Iris’s mouth opened in a silent scream of shock and pleasure and Marcus groaned, loud, and straight into her skin. He’d never felt anything like this in his entire life. It felt so good it hurt. It felt so good that he knew that everything else in his life had just been knocked down the priorities list about fifty pegs. It felt so good that he knew he’d spend the rest of his days trying to do it again and again and again. It felt so good, that in this vulnerable moment, he knew, bone deep, that she was the rest of his life. Simple as that. It was her.

“Shit,” he growled, seating himself all the way inside her and grimacing in what looked like pain. When he raised his head and propped himself up on his elbows to look down at her, he’d never felt closer to another person in his entire life. Her hair spilled over the bed, her ice blue eyes were sharp and blurry at the same moment. He’d expected her to be demure or shy, to look down and cover her gaze the way she always did. But there were those eyes, blazing into his. God, he always wanted her eyes. And this was no different. It was almost too much. She spread her legs even wider, wrapping them around his waist. Her eyes sliced into his. She was giving him everything. Everything.

The animal inside of him almost broke loose and Marcus clenched his teeth to maintain control. He needed to give her everything soft and sweet that he had to offer. He needed to make her see how much he was trying for her. He thought of her soft skin, the delicate curves of her body, her little pink toenails. She deserved all the gentle lovemaking in the world. He could do this. He would do this. He’d leash himself back and make it perfect.

Marcus pushed up onto his hands, one on either side of her head, and began to rock into her. The look on her face almost undid him. Her hands reached up for his face and he was shocked and further aroused when her touch was not gentle. Her fingers grabbed at anything that she could reach. His neck, his shoulders, his hair.

He thrust and thrust and her breath came out on each beat, like they were perfectly in sync with one another, hearing the same carnal song.

“Please, Marcus,” she moaned, her head whipping from one side to the other.

“Anything, baby. Anything,” he groaned back. I’ll give you anything.

She gripped at his shoulders again. “More,” she breathed. “More skin.”

He immediately complied, dropping back down so his chest pressed against hers. He was careful to keep most of his weight up and off her but the pleasure of her slick, sweaty chest was undeniable. He swiveled his hips and she screamed, arching her back into him with surprising strength and force.

He couldn’t help the feral grin that tore out of him as he gripped her hand and the sheets at the same moment. She was rougher than he’d thought she’d be and that thrilled him. But that grin immediately dropped away when she started moving her hips underneath him, meeting him with every stroke.

He growled and dropped a hand down, attempting to still her hips. But she didn’t fall still. She ground against him more, harder, her hands tangling in his hair and her mouth suddenly on his. Marcus felt the animal inside him strain against its leash. She was undoing him and he couldn’t let that happen.

“More,” she begged him against his mouth, and Marcus found himself utterly helpless to deny her.

He gave her more, his eyes squeezed tight against the acute pleasure of it, his face buried in the crook of her shoulder. He wanted so badly to watch her right now, to burn into his brain every single expression that fell across her face, but he knew that the sight would ruin him. Turn him loose. So he just felt her instead, his eyes hung closed.

She was killing him, little by little. Her hips were wild and vicious from below and her breasts smashed into his chest. “More,” she chanted. “More. More. More.”

And it was that, her relentless plea, that finally broke him. She was too soft, too perfect. And he loved her. He loved her so much that his body won out over his mind. His mind screamed for him to slow down but his body slammed the door on it. Took over. Marcus felt a strange tidal wave of both relief and regret smash through him as the animal inside him snapped the leash and came for Iris.

He switched their position, subtly, but inexorably. The way he shifted his weight made her immobile, she couldn’t move or writhe against him anymore. He gave her everything he had to give and more than he even knew he had. His muscles strained and sweat slicked over his spine. His toes dug into the mattress as he used every bit of leverage he had access to. The bed smashed against the wall with each thrust of his hips. The part of him that was still aware of what he was doing came tearing out of his mouth.

“I know it’s too much,” he told her as his teeth tore over her lip. He said the words almost as an apology. There was no way he could stop this now. The only way he could stop was if she asked him to. “I’m too much. It’s too intense.”

