“It's kind of cruel of you to wake me up so early,” I whisper softly, curling my toes when Mateo lifts his gaze from the hallway floor. It’s 4:30 am, and I had just dozed off to sleep when my doorbell rang. I considered not answering it—I’m tired as hell and work had kicked my ass so hard tonight that I hadn’t even eaten dinner—but then my phone vibrated beneath my pillow. Groggily, I’d pulled it out to find three words. Answer your door. I hadn't bothered to pull on pants, but I'm regretting that decision now.

Mateo scans his brown eyes over my body, starting at my messy hair and ending at my bare toes. On the way back up, he pauses briefly on my oversized tee shirt, his irises darkening as they roam over the outline of my breasts through the flimsy white material. I hug my arms over my chest, and he smirks before returning his focus to my eyes.

“I thought you said you wouldn’t be back until later today.” I take a step backward into my apartment, then another, my heart pounding more wildly with each move because he follows me.

“Cruel?” he demands at last, choosing to focus on my first statement. Reaching out a moment after my ass bumps into the back of my couch, he digs his fingers into the fabric of my tee shirt and yanks me to him. One of his hands dances at my waist and the other on my hip. “Cruel was that massage you gave me before I left, Flowerbomb. Cruel was that picture you sent me the other night.”

I bite the inside of my cheek. Given that this thing between us started thanks to a picture, sending him the photo of me after going out to karaoke with a few of my friends from work was risqué. I had come home on an emotional high from spending the night singing and dancing and when I read the sexy messages he sent while I was out, something inside me ignited. I’d snapped the picture—of my blouse pushed up around my belly button and my hand wedged between my thighs—without thinking, and he had responded almost immediately, calling me, rasping in my ear that he wanted me to spread myself for him.

To sing his name.

Clearing my throat, I lift a shoulder. “The massage was three weeks ago,” I point out, and my breath hitches as one of his fingertips traces the outline of my belly button. “I thought you would have gotten over it by now.”

“I’m a lawyer, beautiful, we don’t get over a goddamn thing.”

I laugh, but it’s short-lived. He strokes his hand from my belly button to the valley of my breasts—over my collarbone and the base of my throat—before brushing his fingertips over my cheek. I swallow the tangle of emotion in my throat as he skims my temple and the curve of my lips and the tip of my nose, his touch leaving behind a path of electricity. “I had to see you,” he admits.

“And now that you have do you plan to go home and sleep?” I ask but it’s a silly, silly question, and my body comes alive with eagerness. We’ve spent the last three weeks apart, and while part of me had prayed my desire for him would weaken, that proved not to be the case. He wouldn’t let it. He’s reminded me daily of what he wants from me, and I’m damn near on fire when he cradles my face between his hands and lowers his mouth close enough for our breaths to mingle.

“Te deseo,” he says.

I want him too. I settle my palms on his chest, my fingers tensing when his heartbeat picks up speed beneath my hands. “And if I ask you to leave so I can go back to sleep?”

He shakes his forehead against mine, his short dark hair rubbing my skin, bringing to mind the memory of it skimming the insides of my thighs as his tongue lapped greedily at my clit a month ago. “No, Jamila. Puedes dormir, pero solo cuando hayamos terminado.”

You can sleep but not until we’re done.

He picks me up, settling me on the top of the sofa behind us. I had left the remote to my MP3 dock there yesterday, and when the end of “You Can Do It” blares from the speakers across the room, Mateo jerks back and cocks his brows. “Ice Cube?”

“Save the Last Dance,” I explain as the song transitions to my favorite from the soundtrack—“Murder She Wrote.” I shrug and flick my tongue over the corner of my lip. “Don’t look at me like that, I swear I saw it and Cruel Intentions about a hundred times while they were still in the theater.”

“Save the Last Dance and Cruel Intentions. Your taste in movies is very, very eclectic,” he teases, grabbing the remote from beneath my ass. He powers off the music, tosses the remote to the couch cushion below, then gives me a wicked look. “Now … I believe we were”—he wraps my legs tightly around his waist, nestling his hard length against me—“right here.”

I reach between us, squeezing my fingers around him and he groans. “Right here?”

“Right. Fucking. Here.” His mouth finally lowers to mine, his tongue pushing out to coax my lips apart. “You taste sweet,” he growls. I lick his bottom lip, and he winces. “Do that again.”

