What the actual heck just happened?

Aria peered up at the giant man standing over her. Six-foot-two, shoulders like he was still quarterback of the Greenpea football team, short brown hair, and eyes warmer than her homemade, chocolate lava cake. He was the kindest, nicest, most generous and loving man she’d ever known, and right now, it sure felt as if she didn’t know him at all.

Previously, he’d looked at her as if she was something he’d like to devour, but look is all he’d ever done. Nathan Hendricks behaved respectfully at all times.

Until now.

Her nipples puckered under the wetness of his cum on her chest. He’d ejaculated on her.

Ejaculated on purpose.

Pulled her hair, spurted on her boobs, then frigging smeared it… That wasn’t normal, was it?

Her heart boomed and rattled beneath her ribcage. Not that she had much to gauge normal when it came to where or how men preferred to arrive.

She’d never been present at that type of occasion.

Nope. No ejaculating penises for her.

Not when she’d been holding out for a completely unattainable piece of male flesh ever since she’d hit puberty.

Nathan released his length, dropped his hands to his sides, and took a stumbling step backward. The veins still stood out along his arms and neck, as though he’d been lifting weights. It made him hotter if that was even possible. His aesthetic appeal had already been at a panty-melting level.

Hotter than noon on the back porch on the Fourth of July.

A rush of feelings hit her at once—spinning her head with glee.

This was frigging excellent.

So, so excellent.

He stared at her lying half naked on his bed, covered in his semen, and you know what? Whether she was experienced with sex or not, it was pretty darn clear these were the actions of a man feeling something for her.

She swallowed over a dry throat. Her pulse rushed louder. She’d thought she’d gotten everything all wrong. That her feelings hadn’t been reciprocated.

That he’d rejected her because he didn’t want her.

But this right here, the evidence she physically wore, told a different story. One where he couldn’t help himself.

One where he was desperate for her.

Where he wanted to imprint himself all over her body.

She smiled on the inside as he rubbed a hand over his bristled cheek. Her belly fluttered with a swarm of eager butterflies. He could have any girl he wanted.

But he was the only man she’d ever dreamed of. No one but him felt right.

He reached for the door and stepped out.

No. She bolted up. He couldn’t leave. Not now.

His cum wove a trail over her flesh. She glanced around for something to wipe with. The door opened again.

Nathan stepped inside, his expression unreadable, before he closed them back inside the room.

She released a relieved breath and remained quiet as he kneeled on the mattress beside her. Her pulse overtook her hearing. He pressed a damp towel to her chest and silently wiped her clean.

Her lower lip caught between her teeth.

He was too silent.

Too withdrawn.

He continued to drag the towel over her chest, wiping one breast then the other.

They both knew he didn’t need to clean her. But this didn’t feel like a simple act of hygiene, either.

He concentrated on her nipples. Until they were so hard and tight the touches sent sensations shooting to her middle.

Why was he being so quiet?

His thumb flicked through the cloth. She squeezed her thighs together, a hot flush bursting over her. Her whole vaginal region ached. Fiercely. From core to clit and back again, as if there was too much blood flow, too much heat.

“What are we going to do about this?” He met her gaze.

“About what?” Even her breath blew too hot between her lips.

“Do you think this bad behavior is okay?”

His eyes darkened. His face had a different look to it. The softness usually lightening his expression had morphed into something else. Something fierce and hungry. Something that made her pulse pick up speed and her skin shiver.

“Look at the dirty thing you made me do…” he said.

Made him do?

His voice wasn’t the same, either. Or the way he spoke. The friendly tone he always reserved for her had been replaced with silken accusation. “There’s only one way we can make this right.”

A knot formed in her stomach. She wanted to make things right and incredibly wrong at the same time.

But what if her actions pushed him away again?

That possibility hung over her like an axe, ready to sever her in two.

There was no way she could let him go. She couldn’t even take a step back.

He dropped the cloth to the floor and returned his focus to her breasts.

“How?” She barely managed to form the response. Oh, lord. She squeezed her thighs harder. No amount of nervousness could turn off the way he made her feel. She’d soaked her underwear.

He smiled a smile she’d never seen. Purse lipped, without teeth. His attention rose slowly to her face. “You made me come on you. It’s only fair you come on me, too.”

Her lips parted. “What do you mean?”

Indeed, what in the hell could he mean?

The one who’d told her this was so bad.

So wrong.

“Exactly what I said.”

He reached for her leg and touched the back of her bent knee. A jolt rushed through her body.