And it was. He was so huge. So deep inside her and every thrust was sharp and unforgiving and took the breath right out of her. But that wasn’t all. His hands were tight and everywhere. Pinning her down, taking from her, tugging at her hair. His teeth clamped, too hard and sharp at her neck and she cried out. And when she opened her eyes, it was to see his dark gaze on her, consuming her. His mouth was slack and tight, somehow at the same time.               There was a storm in his eyes. A raging cyclone of emotion and Iris felt herself get sucked away into it. It was too much, more than she’d ever had. More than she’d known was possible. The way his legs locked over hers, it was like he was trapping her. Lashing her to him. She knew there was no escape and part of her relished it while part of her struggled against it.

If she didn’t already know that she loved him, it might have been too much. Making love with this man was like getting burned alive. But she could see him in there. Her Marcus. She saw his body and mind and heart all straining against each other. And in his eyes, where other women had seen only harsh focus, blazing, blinding intensity, Iris saw what was really there.

She saw herself in his eyes. She realized immediately what he was looking at. It was only her. It was this intense, this blackhole of passion, because he’d lost himself entirely. For him, this beast of a man on top of her, there was nothing else but her. She had absolutely no question that she was his entire world. She was everything that mattered to him.

Iris could see, clear as day, what she was doing to him. She was unleashing him. He might be pinning her down, trapping her, taking her apart piece by piece. But she was destroying him.

It was that thought that had her rearing up, straining against his hands that had her shoulders pinned to the bed as he rutted. As rough as he was, the second she pushed against him, he gave way. Her momentum tumbled them to their sides where they stayed joined. He never stopped his relentless pushing into her. One of his arms banded around her back and again, she found herself restrained, fixed against him. His eyes swallowed her whole, it was like the brightest light being shined in her face. And she let him do it all. He needed it. But he needed something else that she wasn’t sure he was aware of. He needed her to pin him down and stare him down right back. He needed her to fix him in place, like a flag in a storm.

So she rolled them even more and he let her take him on his back. Planting his feet underneath her, he pressed up into her from below, taking both of them clear off the bed with each thrust. His hands clamped like vices on her hips and she knew he was leaving bruises. But she let him. He needed it. And as a heady rush of power and safety rolled through her, she realized that she needed it too.

She fell over top of him then, crushing her breasts to his chest. She knew that she could never physically restrain him. It would be like a butterfly trying to restrain a wolf. But she could pin him in place in another way. In a way he’d never expect.

She put her mouth at his ear and drew his earlobe in between her lips. Marcus groaned and gripped her even harder with his hands. Iris squirmed under the intensity of the grip and rearranged one of his hands to the small of her back to let up the pressure a little. His hand immediately fisted and the pressure eased.

“You’ve always protected me,” she whispered in his ear and he thrust even harder. “That’s why I can give you everything, Marcus.” She twisted her fingers in his hair and licked at his ear. “Because you keep me safe.”

She was rising as fast as he was and she felt herself there, almost there. Whatever it was that he was doing with his hips was driving her to the edge, even if she didn’t want it to be over. But he was perfect, skilled and passionate, and built to love her. She didn’t stand a chance.

She planted her hands on either side of his head and rose up to look him right in the eye. “Marcus, you—oh God—” She cut off as a wave of pleasure rode up high inside her, warning her of what was coming. He dropped a rough hand between them, where they were joined and the electricity of his touch was so strong, it catapulted Iris off into her pleasure faster and harder than she’d ever experienced before. But she had to tell him. She had to say it. So even through the excruciating ecstasy he was tearing out of her, she moaned the words he had to hear.

“You take care of me. Oh god, Marcus, yes.”

You take care of me.

How she could say those words even while he was ravaging her, Marcus didn’t understand, but he couldn’t deny what they did to him. Those words broke something inside of him, and it was all he could do to ride her through her pleasure. The second it was done, he lifted her off and rolled her onto her stomach on the bed. He came over top of her back, entering her again and spreading his arms over hers, his legs over hers. He even laid one cheek over top of hers. He covered her in every way, restrained her, held her down for his love. And her moans and breath and whispered, feverish words mixed with his as he raced himself to the heaven he’d only dreamed about. He was dimly aware of her tightening and shouting and thanking God as she found her pleasure again.

When Marcus found himself flinging over the edge, it was into darkness. There was nothing but her body and his soul. He lost feeling in his extremities, lost any sense of time or place. All he knew was that she’d torn him in two. That his soul, his heart was never going to be the same. This wasn’t bodily pleasure, this was something else. This was ecstasy on the deepest level. And it couldn’t stay inside him. He didn’t fight it. He plunged into darkness, and gave it all to Iris.