So I do. He responds by leaning into me and stroking my tongue with his. He tastes like an intoxicating mixture of his drink of choice—whiskey—and mint, and I feel drunk as he explores my mouth, drawing me into him and demanding more.

I sink my nails into his broad shoulders and an animalistic sound tears from the back of his throat that makes my blood sing. He’s breathless when our mouths break and he takes a moment to slow the harsh rise and fall of his chest before he trails a heated path from the corner of my mouth and over my cheekbone. Stopping at my earlobe, he sucks the delicate flesh between his teeth.

I cry out.

“I want to make you come,” he says.

“What about yourself?”

“That will happen,” he says in a voice that drenches the room in a sensual haze. “But first I want to hear you scream my name.”

There’s a part of me that wants to continue teasing him, to remind him that just the other night he promised to fuck me so good I wouldn’t be able to talk, but I’m too tired to argue. If he’s what he says he is—and I already know I won’t be disappointed because I’m well-acquainted with his tongue—I know that I won’t get a moment of sleep. I nod my head against his and drape my arms around his shoulders.

“My bedroom’s right down the hall.”

His fingers slide between my ass and the sofa, and he lifts me to him, rubbing the pads of his thumbs in slow circles over my hips. “Stop yawning, Jamila,” he warns. “I haven’t even given you anything to yawn about yet.”

“Puedes dormir, pero solo cuando hayamos terminado,” I say, repeating his promise that he’ll let me sleep. “Or did you forget about that?”

“I didn’t forget a damn thing. You just failed to pick up on the most important part of what I said—you can sleep when we’re done.”

Noted. By both my body and my mind.

My apartment is a mere fraction of the size of his palatial home, so he finds my bedroom almost immediately. Lowering me to my feet in front of my bed, his amber brown eyes linger on mine. “You didn’t even stop to look at the closet door,” I point out, yanking the center of my lip between my teeth. “Remember, you asked to see it the first time we—”

“I don’t give a fuck about a red door right now,” he growls. “I just want to feel you, warm and tight and wet.”

He watches the range of emotions that travels over my features closely, and when a shudder jolts through me, he reaches out to me. He grips the curve of one of my hips possessively, and his other hand stokes a curl falling just above the swell of my breast. Slowly, he twists the lock of hair around two of his fingers. Once he reaches the nape of my neck, he releases it, allowing it to tumble over my shoulder.

His fingers follow.

I draw in a breath when his knuckles glide from my shoulder blade to my breast. Strings wrap around my ribcage and squeeze until my heart feels as if it will explode when he turns his hand over and slips it beneath my breast, weighing it as his thumb circles my nipple and my skin tingles beneath his touch. “I hate foreplay,” I growl, but he rolls my nipple between his thumb and forefinger. The blood is pounding so fiercely in my ears that I miss his exact next words, but when I make out the phrase “better when you’re soaking wet,” my thighs clench together.

“You talk dirty,” I whisper, my head lolling back because he’s moved his attention to my other breast. My legs are shaking—hell, who am I kidding? The entire room seems to be shaking around me—and I’m grateful that his other hand is still on my hip, steadying me. “You talk so dirty, Bailon.”

“Do you want me to whisper sweet nothings instead?” he demands through his teeth, dragging his hand from my chest. He grasps a handful of my tee shirt, pulling it up slightly until it’s just above my belly button. “Or would you rather me tell you the truth? That I want you throbbing around my cock and I want it any way I can get it. That I—”

I cut him off, crashing my body into his and rising on my toes to kill his words. The kiss is frantic, an explosion of tongues and lips, and I’m dizzy and breathless when he lifts his head. A confident grin tickles the edges of his lips and he mouths, That’s what I thought. Then, he hauls my shirt over my head, tossing it over his shoulder. It lands on my dresser, toppling over something that I couldn’t give a damn about right now because his eyes are drinking me in like I’m his first taste of water.

His first taste of air.

“You’re perfect.” He touches both thumbs to the line of my black panties then traces them apart slowly, his fingers rough against my flesh. “So perfect and soft all over.”

I tremble as his hand dips under the lace, his fingertips testing my wetness. When he pulls them out, he licks the tip of his index finger, and I swear I’m close to melting. To evaporating. He starts to repeat, reaching toward my center again, but I close my fingers around his wrist. He jerks his brown eyes up to mine, narrowing them.

