Once the town car picks us up, Travis and I sit in the back seat with our silent driver in the front. He puts up the partition, and the air seems to quiver as I keep my hands to myself, yearning to touch Travis, counting down the seconds when we’ll be out of this vehicle and alone in the apartment.

But he isn’t as patient as I am. I feel his fingers tugging at my dress, and as a raging flush roars up my skin, I grasp his hand, keeping him from doing anything naughty in the backseat while someone else is in the front. Even with the divider up and the world beat music on high volume, I’m anxious about being caught. Travis seems to sense my modesty, and he merely runs this thumb over the top of mine, his caress a hot promise of what’s to come.

When we arrive curbside at my apartment, everything is a whirlwind in the night: how we quickly make our way through the lobby, how we endure the never-ending elevator ride with two other passengers in the car, how we manage to cover the few steps it takes to get to the doorway of my apartment.

But by the time Travis unlocks the door and walks inside, he has apparently cooled off.

I follow him inside, shutting the door. “I didn’t mean to pry—”

He turns to me, and I see the burning need in his gaze just before he brings me against him, crushing his mouth to mine.

On a burst of flame, I sway into his arms. Our kiss is sloppy and desperate, and he threads his fingers through my hair, using his other hand to lift me, pressing me against him so that I feel the hard muscles in his chest against my breasts.

The erotic sensation sends an arcing thrill through me, and as he slows the kiss down, I suspend my hands in the air, helpless. So damned helpless when it comes to him...

He parts my lips with his tongue, ravishing me with one lazy stroke, then engaging me in a longer kiss. I make a soft, greedy sound as he continues to slowly seduce me, exploring me deeply, thoroughly. A thousand volts tear through me, making me wrap my legs around him, bringing my pussy against his belt buckle. The hardness teases my clit, and I rub against it, stimulated beyond rational thinking.

As he nips at my bottom lip then eases into another steamy kiss, he moves into the nearest room. Even as intoxicated by Travis as I am, I smell the leather of book covers, and I know we’re in the library. There’s a lamp on, burning brandied light as he backs me against the shelves, cushioning me with this thick arm as he lets me slide down the length of his body until my feet hit the floor. He looks into my eyes, getting me hot.

Hotter.

Excruciatingly on fire over every inch of skin as well as under it.

“I’ve been thinking about your pussy all goddamned night,” Travis grits as he looms over me, bracing his hands on the bookcase behind me. “Every look you gave me was a tease. You have a way of making me hard without even trying.”

I’m pulling in strained breaths, wanting another kiss, wanting everything.

He runs his fingers down my breast yearningly. “That’s why I can’t get enough of you, Nova. You have no idea what you do to me.”

He says it as if he hates that I make him this way, and I don’t know how to respond. I only rest my hands on his belt, also not knowing how to ask for him to kiss me again. As I grow more agitated by his fingers playing with my nipple, I dig my fingers into his pants. He sucks in a breath.

“Do it,” he whispers roughly. “Fucking do what you’re thinking of doing.”

I know what he wants, and I tentatively slip my hand out of his waistband and downward, over his trousers, until I feel the bulge beneath his fly. As I cup him, my sex palpitates with excitement.

“Tell me what you should do next,” he says in a strangled voice. “Or do you need me to instruct you?”

I blush fiercely, too embarrassed to go on.

“Come on, Nova,” he says. “I want to hear you say it to me.”

I take a serrated breath, still looking up at him, seeing the blazing desire in his eyes. He wants it so badly, and I have the power to give it to him. Me, someone who’s been so powerless all her life.

On a sudden wave of confidence, I caress his cock again, and he closes his eyes, clenches his jaw, his arms flexing as he tightens his grip on the bookcase above me.

“Tell me what you’re going to do to me,” he repeats.

“I’m going to stroke you.” Once the words are out, they seem the most natural, dirty things imaginable, and I like it.

I love it.

I feel a rumble in his chest, and it seems to vibrate through my skin as I begin to massage him. He reaches down and wraps his fingers around my wrist.

“And what comes after that?” he asks between his teeth. He’s watching me now, his gaze scorching me.

“I’m going to take you out of your pants.”

Even though I’m more confident, my pulse is still ragged, my fingers shaking as I undo his fly.

“Then what?” he says.

I don’t know. Does he want me to stroke him off again? But I can see in his dark, lust-filled gaze that he wants something else.

Oh god, he wants…that. The thought of doing it to him shoots me through with adrenaline.

“I’ve never given a…” I hesitate, then say it. “Blow job.”

“Good. Then I can train you how to do it right.”

He reaches up to brush his knuckles over my cheek, and I inhale deeply, then exhale as I turn to his hand. I feel my moist breath on his skin, and I kiss his fingers.

