He couldn’t touch her. If he touched her he was going to crash the car. He knew it. But it was just about all he could do to keep his body from shaking with need.

He was just gonna have to walk her to the door and give her a quick kiss goodnight. He couldn’t handle any more temptation tonight.

And what the hell had she been doing at dinner tonight? She’d been tempting as hell. All those noises and all that sucking and her lips on everything. God. He’d been about to blow a blood vessel.

With Nat laughing at him across the kitchen the entire time.

Not that Eli cared. He didn’t care what anyone thought but Tia. And Tia was the one who’d said that they weren’t going to sleep together. So tonight he was going to walk her to her door and in the morning, when he was no longer a hopped-up sex maniac, he would call her and they’d talk about it. But he sure couldn’t talk about it tonight.

The car was vibrating with energy. Lust and tension was coming off of her in waves. And he was bouncing it right back. Was it his imagination or was her skirt sitting higher on her leg than it had been before? Had she pulled it up to tempt him?

God help him.

Eli gripped the steering wheel. He let out a deep breath. Well. Two could play that game. He widened his legs so that their length practically filled the space before him. Carefully, pointedly, Eli lifted his right hand from the steering wheel and floated it through the air.

He was quite vindicated when he saw her fidgeting stop stock-still. Until he landed his hand on the stick shift between them. Her eyes burned into it and he knew she was internally begging him to touch her. Well, it was gonna take more than that. He needed to know she was on the same page as he was.

He pulled into her driveway and flicked off the car, about to turn and ask her exactly what the hell was going on right now, when she unbuckled and flung herself toward him. Suddenly Eli found himself with an armful of vibrating, heated, panting Tia. He’d never been more surprised or more pleased in his entire life.

He wasn’t going to think about what was going to happen in ten minutes or in twenty. All he could think about was the slip of her hair through his hands. The heat of her where she straddled him. The silk of her thigh as he traced one palm up her leg.

Tia’s teeth clamped over his bottom lip and Eli’s body surged in response. He grasped her to him, hard and sure, wanting her as close as he possibly could have her. Even if they had all these pesky clothes between them.

“Inside,” she groaned into his mouth and for one insane second Eli thought she was asking him into her body. “Let’s go inside.”

Ah. That made more sense. He slid them out of the car with a surprising fluidity for someone carrying someone else. She slipped her key into his hand and he quickly unlocked the front door and had them inside in less than twenty seconds.

Ham waddled up, wagging a greeting, and Eli spared the little guy a quick pat on the head before his attention was once again fully centered on the warm, sinuous woman in his arms, pressing her heat into him for all she was worth.

Eli feared sitting down with her, because if he held her up in his arms, there was a time limit for how long he could do this. If he sat with her on the couch, they could continue this torture for hours and hours. He wasn’t sure whether he wanted that or not.

Yeah. He wanted it. He stepped toward her small living room, but Tia shook her head even as she kept kissing him.

“Bedroom,” she whispered against his lips. “Bedroom.”

He tore his mouth away from hers. “Tia.”

“Please,” she begged of him, her mouth clamping on his again.

He couldn’t deny her. Even against his better judgment. He couldn’t stop his feet from carrying her to the bedroom. The rollercoaster was off the tracks, they were both careening through the air, and Eli couldn’t bring himself to care. He wanted to be naked with her. He wanted to drown in her. He wanted to show her how into her he was, over and over again.

He fell backwards onto the bed and that was his fatal mistake. She used every bit of leverage she had to pin his shoulders down with one hand while wrestling with his belt with the other.

“Tia,” he said, trying to draw her mouth back to his, attempting to still her busy hands. But she wouldn’t be deterred.

She was on fire. Inside and out. She’d never wanted a man like this before. Her entire body balanced on the tip of a needle. She didn’t care which direction she tipped off, just as long as she could finally start falling.

Her inner body clenched and clenched, hoping, needing to be filled by him. And she knew, somehow, that he would be able to fill her in a way that no other lover before him ever had. She just knew it.