“You’re going to come now, and you’re going to do it on me.”

She couldn’t catch a breath. Her chest seemed to seize. She’d snuck into his bed last night, hoping he’d make love to her. Except she’d expected something sweet and romantic. An experience that matched the tender way he looked at her and the deep, personal conversations they shared.

This, though…?

His hand moved up the back of her thigh. Her skin rippled with sensation. A dangerous look burned behind his eyes. A wickedness she hadn’t expected laced his touch. He oscillated her between thrill and apprehension in a way that had her not knowing whether she was supposed to be breathing in or out.

“How?” she whispered.

“How what?” He leaned closer, staring down at her as if maybe finally, freaking finally, he’d give her the kiss she’d been longing for.

“How would I come on you?”

“My preference?” He gave her another of those sinful smiles and slid his palms beneath her dress to hook his fingers in the waistband of her underwear. “On my face.”

Her breath caught. She pictured his head between her legs, and her insides clenched tight.

But he hadn’t even kissed her.

Not yet.

He tugged on her panties then slid them down her thighs, over her knees, and off her feet.

She shifted, dragging herself higher on the bed. Fleeing. Just a little.

He came after her on all fours until her back hit the headboard with a thump.

“Wait.” Her tongue snaked between her lips.

“Wait?” His eyes narrowed. He reached her, hand already snaking up her leg. “After all you’ve done, now you’re shy?”

She shook her head, needing him to understand, but the words clogged her throat.

She’d waited so long for him to notice her the way she’d noticed him. Then he’d come home. Been so attentive. They’d even spent yesterday painting swatches on the bedroom wall of his new house, for heaven’s sake.

He’d wiped paint from her cheek with his thumb, and his hand had lingered in place. He’d stared at her while she’d held her breath waiting for more. Waiting for anything. He’d suspended her feelings at a life-threatening height then left her hanging.

Then he’d retreated with the excuse of getting extra paint from another room. Only there was no more paint. Merely pain and longing, pressing down on her from every corner of the house.

The sting of rejection compelled her to climb into his bed last night. Naked. Because if she didn’t make a drastic move, Nathan never would.

But she’d never not been nervous.

Never not been shy about it.

She’d just done it anyway.

She cleared her throat. “I have a different suggestion.”

He paused, his scorching palm branding her thigh. “Is that right?”

Maybe he sensed the way she flooded harder at the thought of his face between her legs. But the accurate observation didn’t matter. When they fulfilled such an intimate act, he’d be kissing her and professing his feelings first.

It wouldn’t be like this. With half of him.

His body without his heart.

She attempted to keep her voice even. “I want to come on your hand.”

His eyes narrowed, an almost imperceptible move, and one thing became clear—her true, lovely Nathan wasn’t all here with her.

He hadn’t given in yet.

She listened to the thudding sound of her pulse. The thing was—she was all the freaking way in. The half of her who was shy and cautious. And the rest of her, too. The half who fingered herself madly every night to a photo of her stepbrother.

She just had to figure out exactly what held him back. Then break through it.

His brows relaxed, and he moved his hand to the inside of her thigh. “Don’t say I don’t give you what you want.”

Her stomach rose like a carnival ride. His fingertips brushed her folds. No, she’d never say such a thing.

He gave her everything.

“Aria…” His voice deepened. He trailed his fingertips through her slit. “How long have you been this wet?”

A flush of heat burned her neck. The truth? Did he really want to know? Or did he want a nice girl answer?

“Honestly, pretty consistently since you came home.”

His expression slacked for a moment. She watched him process her words. Wasn’t it what he expected to hear?

“That’s a wicked thing to tell your stepbrother.” He nestled closer and pushed a finger into her entrance. His thumb pressed her clit.

Putting your finger in your stepsister’s pussy was a wicked thing to do.

Tension gathered in her pelvis, creating a need to buck. Tension filled him, too. Another kind that bristled with resistance, and she wanted to smash it to pieces.

“Nathan, I did something bad.”

The ragged sound of his breathing paused. So did his touch. Excitement bubbled through her veins, almost catching up to the arousal.

Yes. Something told her she’d just moved him one foot closer to where she needed him to follow.

“What did you do?” He stared down at her, and his ministrations continued in lazy swirls.

Pleasure gathered in her sex. She pushed it down.

She’d take more than pleasure from him today. “Remember when you went out with the boys on Friday?”

He blinked. “Yes.”