***

Ten minutes later, or an hour later, he couldn’t tell. But Marcus regained his bearings and rolled off of her. Some unnamed mixture of emotions descended on him like a heavy, constricting blanket as he stared at the off-white hotel ceiling above him. Oh God. What had he done? What had just happened?

How could he go on knowing that the most pleasurable experience of his life, the most mind blowing, heart stopping experience, had to have been completely overwhelming and way too intense for Iris. He scraped a hand over his eyes. What was wrong with him? Why was his love so rough? Why couldn’t he control it?

Iris hopped up from the bed and went into the bathroom. Marcus cursed himself as he searched for words to make it right and found pretty much nothing. He waited for the lock to click on the bathroom door. For her to lock him out of her space in some way or another. But not ten seconds later, she was back with a glass of water that she chugged half of and handed to him.

“Holy smokes,” she said, with a curious little lightness in her voice. She crawled over top of him to get back in bed, her body brushing familiarly with his. He stiffened against the touch. Why wasn’t she shrinking from him?

He set the glass aside and turned to study her as she snuggled into his side, her head on his shoulder and one of her legs tangled through his.

“Wow,” she said as the tip of her nose brushed his neck. And… were those her lips pressing against him? Was she kissing him? After that?

Holy smokes. Wow. He tried his best to read between the lines and understand what she meant by that, but his brain was moving slowly, sluggish and confused.

“Are you—?” His voice had a scraping quality to it that he cleared away before he started again. “Are you alright?” His entire body dreaded the answer.

Iris propped herself up and leaned over Marcus. Pressing against him, she rattled around on the nightstand for something. “Well, I’m starving. Do you think room service would bring us something to eat this late?” She squinted through the dark at the menu she was holding, but found she couldn’t read a thing.

Food? After what had just happened she was cavalierly bringing up a midnight snack? Marcus commanded his brain to compute, but no dice. He was as confused now as he’d been a few seconds ago.

“Iris,” he said, setting the menu aside. He had to know. “Are you alright after what just happened?”

“I mean,” she reached for the menu again, “my entire worldview has been rocked, but yeah, I’m doing…” she trailed off as his expression registered. He was being serious. He legitimately thought that she might not be alright. She suddenly realized that he wasn’t snuggling or cuddling her. He was completely still underneath her like he was terrified of hurting her. “Marcus. Are you alright?”

He took a deep breath and slammed his eyes closed for just a second. “I can’t lie to you, Iris, that was the most incredible thing that’s ever happened to me. I’m not exaggerating. That. That was—God.”

Iris squirmed against him in delight at his words. He was more experienced than she was, so to hear that she not only measured up, but surpassed? Well, that just made her feel good.

“But I know,” he continued and had her brow furrowing, “I know it was really intense. And,” he scraped a hand over his eyes, “I know it was too much.”

Iris frowned, propping her chin up on one fist as she struggled to understand. “Of course it was too much,” she told him and watched as his expression hardened. But she was far from finished. “It was… everything.”

She made a little noise in the back of her throat as images from what just happened swamped her. She closed her eyes and shivered. “I didn’t know a man could love on me like that,” she continued. “I want to do that every day for the rest of my life.”

Suddenly her eyes snapped open and she sat up next to him, tucking her feet underneath him and tracing a hand over his perfect chest. She didn’t notice the intensely mystified expression on his face. “Is there more? Does it get more intense than that? Were you holding back?”

He struggled to keep up. To understand what she was saying. She wanted to do that every day for the rest of her life? It was everything? He cleared his throat and stared at her face, looking for any clue that would help him understand. “I was trying to.”             

“Next time, don’t hold back anything.” She absently dropped her head and kissed him at the hollow of his throat. “Next time I want everything you can give.”

“Next time.” The thought stuttered through him. Blooming and tripping at the same moment. Next time?

She wanted more.

She wanted more of him.

He hadn’t destroyed everything. He hadn’t destroyed her. He’d barely let the possibility occur to him, convinced as he was that she was going to be overwhelmed by the way he’d loved her. “You want there to be a next time?”

She pulled back from him sharply and took her lip between her teeth. It was the expression he’d been expecting to see from her. Shy and uncertain and a little damaged. But then she let out a big puff of air and something in her eyes went certain. “Yes, I want there to be a next time. I want there to be a thousand next times. Don’t…don’t you?”