She burned so ferociously, so wildly, that all her fears and insecurities about sex were evaporated in the heat. All she knew was her want, her desire. She also knew, somewhere deep, that if she slowed down, all her adrenaline and momentum would dry right up. She knew that it was now or never. She had to do it. And maybe she wanted badly enough that her enthusiasm would make up for her lack of talent in this arena.

All she knew was that she’d never felt passion like this before and maybe that was enough. Maybe that was enough.

Tia ignored his hands trying to still her as she whipped his belt off. The button on his slacks was nothing compared to that.

“Tia,” he said again, his voice low and pained as she unzipped his pants.

She didn’t listen to him. Her body was a taut, vibrating wire as she took him out of his pants. And that almost stopped her in her tracks. This gorgeous, pulsing, humongous example of manhood. Tia was far from a virgin, but she’d never seen anything like this in her life. He was beautiful.

Not daring to take her eyes from it, Tia dug out a condom from her nightstand and was sheathing him with it before he could stop her. She rose up over him and he grabbed her hips, finally stopping her.

“Tia!”

But then she fell forward and took his mouth again, her tongue plunging into his mouth with reckless abandon. His groan was helpless and feral as his hands automatically lifted to her hair, tangled there and held her mouth in a passionate clasp to his.

Tia took her opportunity. With her free hand, she pulled her panties to the side and took him inside of her in one shocking stroke.

He was so big. And she hadn’t been with anyone in a very long time. They both went completely still. There was some pain for her. But she knew from experience that she just had to bear it. And her passion rode high. So without waiting, without checking, without sensing what was happening at all, Tia lifted up and rode him. She set a fast, almost untenable pace, bringing him to the edge instantly. His hands dug into her hips as he tried to slow her, but she wouldn’t stop. She was riding too fast and too far.

And then he went off. There was no stopping it. His body tensed and tensed around her, holding her so tight before he collapsed back onto the bed.

Tia collapsed on top of him as well, gently pulling herself off of him and laying next to him on the bed.

Her body still raced with her unfinished pleasure, but other than that, she felt great. She’d known it would be that nice. He’d fit her so well and he smelled so good and looked so handsome lying there. It was her most satisfying sexual encounter to date.

But it didn’t take long for her insecurities to waltz back in as Eli lay next to her, completely silent.

Oh lord. What had she been thinking?

***

What the hell had just happened? Eli laid on Tia’s bed in a stunned puddle. She’d wrecked him. Absolutely destroyed him. Made him go off like a teenager. He couldn’t remember a single sexual encounter that he’d let go that far off the tracks. She’d totally hijacked it. And from the look on her face, she wasn’t too happy about that at the moment.

“Tia,” he murmured and reached across the bed for her, but to his great dismay, she skittered away from him, straightening her dress. She stood at the side of the bed halfway tipped away from him as she cupped her elbows in her palms.

“See! I knew it.” The words speared out of her like they were cutting her mouth on their way into the world.

“What did you know?” Eli asked, trying to keep up, wanting to reach for her but not wanting her to pull away again.

“That we shouldn’t have sex. I knew I would ruin it. Just like always.”

He shook his head, decided he had to risk it. “Tia, baby, what are you talking about?” he asked as he reached out and gathered her to him. She stood, stiffly, in-between his legs, his arms around her waist, one hand caressing up and down her back.

“I don’t know how to do this, Eli.” She gestured to the bed. “And everything I’ve ever tried has just been immediately filed into the bad category. And I thought if I just went with the passion I feel for you, that would be enough to get us to the other side. But then we finished and you still looked so disappointed. And that’s the best I can do! Okay? So maybe you just better go and we’ll pretend like this never happened.”

Eli took a deep breath as little bursts of understanding opened up inside him. His emotions were on the edge, rage for her former lovers boiling under his skin and so much passion for her deep inside him. He knew he had to get a grip on things in order to get this back on the rails here.

He cleared his throat. “I’d really rather not leave, if that’s okay with you.” He continued tracing a circle on her back. “Because, you know, we didn’t finish. I finished. Not you.”

