They arrived at the hotel room and Iris stumbled back from him as the door clicked closed behind him, trapping them inside together.

He kept his eyes on hers as he unbuttoned the buttons at his wrists and then started on his shirt. “Listen to me, Iris. I have to make something very, very clear.”

He yanked his shirt off and tossed it to one side. Iris couldn’t breathe. This was all happening so fast, but if it slowed down any, she thought she’d scream with frustration.

He toed out of one shoe and then the other. Slicked his belt off and tossed it aside. He stood in just his dark jeans, moonlight slanting across his face.

“You want something tonight, you need something, you ask me for it. And I’ll give it to you. Every time. You understand?” He took a step toward her. “No matter what it is. You want more? Done. You want less? Done. You want time or speed or for me to hold you? Done. Ask me and I’ll give it to you. There is nothing,” he swiped one hand through the air. “Literally nothing you could do wrong tonight.”

His words loosened a knot that she hadn’t realized had tightened in her gut. Somewhere in her, she knew how much more experienced he was than she. She hadn’t realized how much that had been worrying her until his words set all those worries free. He’d given her a roadmap for how to proceed as well as reassured her that she was everything he wanted. What more could she ask for.

All she had to do was ask herself what she wanted, and then ask him to give it to her. The first thing was easy. So easy. “Will you kiss me?”

His nostrils flared at her words as he took another step toward her. “You deserve a romantic kiss, this first one with me,” he growled. “Not some prelude to sex in a dark hotel room.” His eyes darkened with something like guilt and for one second, Iris was terrified that he was about to call everything off.

But then his gaze flicked over her shoulder, toward the small balcony at the other end of the room. He grabbed her hand and tugged her out the sliding glass door. They were ten stories up from the beach and the ocean crashed below them.

Marcus sat himself down in one of the deck chairs and immediately tugged her into his lap. Iris gasped, almost breathlessly, at the feel of him under her. All the snuggling they’d done and she’d never actually sat in his lap.

“Hear that?” he asked her. “The waves?” One of his arms circled her waist and the other hand laced into her hair.

She nodded, completely hypnotized by him.

“Close your eyes,” he told her. And she did, immediately. She trusted him one hundred percent to take her where she needed to go. “Listen to the ocean. Pretend we’re at the beach house.”

And instantly, Iris’s mind took her there. Straight to the kitchen of the beach house, where you could hear the ocean so well. Where he’d almost kissed her for the first time on the kitchen counter.

“We’re sitting at the table,” she whispered to him. “In your chair. Where you’d drink your coffee in the mornings.”

Her eyes were still closed but she could feel him grin. “In the kitchen. Good. That’s where I should have kissed you for the first time. Every single time I saw you in the kitchen, I wanted to kiss you.”

“Really?” she whispered.

“Yes," he answered simply. “I should have kissed you in the music room too. Every time I watched you at your piano, I should have walked over and kissed a moan right out of you.”

Her lips parted and she moaned then, just from his words. He didn’t shift his grip at all. He just held her captive with his hands. Just as he was doing with his voice.

“I should have kissed you in the bathroom. When you cut my hair. And in yours, when you showed me your bruise was gone. And in the ocean, the first time you ever showed me that body.”

“And in the TV room?” Iris prompted him. “On the couch?”

He paused, and she almost opened her eyes. “No,” he said softly. “I wouldn’t change anything about what happened on that couch. Nothing. It was perfect. It was all perfect.”

Welp. If she hadn’t been in love with him before, she sure was now. Because he was the thing that was perfect. And this combination of sexy and sweet, demanding and giving—God it was just absolutely undoing her.

“But we’re in the kitchen now,” she whispered, her voice shaking. “At the table. And I’m sitting on your lap.”