His arms moved for the first time since he’d rolled off of her and it was to bring them around her. He gathered her up and a warmth rolled through him. But he wasn’t quite ready to bask in it. He needed more information and fast. “Of course I want a next time with you, Iris. I want the rest of my life to be one big next time.”

The words were clumsy and a little cheesy, but they brought a humongous grin out on her face and Marcus didn’t regret them at all.

“So, what’s the problem then?” she asked. “Why are you all…?” she pulled her face into a grimacing, sober expression that perfectly imitated his. He couldn’t help but crack a small smile.

“Because,” his eyes searched the ceiling as if he could find the right words there. “Because I lost control with you. And I wasn’t sure if you… liked it.”

“Oh.” She snuggled into him further because it was what they both needed. “Marcus, if you’d been a one night stand or something, yeah, what just happened probably would have been overwhelming. But you’re not a one night stand.”

His eyes tracked hers and she could tell that he was clinging to her words. That she had the power to send him to heaven or to hell right now. She wasn’t sure she wanted that power, but she respected it.

“That… that wasn’t just sex. Not for me or for you,” she continued in a voice that shook with nerves. He might never know how much courage it took for her to say that, considering the way that Jet had played her to the side. Convinced her that she’d misconstrued what had been happening between them. But she refused to let fear downplay what had just happened between her and Marcus. It had been special. And that was that. “That really meant something. And you really mean something, Marcus. To me.” She blushed hard and cast her eyes down.

“Give me those eyes, baby,” he whispered.

She looked up on a deep breath. “I loved what just happened. You were lost in me. I’ve never seen you like that before. Crazy for me. I liked it. I loved it.”

He stroked a hand over the back of her neck and hitched her up his body so that he could kiss the hell out of her. “You know that when I get like that, you can stop me. Just ask me. Ask me for anything and I’ll give it to you.”

“I know.” She nodded confidently. “I didn’t want you to stop. How could I? You were doing something to me that—” She cut off, her legs started to wiggle a little bit as she remembered the way he’d made her feel.

“That…” he prompted, a small smile starting to make its way onto his face.

She blushed, but why shouldn’t she tell him? What did she have to hide? “That I’ve never felt before. And certainly not at the hands of a man.”

Marcus frowned and slipped his hands through her hair. “Not that I want to bring him up, but the more I know about him, the more I really hate this Jet asshole.”

Iris laughed. “He’s not worth the energy. But it was never like that with him. Not even close. He didn’t pay attention to me and he never made me feel safe. Not the way you do.”

Images of what had just happened flashed through Marcus’s mind. Awe at her words descended over him like fog over an early morning pond. “I make you feel safe,” he repeated, almost blankly. “Even after I just lost my mortal mind on your body.”

“You’ve always made me feel safe,” she answered immediately, confused by his confusion. “I mean, it was your job to protect me, of course. But it was more than that.”

She sat up again, crossing her legs under herself, sensing that he really, really needed to hear this. “Marcus, you protect me. And not just as an agent. As a man.” She thought hard. “Except when you were being a real dipstick on the way to the FBI building that one time, you’ve never failed to make me feel your complete focus on me. On my safety and wellbeing.”

His mouth pulled tight in chagrin. “Dipstick is generous.”

“Yeah, well,” she waved a hand in the air. “I’m not into name calling. And besides, I figured out why you were being so grumpy with me anyways. So I’m not mad about it anymore.”

She looked so satisfied and happy and sweet that Marcus couldn’t help but smile as he traced a hand down one of her folded legs. None of this was going at all how he expected and he couldn’t be happier. “Why was I being so grumpy then?”

She pinned him with her eyes. “Because you were scared of losing me. That I’d be assigned elsewhere and you wouldn’t get to be around me anymore.”

For the first time, it was Marcus who broke their eye contact. He took her and tucked her into his side, laying her next to him. The intensity of her eyes and her gaze and her words were all too much for him. She’d seen everything. He hadn’t really been trying to hide it. But some of this stuff he hadn’t even admitted to himself yet.

“Was I right?” she asked, bobbing her head up. An expectant smile lit her face up like an overeager student in a classroom.