“Mateo,” I start, but he shakes his head.

“Let me touch you, Jamila. Just … let me touch you.”

I nod, unable to drag my eyes from him, as he kneels to the floor in front of me. Cupping my hip with one hand to keep me from collapsing, he buries his face between my thighs and whispers something incoherent against my skin.

“What?” I rasp. “What did you say?”

“Goose bumps.” He skims the tip of his tongue over my hipbone, and I buck against him. I thread my fingers through his short black hair and give it a sharp tug. He grits his teeth, but he doesn’t complain. Instead, he says. “I said you have goose bumps everywhere. Tienes miedo?”

There is nothing more erotic than hearing him speak to me in Spanish, but I am terrified. So scared that this man will make me explode into a million pieces that can’t be put back together. “No,” I lie even though my heart is on the edge of bursting out of my chest when he inches his long fingers beneath my panties again. He palms my sex, nudging his hand back and forth. My legs spread further apart, and I grip his hair harder. He retaliates by pushing one finger—the middle one—deep inside of me.

“Fuck you, Jamila, that hurt.”

“Fuck me?” I groan as he pumps into me. “No, Mateo, fuck you.”

“And you say I talk dirty,” he teases, sliding in a second finger and causing another cry to break past my lips. “Do you want me to stop?”

I nod. Shake my head. Release a sob. He grins up at me, driving both fingers roughly into my pussy until my thighs quake and I’m jerking at his hair so firmly his gaze has nowhere to go but up to mine.

“Mateo,” I moan, and he presses my clit with his thumb. He nudges it around slowly, in teasing figure eights, and my knees buckle. I can’t get enough of him. I can’t get enough of his touch on my body—his warm breath and fingertips on my sex, the friction of his black hair against the insides of my thighs. It’s chaos and beauty and there’s a hum already resonating in my core.

“Mateo…”

“No talking until you come.”

“What happened to wanting to hear your name?” I demand, and he slaps my ass hard, the sound a harsh crack in the silence.

“I swear you just got even wetter,” he groans and taps my ass again. “Fuck, this is so good. So … right.” He hooks one hand behind my knee and brings us both tumbling down to my bed. Replacing his fingers with his mouth, he sucks hungrily at my clit. Circles his tongue around the opening of my sex. Then repeats. I make noises I didn’t know were possible as my hips lift to meet his mouth, and his fingers splay on my thighs, holding my legs wide apart.

I fall fast.

Without apologies.

The orgasm burns a path through my body, and I call his name—over and over and over—as I grasp his shoulder and the rumpled sheets.

His clothes are off before I can string together a coherent sentence and the condom is in place before I can lift my head from the mattress. He rolls me over onto my stomach, pressing his hand into the base of my spine so that my ass is high. “What are you doing?” I demand when I feel slim leather trailing down my inner arm, and I look over my shoulder to see him grinning down at me as he tightens his belt around my wrists.

“Ow,” I drawl dramatically, and he gives my ass a swat with the end of the leather. A new wave of desire shoots through me. “Do you plan to—” He gives the belt a slight pull, and I gasp as my shoulder blades arch together. The sensation is deliciously confusing—a sting infused with sheer pleasure. A moan falls from the back of my throat and I squeeze my eyes shut. “Oh, my God.”

Wrapping the tail of the belt around one hand, he strokes his erection with the other, guiding the head to my clit. “I wanted to take this slow.” He moves himself higher, toward my sex. I wiggle against him, and he lets out a strained chuckle. “Shit, I wanted to take it so slow with you.” He pulls on the belt as he thrusts inside me, and I bury my face in my pillow to drown out the sounds clawing from the back of my throat as my shoulder blades curve and my sex spasms. “But I can’t seem to stop myself when I’m with you.”

He fills me.

Pushes my body to limits it’s never reached.

He moves against me, his strokes hard and frenzied, the twitch of his fingers around the belt deliberately timed.

When I climax again, he loosens the belt quickly and flips me to my back. The leather is still in my hands, and his eyes widen slightly when I reach up to drape it over the back of his neck. Holding both ends, I jerk him to me until his mouth meshes with mine. He frames my face in one hand and massages my hip with the other. He whispers to me—sweet, filthy promises in both English and Spanish. Says my name. Asks me what I’m doing to him. Then, with four hard thrusts, he releases with my name on his lips.

Spoken like a curse.