“That’s right,” he agreed, his voice deeper than she’d ever heard it. She could feel it rumble in his chest where she pressed against him. “And I’ve reached my limit. I can’t stand seeing your legs in those short shorts another second. I can’t stand the scent you leave behind when you walk past anymore. I can’t stand the way your skin looks after the sun is done kissing it. And I snap,” he murmured, his lips were almost on hers, she could feel his breath against her mouth. “I tug you down onto my lap.” His hands tightened where they touched her. “And then I make you mine.”

His mouth pressed against hers and every cell in both of their bodies focused on that point of contact. It was just lips on lips, a solid, soft pressure. Something in Marcus’s brain completely fractured into a million pieces. His world promptly began rearranging itself. He didn’t understand how the most innocent kiss of his life could also be the hottest.

He hadn’t even tasted her yet, for god sake.

Marcus knew, dimly, that he was holding her too tight, but he couldn’t help but pin her against him. She was so perfect, so lovely, so everything that he ever wanted, that he was convinced she was going to suddenly fly away from him. She squeaked, just a little, when his hand tightened in her hair and he forced himself to ease up. To not get lost. To remain levelheaded and clear.

And then she opened her mouth.

He forgot who he was. Who he’d ever been. He forgot that he was a man with a very serious job. He forgot he had two friends he’d known his entire life. He forgot that he considered himself bad news for the women in his life. He forgot everything but the light, floral taste of her mouth.

Unable to stop himself, he swept his tongue inside and groaned. Loud. Feral. And then he didn’t have to pin her against him because she was doing that herself. She plastered herself against him fiercely, in a way that completely belied the delicate little sound that came out of her throat.

He was dizzy, hot and spinning. Iris. Iris. Iris. Something inside him clawed to get out, like a beast at the bars of its cage. Marcus struggled to keep it inside. He’d never let it out before. He didn’t know what would happen if he did.

But then her sweet, soft tongue met his and Marcus realized that he didn’t have the keys to that cage, Iris did. And as her tongue stroked through his mouth, that beast came roaring out of Marcus. Right out into the world.

And it was easy. So easy to love her. He’d been making it so, so hard, but he realized now that it was only hard when he was trying to silence it. When he was trying to keep that love in its place. But letting it free was a joyous relief. Loving her was as easy, as natural, as kissing her. And at this particular moment, Marcus couldn’t distinguish the two.

To love her was to kiss her, to stroke his hand through her hair, to shift her so that she straddled him. And when her heat smashed against the zipper of his pants, that was love too. He knew he was more experienced than she was. But this was completely new territory for him.

Touching with feelings. Real feelings.

He’d had some lighter, less important version of this for other women he’d been with. But it had never buzzed through him like this before. It had never been cell deep. It had never blurred the lines between his skin and hers.

He tore his face away, panting for breath, trying to regain his footing, but his heart screamed out for her and his mouth slammed onto hers again.

They were lost in each other. Gone. Another dimension. Neither of them knew how long they kissed on that balcony. The only unit of measurement that either of them could grasp was familiarity. And by the time the kiss escalated into more, they were very, very familiar with one another’s mouths.

He drank from her like she was elixir of life. Time spun out and the night deepened. He was so lost in her mouth that when she began to move her hips over his, to press herself into him in need, his only thought was Jesus Christ, there’s more.

He didn’t know how in hell he’d handle more with this woman, but he was sure as fuck going to try.

Finally tearing his mouth from hers, Marcus kissed his way down her neck and to the strap of this red dress that had been driving him insane all night. He nudged the strap aside and her smooth shoulder was revealed to the night.

A jealousy exploded inside Marcus, whip bright and consuming. He had no reason to believe that anyone was watching them make out on the balcony, but he suddenly had a body-deep need to get her somewhere, anywhere, that only he could see her.

Because like this, with her cheeks flushed, her eyes heavily lidded, and her mouth falling open, she was devastatingly beautiful. And Marcus did Not. Want. To share.

He rose from the deck chair, his hands gripping her ass, and toed open the sliding door back into their room. The cool air curled around them and she shivered in his arms as she smashed herself into him, threading her fingers through his hair.

“Marcus,” she whispered, shivering again.

“Are you cold, baby?”