He couldn’t help but laugh and press a short kiss to her lips. He cast around beside him for the room phone and dialed zero. “Room Service? Yes. This is room 1009. Are you still serving food? Alright. Two pb and js. Two bags of chips. And do you have any dessert? Perfect. Alright. Thanks.”

He hung up. She knew that he’d deftly avoided her question but she didn’t care. Because there he went, taking care of her again. As soon as he hung up the phone, Iris flung herself at this man. At this perfect, gruff, grumpy man who’d blown her mind. Love for him rocketed up through her like electricity and it almost tripped off her tongue. The words. Words she’d never said to a man. But as his lips found hers in the dark, Iris forgot everything but the feeling of his body pressed against hers.

They rolled and just like before, she found herself pinned between the mattress and his body. He was more than just dominant, he was obliterating. She shivered against him as his mouth fell from hers down to her neck, her collarbones. Minutes dissolved away as they rubbed and petted on one another.

Marcus growled frustration into the air when a sharp knock sounded on their door. “Room Service!”

He was crawling off her and off the bed when Iris sprang up, grabbing a hotel robe off a hook and sliding it on.

“I’ll get it.” He frowned, wanting to bring the food to her in bed.

“Please,” she grinned at him. “You can’t answer the door in your state.” She dropped her eyes pointedly to his very prominent arousal. “You’ll traumatize the poor bellhop.”

He couldn’t help but laugh as he fell back onto the bed, grinning like a fool as he listened to her accept the food, say a few kind words to the bellhop.

He expected her to be smiling just as much when she came back to the bed, but there was a slight tinge of embarrassment on her cheeks instead. She worried her bottom lip between her teeth.

He propped himself up and felt a slicing tremor of desire for her as she absently let the robe fall and climbed onto the bed with a tray in her hands. She was so goddamn beautiful. It shook him just to look at her. And it damn near devastated him to touch her.

She was hungry, he reminded himself. He had to let her eat.

He watched as she unwrapped one sandwich and then the next, embarrassment high on her cheeks and a question obvious on her lips.

“Ask me, Iris.”

Her eyes darted to his.

“Whatever question you’re talking yourself out of asking,” he continued. “Just ask.”

“Well, um,” she swallowed down a big bite of her sandwich, washing it down with some of the orange juice they’d sent up as well. “You know how I said that you’d traumatize the bellhop if you answered the door in that state?”

He smiled, nodding and taking a big bite of his own sandwich, leaning over the tray to avoid crumbs on the bed.

“Well, I guess I was just wondering. Because I don’t have much to compare to. Your…” She blushed, unsure of which word to use, so she just gestured down between his legs. “It’s much bigger than normal, right?”

Marcus raised an eyebrow. “To my knowledge, yes, it is.”

Iris blushed even further but knitted her lips together, swallowing down something she almost said.

“Tell me,” he demanded. He couldn’t stand the thought of her holding back from him. Not now.

“It’s just,” she bit her lip and drove him insane when she paused, “I kind of have a crush on it.”

“On my…” Marcus threw his head back and laughed. Hard. That dark hot chocolate laugh of his that warmed every single inch of Iris to her toes. “Wow.”

“What?!” she demanded, propping herself up and scowling. “You act like I’m crazy, but come on, the thing is like, perfect.” She paused. “Mathematically speaking.”

He laughed even harder now. Absolutely delighted with her and delighted with the two of them.

“I don’t even know what to say to that,” he laughed. “Except… thank you?” He paused. “And I have a crush on your lady parts too.”

Iris grinned and kept working on her sandwich. When the air conditioning in the room made her toes cold, she thoughtlessly tucked them underneath Marcus’s leg. He stiffened for a second before drawing them further underneath.

“Finish up eating,” he told her. “So I can warm you up under the covers.”

And warm her up he did. Marcus and Iris, cocooned under the covers, spooned together, sweated and groaned and writhed their pleasure into one another. She couldn’t get enough of his hands, tight and trapping her to him. He couldn’t get enough of her soft skin, her delicate little noises. He wanted to swallow her whole.

She whispered his name into the dark, begged him for more. And he was helpless but to give it to her. Rolling them, he pinned her to the mattress and covered her. He was between her and the entire world. He pleasured her from above and she screamed it into a pillow, gripping him with everything she had. And still he was over her, protecting her, flinging her headlong into heaven. And he knew, without doubt or reservation, that anything that came for her, would have to go through him.