Taking the honey wand from her, I swiped some excess on the lip of the jar then ran the stickiness across the top swell of her breast. She watched me, her tea apparently forgotten.

“So take control,” I told her, kissing her jaw. “Tell me what to do next.”

She hesitated for only a beat. “Suck it off.”

I groaned at the quiet command, licking across the honey before sucking her skin into my mouth with such force I left a small, red mark. “What else?”

Her hands slipped behind her, unlatching her bra just as I ran my tongue over her skin. I moved to her nipple, blowing lightly across the peak before sucking her into my mouth. Gasping, she whispered, “Make it wet.”

I leaned forward, doing exactly what she asked, licking her br**sts, sucking them deeply, laving her skin with my tongue until it glistened. “These will be f**ked soon.”

“Teeth,” she whispered. “Bite me.”

With a groan, I closed my eyes, biting small circles into the swell of her br**sts, finding small traces of honey remaining on her skin. My hands slid lower, to her jeans, and I worked them and her underwear down her h*ps so she could kick them to the floor.

Her hands ran over my shoulders, legs spread open. “Will?”

“Mmmm?” I teased down her ribs, lifting both br**sts in my hands. I knew her tone; knew what she was about to beg me to do.

“Please.”

“Please what?” I asked, pressing my teeth carefully into her nipple. “Please hand you your tea?”

“Touch me.”

“I am touching you.”

She let out an angry little growl. “Touch me between my legs.”

I dipped my finger into the small bowl of honey, and pressed it against her clit, rubbing it across her skin as I pressed my teeth into the delicate flesh of her breast. She moaned, head falling back, and pulled her feet up onto the counter, legs spread wide.

Crouching, I ran my tongue over her, not teasing, not even able to. The honey was warm from her skin, and tasted f**king amazing. “Holy fuck,” I whispered, sucking gently on her small fold of nerves.

Her hand ran into my hair, pulling, but not for pleasure. She raised me up to her face, leaning forward to kiss me. She’d put honey on her tongue, too, and I knew in a hot pulsing heartbeat that I would now associate this flavor with Hanna forever.

Her quiet little moans filled the space between our lips and our tongues, echoing mildly, growing tighter when I reached between us, slid my fingers over her skin, playing where she was slippery and hot. The counter was a little higher than my hips, but I could make it work if she wanted to f**k in the kitchen.

“Let me get a condom.”

“Okay,” she said, pulling her fingers from my hair.

I turned, padding in bare feet down the hall, unbuttoning my jeans. I pulled a packet out of the box in my drawer and moved to return to the kitchen, but Hanna was standing just inside my bedroom.

She was completely nak*d, and without saying anything, walked over to my bed and climbed to the middle. Resting back on her heels, she sat with one hand on her knee. Waiting for me.

“I want to be in here.”

“Okay,” I said, pushing my jeans down my hips.

“On your bed.”

I got it, I thought. It’s pretty obvious you want to have sex on my bed, what with the nak*dness and condom in my hand. But then I realized she was actually asking me something. She was wondering whether my bed was off-limits, whether I was that kind of playboy, who never brought girls home and took them into the inner sanctum of the bedroom.

Would it always be like this? Her unspoken questions, uncertainty about what I was giving her that was new and special? Wasn’t it enough that I was secretly giving her the chance to break my heart?

I joined her on the bed, beginning to tear the condom packet open with my teeth before she reached up and took it from me.

“Fuck,” I mumbled, watching her duck down to run a tentative tongue across the tip of my dick. “Holy hell. I just love your f**king mouth.”

She kissed the tip, running her tongue up and over me. Drawing me into her mouth.

“I like watching you,” I babbled. I was so f**king tight and the vision of her doing this . . . I wasn’t sure I could hold out. “I feel like I’m going to come.”

“I’m barely touching you,” she said, clearly proud of herself.

“I know. I’m just . . . it’s a lot.”

She took the condom and rolled it over me, laid back on the bed. “Ready?”

I hovered over her, looking down the length of our bodies before I positioned myself to slide into her. She was so warm, so slippery, and I wanted to last, draw this moment out just a tiny bit longer. I pulled my h*ps back slightly, tapping my c*ck gently against her clit.

“Will,” she whined, h*ps arching up.

“Do you realize how wet you are?”

With a shaky hand, she reached between us, touching herself. “Oh God.”

“Is that because of me? Plum, I don’t know if I’ve ever been this hard.” I felt my pulse reverberating down my length, pounding.

She gripped me then, and inhaled sharply, whispering, “Please.”

“Please what?”

Her eyes opened and she whispered, “Please . . . inside.”

I smiled, enjoying her sweet, urgent agony. “Does your p**sy ache a little?”

“Will.” Beneath me, she moved, searching with her hands and hips. I brought her fingers to my mouth, sucked each into my mouth to taste her sweetness.

Then I reached between us, circling a finger around her slick opening. “I asked you, does it ache right here?”

“Yes . . .” She tried to push up, to get even my finger inside but I slid it up and over her clit, making her moan loudly. I dragged my finger back down, dipping into the unbelievable wetness. “Does it ache in your thighs? Are these sweet little petals right here—” I bent, sucking her nipple into my mouth and playing a little with my tongue. “Are they tight and aching, too?” Fuck, her br**sts. So f**king soft and warm. “God, Plum,” I whispered, feeling desperate. “I’m going to make it so good tonight. I’m going to make you feel so f**king good.”

She arched off the bed, hands in my hair, down my neck, scratching along my back.

Drawing my finger down across her p**sy and lower, I pressed it against her backside. “I bet I could make you do anything right now. I could f**k you right here.”

“Anything,” she agreed. “Just . . . please.”

“Are you . . . begging me?”