“I don’t… know. I can’t—” She pressed against him, insistent, needy. She shivered again and her head dropped back. “Oh god. I can’t feel anything but you.”

Well, that was what he liked to hear. But when she shivered again, he frowned. The air outside had been balmy, but it was pretty cold in the hotel room. He strode over to the thermostat with her still wrapped around him and turned the temp up. Then he carried her into the bathroom. He plunked her onto the sink counter and then ripped the shower curtain back. He fiddled with the knobs.

“What are you doing?”

“Gotta get you warm, baby,” he replied, drawn back to her like a magnet. His lips landed on hers and he let his hands roam as they waited for the shower to warm up. Not able to tear his lips from hers, Marcus fumbled his pants down, kicking them away. He stood in front of her in hunter green boxer briefs that did absolutely nothing to hide his desire for her.

She glanced down and then did a double take that he promptly burned into his brain for the rest of his life. He felt a rush of masculine pride when her eyes widened at the sight of him.

Her eyes zipped to the running shower and then back to his mostly naked body as if she were just putting the pieces together. He grinned at her and nodded.

She jumped down from the counter, sliding down his body every inch of the way, and then she did something that Marcus would never forget as long as he lived. Staring into his eyes, she slowly lifted her arms over her head, silently asking him to undress her.

He bunched the fabric of her dress in his hands and dragged it up and over her, tossing the dress immediately aside and letting out a guttural groan when he saw what she wore underneath.

An ice blue strapless bra and matching satin panties.

Holy god.

He did the only reasonable thing that he could possibly do and he fell to his knees in front of her. He trailed his hands down the hourglass of her, lingering at the swell of her ass. Marcus opened his mouth against the smooth skin of her stomach. He grinned against her when she gasped and trembled as his mouth inched lower. His tongue swept over her hipbone, just under the edge of her underwear.

“Marcus,” she whispered.

He nipped at her skin there and stood. He couldn’t lose focus. She was cold and the shower was warm. He deftly removed her bra and shoved her underwear to the floor. He didn’t look. He didn’t dare look until she was warm and in the shower. Otherwise she’d be shivering on the cold tile floor while he ate her alive.

He shucked his underwear to the ground and stepped into the shower first, checking the temperature of the water. Perfect. He turned, extending a hand to help her step in. And then, when she stood under the spray of the shower, he let himself look at her. He felt a bomb go off somewhere deep inside him.

He searched for words, but all that came out was a huff of breath and a groan. It said more to Iris than words ever could. He was speechless as he took her in.

“Ah. Soap.” That was the best he could do, Marcus found. He was never going to be able to put words to how beautiful he found her. Maybe he’d give it a shot later. But right now, there was no chance of that happening. So he grabbed the bar soap on the dish and a washcloth hanging on a hook right outside the shower.

He lathered the washcloth and promptly began washing Iris. Marcus groaned in frustration at the cloth between his skin and hers. He tossed it aside. Whatever. The shower was a ruse anyways. It was just an excuse to touch her. So touch her, he would. He lathered the soap in his hands and dragged them everywhere over Iris. He lingered at the crook of her elbow, between her fingers. He soaped her stomach, her back, over the cheeks of her ass. He soaped each leg, ankle to thigh. And then he stood, behind her, his hands slick with soap, and slid one hand over her breasts.

They pebbled under his touch and stood at full attention. Iris gasped and dropped her head back onto his shoulder. Marcus knew he needed to slow down. That a different man would spend the next twenty minutes driving her wild, plucking and massaging her breasts the way he was doing now. But he was unspooling, needy and desirous. And her naked ass was grinding up against where he needed her most.

He couldn’t stop his free hand from smoothing over her stomach, from pressing between her legs.

Marcus clenched his jaw like he was in pain when he discovered her there. When he felt how much she wanted him. When he found the slick hot place between her legs.

“Only me,” he growled as he sunk a digit into her.