“Nova.” His other hand is busy taking his cock out of his trousers. “What do you want to do now?”

I look down to find him hard already, and my pussy craves the feel of him sliding into me. My sex pulsates, anticipating him.

As I sink to my knees, I ease my fingers down his thigh with one hand, taking his length into my palm with the other. I know what I want to do, and blood dances through me as I lick his tip, laving off his pre-cum.

“Shit,” he mutters, leaning toward the bookcase where his hand is still braced. He loosely cups his other one to the back of my head.

The controlled hunger in his voice heats me, my heart pumping.

Looking up at him, I stroke his shaft. I don’t know what turns him on more—how I’m locking gazes with him or how I’m touching him.

“Now,” he groans, “take me in your mouth, Nova. Goddammit, now.”

I hope I do this right.

As I take his cock in, I swirl my tongue around him, thinking of how I would savor a sticky lollipop. His fingers tighten in my hair.

“Like that,” he murmurs. “Fucking just like that…”

So I keep doing it, swirling and licking while my temperature heats up even higher, spiking between my legs, making my clit ache so, so brutally. When I come up for air, I stroke his shaft some more, and he seems to like what I’m doing because he’s harder than ever, like iron.

I reach for the base of him, and when I brush over his balls, he shifts. I think he’s coming, and I take him back into my mouth without thinking. I skim my fingers over his sac again, then once more, and he jerks, coming into my mouth, his juices warm as I swallow them up.

With a primal growl, he sweeps me off the floor, and after the room spins in front of me, I find myself in a cushiony leather chair. Travis’s hands are under my dress, his gaze wild and bright with intensity as he pulls down my panties.

My breaths are little gusts of air, my pulse chopping as he drags the silk over my calves, my ankles, then tosses it away. He pushes my skirt up to my belly, exposing my pussy, and he looks at it as if he’s going to devour me.

That’s what he is going to do, isn’t it?

Embarrassment swamps me, and I cover myself. He brings his famished gaze up to mine, and a surge of lust zings between us.

“Believe me,” he says, “you want this, Nova. Let me do to you what you did to me.”

“But…”

Once again my innocence obviously charges him up, and he hooks my legs over his shoulders. I slide down into the chair, opened to him. My dress is up to my belly, blocking part of my view, but not all of it. I see how my parted legs make my folds separate, revealing a wet, pink part of me to him. His appetite only seems to grow as he looks at my pussy, then back up at me. His hazy gaze gets me even hotter.

“Please,” I whisper.

Eager now, I spread my legs a little more, inviting him to kiss me in a place I’ve never been kissed.

He lifts my hips, and when he runs his tongue up through my folds I arch and mewl, holding onto the armrests of the chair.

“Sweet,” he says. “You’re so sweet that I could eat you all night.”

His nasty words spiral into me like a spinning pinwheel with edges, pushing open the beginning of my climax even more.

He teases my lips with more licks, then sucks one of them into his mouth. At the same time, he leisurely trails his fingers down and up my inner thigh. The double-whammy sensation gets my clit stiff, and I rock my hips against him.

“So impatient to come for me. You’re going to come hard. Just relax and let it happen.”

Relax, relax, always just relax. But how can I when heat is whirling through me, making me restless and expanding inside me like a shiny hothouse flower blooming in my center?

He gives me a long, wet kiss between my legs, sucking, using both hands to stroke the insides of my thighs now, and I shift even more restively. He adjusts my legs over his shoulders again, deepening the kiss, running his tongue around my clit.

“Oh,” I moan. “Fuck.”

He adds his fingers to the carnal mix, playing with my folds. His mouth works my clit faster, and it’s as if my vision and consciousness all get sucked into the same vortex, spinning around in the air. The pressure inside me joins the chaos, whipping around, rising as he keeps kissing me, loving me and—

Oh god. Oh god, I’m coming so fucking hard and I can’t think straight.

I’m too weak to think about how incredible the orgasm felt as he scoops me into his arms. My body is limp as he brings me to my room and slips me onto my bed, then slides off my shoes, my dress, my bra. He pulls back the blankets and guides me beneath the sheets. As I close my eyes, I hear him taking off his clothes, and then he joins me.

Isn’t he going to leave this time?

It doesn’t seem that way as he pulls me to him, my sweat-slicked chest to his as we breathe together. I’m still wet for him as he eases his hand between my legs. His touch feels possessive, as if he’s claiming me and soothing me all at once, but as I nestle against him, all I really feel is the warmth that my afterglow has left behind.

All I know is that he’s still here with me, and I hold him just as possessively as he’s holding me.