“Oh,” Tia said, looking at him for the first time. “That’s okay.”

“No,” he said gently, daring to let one of his hands slick through her hair up to her scalp. “It’s really not.”

He wanted to kiss her deeply. But he figured that might tense her up right now. So instead he pressed a firm, casual kiss to her lips and started pulling her hair back from her shoulders. “You know, Tia, what you just did was amazing. Incredible. You absolutely wrecked me.”

Her head shot up. “Really?”

“Yes.” He let his hands circle on her shoulders, dipping just a little bit here and there underneath the fabric of her dress. “And I really, really hope you’ll do it again to me sometime.” He wished he could think of any way to say this that didn’t include a but. He knew that word was going to fall on her like a box of rocks. But his brain was too jumbled right now to be more eloquent. “But you know how you said get us to the other side?”

She nodded stiffly.

“Well,” he continued, taking his hands off of her and moving his fingers to his tie, loosening it as he looked her right in the eye. “Every time I pictured making love with you, and trust me, there have been many, many times. I didn’t care about getting to the other side. I don’t want to get to the other side.” He tossed his tie to the ground and started unbuttoning his shirt as he kicked off one shoe and then the other. “I want to wallow with you, wherever it is we find ourselves.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, her lower lip trembling. At least she wasn’t crossing her arms in front of her anymore.

Eli watched her face, each sad, innocent expression that she had to make. He realized then that she was as much a virgin now as they’d been in high school. She’d never had proper sex.

He slid his dress shirt off and tossed it on the floor. Next came his undershirt. Tia’s eyes darkened as he sat in front of her, shirtless with his unbuttoned slacks on. “I mean,” he said, “that I don’t want to think about what comes next. Or finishing. Or the other side.” He reached for her, and this time she stepped into his arms willingly. He pressed his lips to hers once, twice. “All I wanna do is touch you.”

“I…” Tia started, but couldn’t think of anything to come next. His hands were firm on her body, tracing up and down her back with a brazen confidence. Tia had the sudden, blinding realization that in this moment, Eli knew what she needed more than she did.

She’d never felt that way about a lover. That he might be paying so much attention to her responses, know her so well, that he could take her to a place she couldn’t take herself.

The idea was exhilarating, freeing. Maybe, for one night, she could just let herself be taken. She could step back and let him show her what there was to learn from two bodies together. No expectations.

She found herself tipping her head and his mouth was at her neck then, warm and sinful. And then he was turning her away from him.

“Do you know how beautiful you are?” he asked her quietly, in that deep, gruff voice of his. He unclasped her dress and started the slow drag of the zipper. He didn’t wait for her response. “I mean, you’re always beautiful, even in baggy scrubs, when you have your I-mean-business face on.” She chuffed out a surprised little laugh. He leaned forward and planted a kiss on the stretch of skin he’d just exposed on her back. “But seriously, I nearly swallowed my tongue when I walked in and saw your dress open today.” His teeth tugged, momentarily on the clasp of her bra. “I’ve never seen a back as pretty as yours. Gold and gorgeous. You’re like Cleopatra.”

The words were silly, maybe, but they were the truth. And he could feel them softening her, calming her from the inside out. All he wanted was for her to get out of her head. Because apparently, some pretty nasty misconceptions lived in there. He wanted her out here, with him, where he could tell her the truth about herself.

“But it’s not just your physical beauty, Tia,” he murmured as he dragged the zipper the rest of the way down. A primal groan escaped him when he realized he could see just the top lace of her thong. He traced it with his finger and Tia couldn’t help but smile.

A strange feeling was brewing in her. She’d made him groan like that. She’d never made anybody groan like that. Like he was helpless at the sight of her. It made her feel strangely…powerful.