Iris cried out and one of her hands flew back to tangle in his hair. She was trying to hold him close to her as if he were ever going anywhere. He’d discovered heaven. It would take a stronger man than Marcus to give it up. As far as he was concerned, his hand between her legs was the equivalent of taking a marriage vow. He’d met his woman. The only one truly meant for him. And now he just had to convince her the same was true for her.

Iris was trembling in his arms, crying out from his ministrations, his teeth clamped over her earlobe. He could feel that she was close, her body was telling him in a hundred different ways. And that was the only thing on earth that could have him pulling his hands away from her. His hand didn’t get the honor of her pleasure. Not tonight. No. Tonight there was only one place he wanted her first orgasm with him.

Iris cried out in despair and confusion when he unhanded her, turned off the shower. He grabbed one of the big, fluffy towels that hung outside the shower and wrapped it around her. He took the other one and used it to roughly scrape the excess water off of him. He was much gentler with Iris as he dried her off, drop by drop. She whimpered with every touch of his hands and he knew she was still supercharged from what he’d been doing to her in the shower. He planned to use that to his full advantage.

Marcus glanced around the bathroom, considered putting her up on the counter and dismissed the idea. He was done with hard surfaces, with logistics. He was ready to drown and not surface for hours. The only thing he wanted to consider was Iris’s body, all the ways he could play it into mind-numbing pleasure.

Marcus tugged the towel off of her and picked her up again, her legs around his waist. He couldn’t not touch her. Not even for the amount of time it took for them to get to the bed. He set her gently on the edge of the mattress, her legs dangling off. Marcus knelt in front of Iris, his eyes on hers, brooking no arguments. His hot palms landed on her knees and spread them, gently, firmly apart.

Iris breathed in harsh gasps. He looked like a wild animal, kneeling there between her open legs. She’d never felt more like prey in her entire life. Light glinted against his pupils and his white teeth flashed in the dark. He was panting as his eyes seared her. She was so, so turned on. More than she’d ever been in her life. More than she’d even thought possible before. But as Marcus licked his lips and shouldered her knees apart even farther, insecurity won out. She put her hand over herself, covering her womanhood.

“I’ve never—”

He batted her hand away. “You’re about to.”

Iris’s head instantly fell back in both shock and pleasure as his mouth landed on her. Kissed her. The way he’d been kissing her on the balcony. Like his life depended on it. Like he needed her to survive. She'd never done this particular thing before, but even so, Iris was aware of his mastery on the subject. He wasn’t particularly studied, but that only enhanced the sensations. He was devouring her and she’d never felt more desired in her life. It wasn’t even possible to get into her own head at this second. The way he was kissing her down below, there was only room for one word in her entire being. Yes. Yes. Yes.

So that’s what she called out into the dark hotel room. Yes. And Oh God. And then, when she forgot all words, there was only his name. Over and over again.

When Iris’s hands bunched in the sheets and her back arched off the bed, she wasn’t sure at first what was happening to her. It had never been like this before. Not even close. For a moment, she almost feared it. But then she felt the tight, anchoring grip of Marcus’s hands at her thighs, spreading her open. And his words from earlier echoed in her mind. Literally nothing you could do wrong tonight.

And it was those words that unlocked her the rest of the way. Iris super nova-ed. A scream tore out of her body, her clenched knuckles turned white, her heels dug harshly into his back as she dragged him closer.

She heard Marcus groan and felt the vibration inside. It set her off even further and she would later realize that she didn’t breathe. Her eyes, open, were completely unseeing. Her heart merely vibrated in her chest and her ears could hear nothing. Not a sound as vanilla-hot-lightning-ice swirled through her, sucking her into a vortex, flattening her, and shoving her out the other side, trembling, gasping—a new woman.

Iris sucked in air. She needed air. Her body screamed for it. And when she exhaled, it was on a choppy, sobbing gasp. Some small part of her face palmed, wishing she could play it just a little bit cooler, but the other 99 percent of her body knew that something unprecedented had just happened to her. Her body hummed with sensation and when Marcus scraped his stubble against her inner thigh, she yelped and sandwiched his face between her thighs.