His thumb rubbed. She twisted a little, shifting the pressure off center before she lost her mind. If she came, this would stop, and maybe there’d never be another chance to get this close to him again.

He hadn’t invited her to catch up with his school friends. Of course, he wouldn’t. There was no reason he shouldn’t catch up with his buddies alone.

But she’d burned that night all the same.

Burned to be with him.

Burned for him.

Burned not knowing what he’d do. A handsome, single man, out with the boys at a bar. She’d done something she shouldn’t have.

“You left me behind, and I was lonely for you.”

“What did you do?” His fingers retreated then sank home in quick succession.

A gasp flew from her lips. A blast of sensation streaked to her core. She squeezed her eyes shut in an effort to focus. “I went into your room.”

He flexed his finger high inside her. Stroked someplace that made her mind blur.

“And then?”

“That was the first time I went in your bed without my clothes on.”

He made a sound, a low, gruff, half growl, that kicked her arousal into overdrive. His finger pushed in her pussy with a squelching sound—she’d saturated him.

“What did you do there?”

Her tongue swiped her shivering lips. “I rolled around in your sheets and breathed your scent from your pillow.” Pleasure coiled tight. Focus. “I touched myself and writhed against your mattress until I came.”

“You rubbed your pussy on my mattress until you came?”

He withdrew from her. It was all she could do not to grab his wrist and force him back into action.

“Don’t tell me nasty stories like that,” he said.

She rolled to her side, bringing them eye-to-eye. If he didn’t kiss her, right now, she’d go mad. “It’s not a story. I came in your bed. Twice.”

He shivered, and the angry storm in his eyes dissipated. A gentle hand took her thigh and hooked her limb over his hip, drawing her aching sex against his pant-covered leg. “It’s okay. I know you’re just being sassy.”

He lowered his rough cheek to hers. His stubble sent electric prickles zinging over her flesh. She dragged her pussy on his thigh and pushed herself up hard against him. Her heavy boobs flattened against his chest. She clutched his waist.

Her real Nathan was here, hovering under the surface, waiting to be unleashed.

“You’re a good girl.” His voice was a hoarse whisper. “You’re a sweet, good girl.” He grabbed her backside, slowing her movements. “You’re just telling sassy stories.”

Her chest tightened. She did tell sassy stories. Only with him. She’d end every one of their telephone calls with a joke, and sometimes they were naughty. She wanted his rich, rumbling laugh to be the last thing she heard before she hung up and went to sleep.

But this wasn’t a story.

And she wouldn’t be his good, untouchable Aria one more moment.

“No, I came in your bed twice and made a mess all over my fingers.” Her hips struggled in his grip. The pressure of his thigh was bliss, but she needed to grind into him. “Then I wiped them on your pillow.”

He went dead still, hand gripping her ass cheek.

Her heart clenched, making her head spin.

Oh, darn. Maybe she’d pushed too hard with that last embellishment.

But right now, she’d go as far as it took to reach him.

He yanked her hips, giving her heavenly friction. “That’s a very naughty thing to do.”

He brought his nose to hers. His breath had a hint of the scotch he liked, and she breathed him in, getting a little intoxicated.

“So tell me you’re tricking. Tell me you’re a good girl, and I’m going to let you come on me. Then we’ll be even, and we can move on.”

His thigh pressed just right, the coarse fabric of his pants now soaked. The tension gathered.

“Tell me you’re a good girl, and everything can be as it was.”

Her chest deflated. She almost caved. If there were a choice between not having him at all or going back to pretending, she’d pretend if she had to. Because not having him at all…her sternum felt as if it might burst open at just the thought of it.

But he’d said they couldn’t go back. He’d said they were broken. Now he said they could…

She knew why.

He’d do anything to go back to resisting her. Now he couldn’t, there was no way she’d let him again. “No.”

She didn’t want to be his good girl. She wanted to be his real girl.

“No?” He pulled back and stared at her. “No, you’re not a good girl?”

“No, I’ve been really bad.” Her lungs tightened. She didn’t know where the next words came from; they just flowed instinctively. “I’m a very, very bad girl, Nathan.”

He released her backside and grabbed her by the chin. His eyes went smoky, the lust there palpable. “Do you know what happens to bad girls?”

Triumph washed over her. She’d gotten this part right.

“Yeah,” she whispered. Her nipples went tighter with the thrill. “They get in trouble.”

“Is that what you want?” His gaze bored into her. They were so close now, nose-to-nose. He was all the way here. “To get in trouble?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “I want to get in the biggest trouble you have.”