She’d thought he’d move them — perhaps pour her some wine, seat her on the couch, and begin telling her a story like it was past her bedtime already.

No.

Blake, it turned out, didn’t operate like that.

Blake slid a hand into her hair, gripped her tight, and stared into her eyes with a sudden intensity that made her stomach coil and her legs go weak.

“I would have fucked you in my office,” he said. The blunt statement raked invisible fingernails down Elle’s spine. Blake bent his head, his lips now less than an inch from hers.

His body was still flush with hers, hard and hot and pulsing with an energy that her own body slowly began to mimic.

“But then it would have been over so soon. Too soon.” He grabbed hold of her chin, gripping her hard.

A tiny worm of panic burrowed into Elle’s spine and began working its way up. What had triggered this sudden change in the man? Had he really been trying so hard to keep himself at bay? Had it just taken her bumping into him to set him off? Or had it been her, saying she was leaving? Him, realizing he had one last chance to make her stay?

“I don’t just fuck to get off. I can do that easily enough myself. You’d know that about me, if you knew me.” He ran the pad of his thumb over her bottom lip, using the grip on her hair to draw her head back a little. Tipping her face up. He touched his lips to hers, but for less than a second before drawing back.

“For me, it’s about the whole experience. Foreplay. Afterglow. Whatever you want to call it.”

Elle’s eyes fluttered closed. She couldn’t take it — looking into his dark eyes. Her body was starting to come alive beneath him, thrumming in places where she couldn’t remember feeling alive in a very long time.

“What were you going to do then? If you weren’t going to—” Elle had to force the word out “—fuck me at the shop?”

Blake’s hand disappeared from her chin. He grabbed her breast, hard and unexpectedly, through the soft sweater molded over it. Elle’s eyes flashed open as she moaned — half in surprise, half in pleasure. Blake’s nostrils flared at that sound, and he ground into her until the air left her lungs and her shoulder blades dug into the wall behind her.

That hand dragged down, scraping over her skin, building up folds of soft fabric that sprang back a second later.

“I brought you back here, of course. Where there’s a couch.” His mouth moved to her ear. “My bed.”

Elle tried to suppress a shiver, failed. Her hands, still around his neck, tightened reflexively as she dug her fingertips into his hair.

God, why wouldn’t he kiss her? Her lips tingled furiously, longing for him to end their expectant suffering. But instead, he hovered by her ear, that rough, grating voice stirring a few strands of hair against her lobe.

“All the better to fuck you on, a bed.”

A fingertip disappeared behind the waistband of her sweats. Elle went rigid, her eyes flashing open.

Black watched her, a small smile on his mouth. “Because I planned to fuck you hard, sweetheart.” Another finger, teasing the smooth skin above her pubic bone. “Hard and relentless.”

He twisted his wrist, his palm now flat against her belly. His hand slid down, his fingertips approaching her clit with the speed and urgency of a ferry.

“Until you beg me to stop.” He teased the small patch of curls — damp and warm — sending a slow thrill through her.

“Don’t stop,” Elle murmured. She was struggling to keep her eyes open. They wanted to close, wanted to let her lose herself in this erotic slice of time that she hoped would last forever. She’d meant what she’d said, earlier; she didn’t know this man. Had never met him before today. But she was drawn to him, just like he seemed drawn to her. For him, perhaps because he recognized her pain, the torture-cage her mind had been trapped in the past few months. For her… because he gave her hope. That there was an end to the misery, somewhere along the line. And end to the unfailing mantra of self-criticism spilling into her mind night after night. Questions of, ‘was it me?’, ‘did I do something wrong?’

Three fingertips dragged over her clit. Elle gasped, her eyes finally falling closed. Blake drew his hand down, cupping her, squeezing her hard. She went onto her tiptoes, her head digging into the wall behind her as she bucked into Blake’s body.

She felt him respond, felt his dick hardening in his jeans. And that made her own body begin a faint, internal quivering.

One finger dipped inside her, popping out almost immediately.

Testing her.

Feeling if she was ready.

Ready for him to fuck.