He chuckled and slid up her body, that smile of his flashing in the dark. She thought that maybe he’d snuggle her now, but he planted his lower stomach between her legs and dropped that skilled mouth to one breast and then the next.

“Baby,” he murmured against her skin. “That was the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life.”

Iris blushed and covered her eyes.

“Seriously,” he said, looking up and tugging her hands from her face. “If the aliens are watching us, they just found a new goddess to worship." He dropped his mouth back to her breast and tugged greedily. “I know I did.”

She barely knew how to process his preoccupation with her body. She’d been desired before. But nothing like this. She was the center of every ounce of focus. This was more than lust. He was completely present. Every single kind of focus that existed was being used on her right now. He was there with her, discovering her, staring at her body as if it were art, literature, history itself. He was a man who knew how to take his time. This was full-bodied commitment.               Whether it was wise or not, she didn’t know, but Iris felt herself being lashed to him, second by second. If their hearts had to be pulled apart sometime in the future, it might kill her.

He wasn’t slowing things down, but he wasn’t ramping them up either. He was idling, pressing his hard stomach into her womanhood while he suckled at her breasts, her throat, and back to her breasts.

As the fuzziness began to recede, Iris realized that she’d done very little to take advantage of this situation. The hottest man she’d ever come across was laying across her body. Naked as the day he was born.

Starting to come alive bit by bit, Iris began to move her feet over the backs of his thighs. She purred when she felt the hair there. There was something she found so sexy about the hair that was sprinkled over Marcus’s body. He grunted in response and she took that as a sign that she should keep doing what she was doing.

Her fingers danced up his spine, seemingly of their own accord, and Iris grinned when it sent a tremor down his body. That’s right. He wasn’t the only one who could make somebody see Saturn.

Anticipation, pride, a deep confidence dipped up through her and gave Iris strength. She braced her hands on the bed and pushed her weight against Marcus. She gave it everything she had, attempting to turn him. Nothing happened. Except Marcus raised his head from her breasts and lifted an eyebrow. She remembered what he’d said before about asking.

“Can we flip?” she asked, shocked that her voice sounded even and steady. She wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d forgotten how to speak English altogether after what had just happened.

Marcus rolled onto his back immediately, almost the second the words were out of her mouth. It made Iris smile. He’d promised he’d listen and here he was, belly up for her. A strange, magnetic sense of power zipped through her. It was like licking a battery. He would do what she asked. It was so simple and so complicated all at once.

She rolled too, coming to all fours over top of him for just a second. But then, slightly overwhelmed, she fell back and folded her legs underneath her as she sat beside him. Seemingly unable to help himself, Marcus lifted a hand, tested the weight of one of her breasts and groaned as his eyes closed for just a second. Iris smiled.

She licked her lips and opened her mouth. But her brain fumbled over the words. How the heck was she supposed to ask this? She clapped her mouth closed and had Marcus frowning.

“Iris,” he commanded. “Ask.”

She cleared her throat and cocked her head to one side, a little hair falling over one eye. “Can I do that? To you?”

His pupils dilated. “Do what.”

She licked her lips again. “What you did to me? Can I taste you?”

Marcus growled, like literally growled. “Yes. But I don’t know how much I’ll be able to take of that. Your mouth on me.”

She paused, unsure what he meant.

He cleared his throat. “I’ve thought about it a lot, baby, on my own. And seeing it, feeling it in real life, might be a bit much for me.”

Iris shivered. It was almost too much. To know that he’d thought of her that way. She’d done her best to keep her thoughts of him as PG-13 as possible, but obviously he’d been unable to do the same in regards to her. It was intoxicating, to be wanted this much. And it made Iris feel that heady power again. The bold certainty.

Literally nothing you could do wrong tonight.

