only one on her mind from that night, he’s switched to ultimate beast mode.

Yes, yes, yes.

“You’re going to be so stretched that you’re not going to feel anything but destroyed when I’m done with you.”

So that’s the issue, she thinks. He’s worried that he’ll be too big.

Tessa reaches up to run her hand absently over his arm, the only physical comfort she can offer when she’s feeling so good already.

“I’m well aware you have the Loch Ness Monster hidden in there somewhere, Dash. But if you don’t get him out right now I’m going to have to go get that vibrator.”