“It’s the way you are in general that’s so sexy,” he continued, sliding his hands into the edges of her open dress. She gasped as his large, rough palms slid around to her front, over the skin of her stomach. “You’re so calm and confident. So competent and smart. It’s…god, it’s addicting. That night of the party, you came into my house like a queen.” He planted his forehead on her back for just a moment before he drew her closer and put his mouth at her ear. His hands traveled up until they, finally, cupped her breasts. “You’re like a goddess. Silver eyes and a serious mouth.” She gasped as one hand kneaded her breast and the other slipped beneath the lace of her bra, teased her skin. “You’ve got this perfect veneer. And underneath you’re all heat.” One of his hands suddenly dropped down her stomach to land over top of her womanhood. Just to cup her there. “You’re all passion, boiling. And I can barely stand it.”

With that he flipped her around again so that she faced him where she stood in-between his legs. He was so big, that even sitting on the bed in front of her, they were almost eye level with each other. He slipped the dress off her shoulders and let it pool at her feet. She stood in front of him in two scraps of black lace sin. He could see her rosy nipples pushing at the fabric of her bra. She was golden, curving, panting perfection. He really had never seen a more beautiful woman in his entire life.

Her hair, so shiny even in just the dim light from the hallway, tumbled all over and he had to thread his hands through it. “All I want, every time I’ve kissed you, is to get at that passion inside you, Tia. All I want, is just for a little while, to get to drown in it.”

Her silver eyes were bright and alive, he saw, with both heat and a little fear. He was taking her onto a path she’d never been on before and he hoped, prayed, that she trusted him enough to let him take her there.              

Then all the words had been said and all Eli could do was touch. He was too invested, too lost in her to do more than touch her in every way he’d been hoping to do since he’d seen her all those weeks ago in the hospital.

His hands were liquid fire over her and Tia felt almost drowsy with the heat between them. She was dizzy with it. And she found herself going warm and pliant in his arms. He dragged her into the hot summer day of his passion for her and Tia went willingly. Her insecurities wanted her to speak up, to move away before she got hurt again.

But then he was laying her down on the bed. And his mouth started to replace his hands on the journey to touch every inch of her body.

Tia rose and pressed against him, her hands limp while her legs tried to clasp him around the waist. But he was always moving, trying to devour every inch of her. He slid her bra from her and growled at the sight of her breasts, taking one rosy peak into his mouth and then the next.

Tia couldn’t help but arch into him, pinning him there with her hands. He took her up and up with his mouth at her breast, tugging and suckling until Tia thought she’d go insane with it.

But he released her then and Tia wanted to sob with relief and frustration. He shucked his pants and underwear off, but left her panties on as he fell back over top of her.

Tia could feel the hot press of his desire for her against her belly, but her eyes were almost unseeing at this point. She was on complete sensory overload with every firm, slick trace of his hands over top of her. Eli’s mouth came back to hers and he tasted and tasted her, pulling one of her legs over his hip. He repositioned himself so that his hardness pressed against her panties, her heat, and he rocked into her the way he might if he were making love to her.

Tia’s back came up off the bed in one electric moment. She moaned his name into the dark room and he grinned against her mouth. Each moment was long and syrupy as they clutched one another, rising and panting, crazy for it.

When Eli finally slipped her panties down her legs, Tia thought, here it is. The other side. We’re almost there.

But she was wrong. Because he didn’t plunge into her, the way she’d expected. No. He kissed her there, slicked his mouth between her legs.

Tia sat right up at that first sure stroke of his tongue. “Eli—”

But she couldn’t get any more words out beyond the moan that shook her.

“Tell me to stop,” he whispered up from between her legs. “And I will.”

“No,” she moaned, falling backwards again. “I won’t say it. Don’t stop.”

And he didn’t. He ravaged her with his mouth, kissing her passionately, insanely, like a man who would never get enough of her.

Tia was racing on an edge she’d never been before. It was heated and so sharp she could have stabbed herself through the heart with it. She didn’t know if she wanted to leap over the side or just stay there forever. But she didn’t have time to decide, because Eli’s mouth suckled at her and she plunged over the edge. Into the unknown. Into a universe of whirling colors and bright, deep ribbons of sensation. Tia felt as if he was pulling something out of her that she hadn’t even known she’d had. She was tight, straining, exploding. And then, even as she fell limp and panting back onto the bed, exhaustion settling over her like a blanket, he was stoking the fire again.