Iris nodded and took a deep breath, leaning forward. One of his hands threaded through her hair, all the way to her scalp and the familiar sensation soothed her. He had a thing for her hair. Iris remembered the way he’d reacted to her haircut and it hit her all at once. He didn’t have a thing for her hair, he had a thing for her. She was smiling as she bent over him, sent one palm skating up the place where he wanted her most.

He really was magnificent. Built to perfection. She was definitely no expert in the area, but she couldn’t imagine anyone being more aesthetically pleasing than he was. It was that thought that had her purring as she circled him with her hand. She gave one experimental stroke and was lowering her head to him when she suddenly found herself flipped onto her back, pinned beneath him.

Marcus’s gaze tore through her, his jaw clenched and his eyebrows pulled low over his eyes. She realized that her hands were pinned under his, her legs tangled and trapped under his.

“I can’t,” he growled. “Take it anymore. I need you.”

His words rocketed through her. He needed her. She could barely believe that this man, this insanely strong, sexy man was looking at her that way. Was needing her like this.

“I need you too,” she whispered and they both knew all the ways she meant those words.

His mouth fell to hers and he kissed her the way he had out on the balcony. Like time held no meaning or power. Like they weren’t humans subject to human boundaries. It was a meeting of spirits, not bodies. Iris clung to Marcus even as he tore his mouth from hers and landed his forehead against her collarbone in a growl.

“We can’t have sex,” he gritted out the words like they were made of glass.

“What?” she exclaimed. “Why?”

He rolled off of her deftly and was in the bathroom like a shot. “We don’t have any condoms,” he called from the bathroom. “I’m going to get some.”

Iris bit her lip. The very last thing she wanted was for him to leave this room right now. It had been weeks of them not sleeping together, with so many different obstacles in the way, she was certain that if he left this room, something would get in the way again. She thought about everything she knew about him, about whether or not she trusted him.

“Or…” she called back. He was in a different room, but even so she could feel him freeze. “I mean, you haven’t been with anyone in a year, right? You’ve been tested since then?” She was grateful for the dark of the room as she blushed a deeper pink than she ever had before.

“Of course,” his voice came to her as he stepped out of the bathroom, his pants on but unbuttoned. “I wouldn’t sleep with you if I wasn’t sure I was clean. Condom or not.”

“Then,” she patted the bed beside her. “Why don’t you come back to bed?”

They both knew what she was telling him. He was as still as a photograph as he stared at her from ten feet away.

“I’ll get you pregnant,” he said, his voice a deep rumble.

Everything pulled tight in Iris at that. He didn’t say it like a possibility, he said it like a certainty. She shook her head. “No. I have an IUD. We’re safe.”

He remained still as he watched her, five seconds passed. Ten seconds. And then he dropped his pants and he was crawling over top of her, pressing her back to the bed.

“I’ve never had sex without a condom,” he said in a low voice as his mouth bit its way up her neck, to the back of her ear. His hands slid around to her back and he was gripping her to him so tight she could barely breathe.

“Me either,” she admitted.

That made Marcus growl again as he dragged a hand from her lower back down to her thigh. With a rough, impatient motion he wrapped her leg around his waist. His teeth clamped over a soft part of her neck as he pressed against her.

Iris looked up and felt a deep thrill at the veins and tendons that stood out in his arms, the muscles pulled tight across his golden back. He was straining for her, wild and just barely in control. She couldn’t believe that anyone would be like this for her, but for it to be Marcus? The most attractive man in the world? Well, she couldn’t help but run her tongue along his neck, tilt her leg higher over his hip.

“I want you in every way a man can want a woman,” Marcus growled into her mouth. His hands stroked over her back, her sides, far from gentle. “I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want you.” He lifted his head and his eyes were like two black diamonds in the night, glinting and bottomless. “The first time I ever saw your picture in an assignment file, I knew. I didn’t want to know. I told myself that it was nothing. But something in me knew.”

“What did you know?” Iris whispered back, her lips so close that they brushed against his as she spoke.

“That you were mine.”

Marcus’s teeth scraped over her bottom lip at the exact second that he finally, finally pushed inside of her.