He pressed a kiss to the inside of one of her legs as he brought his hand to her center, traced her gently, before pressing inside. He kept his face down there, watching each erotic invasion of his fingers. And Tia’s brain struggled to catch up with the moment.

She pushed herself up onto her hands so she could look down. And she moaned with the sight of it. Eli lay with his head on her thigh, two fingers plunged into her, and his eyes glued to the sight.

She followed his eye line and found herself right there with him, riveted. He pressed and plunged his hand, his thumb doing magical things to her on the outside, and Tia felt herself plummeting through the air again. Could she? She couldn’t possibly go through that wildly pleasurable ordeal again so soon. But the real question, she realized, was could he? Could he get her there?

She fell back down onto the bed as she realized with a twisting in her gut, that he absolutely could.

She writhed and clamped down on him and after a few breathless, escalating minutes, Eli rose over her. He pressed his hand into her still, driving her crazy as he reached into her nightstand.

He pulled his hand away from her when she was just a breath away from exploding for him again. She moaned and pressed her legs together against the emptiness he’d left behind.

Eli, on all fours over top of her, his breaths tearing out of him and his eyes a dark gold, held her gaze. “I want to make love to you now, Tia. I want to get so lost in you I can never get out.”

“Yes,” she nodded, reaching up to drag his mouth back to hers. He let it happen, kissing her deeply while he sheathed himself with the condom and drew one of her legs up around his hip again. And even though he’d been inside of her just an hour before, as he started to press inside her this time, it felt like the first time for both of him.

He tore his lips from her and pressed his forehead against hers as he seated himself fully inside her.

Her eyes were bright magic, hypnotizing him as he felt something shake loose inside him. He realized, vaguely, that this was as new for him as it was for her. He’d never felt this way before with a woman. As if he, finally, finally, was whole again. He thrust into her, making both of them groan, and Eli realized that she had a piece of him inside of her. A part of him was living there, inside her, and this moment, this second, so deep in her, was the closest he’d come to touching it since he’d met her.

He set a rhythm, one that had her clawing and scraping at his back as she arched into him. But he couldn’t outride this feeling, that every stroke was binding them, building something between them, like a hammer building a house. He was reaching, reaching for that part of himself he’d given her. That lived inside her.

And at the same time there was nothing but her in his entire life. It was almost as if he’d ceased to exist. There was only Tia. Her scent, her flavor, the slick of her heated skin against his.

Eli rolled them, and then again. And Tia was lost in the dizziness of it. The proximity to that much raw power. She wasn’t sure where her body began and ended. She felt herself mix with him, with the air around them. Every line she’d lived her life with was blurring with each stroke he took.

They rolled and clutched and there wasn’t enough bed for all the ways they wanted to climb one another now. So it was natural for both of them when Eli lowered them to the ground next to the bed. Where they continued to roll and roll over one another. His feet slipped for purchase against the hardwood floor and he kept flipping them so that her sweet body wouldn’t be pounded into the hardwood. But she kept rolling them too, her mouth at his neck, his ear, her hands tangled roughly in his hair.

And then it was too much for him. Every sensation. And he rose with her in his arms, still connected. Eli propped her against the bedroom wall and loved her standing up. His hands firm and strong on her backside and his eyes burning into hers.

Tia lost herself again, spun out into another dimension as she exploded around him. Her body tightening and clamping down and nothing but this high speed spiral of pleasure. She clung forward onto him, her mouth opening and clasping onto his shoulder. Her teeth biting into him, desperate for any way to hang on to this man.

And finally, Eli took his own pleasure as he squeezed her to him as tightly as humanly possible. He surged into her as he pressed her down. She was everywhere, everything, she was the human embodiment of the slow motion firework that bulleted out of him, destroying the man that he had been.