She nodded urgently and then blinked up to my face, eyes wide and wild. Her pulse thrummed in her throat. “Will. Yes.”

“So those girls in the p*rn movies you so love,” I whispered, smiling as I rocked my hips. We both groaned when the crown of my c*ck slid over the taut rise of her clit. “The ones who beg. Say they need it . . .” I tilted my head, jaw tight as I resisted the urge to sink into her, pound her into the bed. “Would you say right now you need it?”

She groaned, fingernails digging into my chest just below my collarbones and dragging down so roughly she left a trail of fire-red marks from my sternum to my navel. “I’ll do whatever you want tonight, just make me come first.”

Unable to tease any longer, I rasped, “Put me inside.”

Her hands flew to my cock, wrapping around me and rubbing over herself before sliding me inside, pushing her h*ps off the bed to take me deeper. My skin flushed warm, and with a grunt, I met her movements, sinking in deep and pushing her legs to her sides so I could press all the way in, so I could rub her right where she needed it.

I closed my fists around the sheets on either side of her shoulders, struggling to control myself. She was so wet. She was so f**king warm. I squeezed my eyes closed, blood thundering in my veins as I pulled back and pushed in again, and again, hard and deep.

Her noises—sweet moans and growls that it was good, so good—made me want to dive deeper, press harder, make her come over and over until she could never imagine feeling anyone else inside her like this. She knew now I would go all night, and it wasn’t just that first night we shared. I would always keep her up for hours. With Hanna, I would rarely let it to be over quickly.

She was perfect, and gorgeous, and wild—hands on my face, thumb in my mouth, begging me with little noises and her wide, pleading eyes.

But when those eyes rolled closed I stopped, groaning loudly and rasped, “Watch me. I’m not going to be gentle tonight.”

She looked up at my face—not down at my cock—so I let her see every single sensation as it passed over me: the way it wasn’t enough even with my punishing thrusts and savage hands rasping over every inch of her skin; the way I relished how she began to jut up into me, and it started to be just right, just f**king right, and I laughed through a growl, watching her chest flush and her first orgasm sneak up on her, tearing from her screaming and frenzied; the way I wanted to slow down, enjoy the long drag of my c*ck in her, the warm, perfect hum in my blood, run my finger between her br**sts and feel her sweat, slow down enough to make her beg again.

She pulled at my shoulders, begging for faster.

“So demanding,” I whispered, pulling out and flipping her over to lick down her back, bite her ass, her thighs. I left a pattern of red marks across her skin.

I pulled her down to the edge of the bed, bending her over the mattress, and sank back into her, so goddamn deep it made us both cry out. I closed my eyes, needing that sense of distance. Before, with every woman, I had watched everything. I’d needed that layer of visual stimulation when I was ready to come. But with Hanna, it was too much. She was too much. I couldn’t watch her when I was close like this, the way her spine arched, or how she’d look at me over her shoulder, eyes full of question and hope and that sweet adoration that spiked me right between my ribs.

I felt her begin to tighten around me, and lost myself in the way she got even wetter when I gripped her hair, roughly gripped her br**sts in my hungry hands, and smacked her ass to hear a sharp crack, which was followed by her eager moan. Her sounds morphed from sharp cries to tiny gasps of breath as I bit her shoulder and told her to f**king come, Plum. And when she started to, I tried to hold on, tried to block out the image of us together, the way we must look. My hand tightened on her hip, the other on her shoulder as I pulled her forcibly onto me with every thrust until I was so close, could feel it barreling down my spine.

She said my name, pushed back into me and suddenly it felt like I was falling, spinning into darkness. My eyes flew open, both my hands gripping her tightly for support as I came, filling the condom with a groan. I continued to thrust into her, f**king her through her orgasm as my head swam, my legs on fire. I felt like I was made of rubber and could barely hold myself up.

I pulled out and discarded the condom, watched as she slid down onto the mattress. She looked so f**king perfect in my bed, her hair a mess, her skin bite-marked and flushed and sweaty, a glint here and there from the honey that still clung to her. I climbed on the bed, collapsing behind her and wrapping my arms around her waist. There was something so familiar about this. It was the first time she’d slept in my bed and yet it felt like she’d always been there.

Chapter Fifteen

I woke the next morning to the feel of unfamiliar sheets and the smell of Will still clinging to my skin. The bed was a disaster. The sheets were dislocated from the mattress and twisted around my body; the pillows had been shoved to the floor. My skin was covered in bite marks and fingertip bruises, and I had no idea where my clothes were.

A glance at the clock told me it was just after five, and I rolled over, pushing the tangled hair from my face and blinking into the dim light. The other side of the bed was empty and bore only the telltale indentation of Will’s body. I looked up at the sound of footsteps to see him walking toward me, smiling and shirtless, carrying a steaming mug in each hand.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” he said, setting the drinks on the bedside table. The mattress dipped as he sat next to me. “You feel okay? Not too sore?” His expression was tender, a smile curving the corners of his mouth, and I wondered if I’d ever get used to the reality of him looking at me so intimately. “I wasn’t particularly easy on you last night.”

I took the mental inventory: in addition to the marks he’d left all over my body, my legs were weak, my abdomen felt like I’d done a hundred sit-ups, and, between my legs, I could still feel the echo of his h*ps pounding into me. “Sore in all the right places.”

He scratched his jaw, letting his eyes move over my face before dropping to my chest. Predictably. “That is now my favorite thing you’ve ever said. Maybe you could text that to me later tonight. If you’re feeling generous, you could include a picture of your tits.”

I laughed, and he reached for a mug, handing it to me. “Someone forgot their tea last night.”

“Hmmm. Someone was distracted.” I shook my head, motioning for him to put it back down. I wanted both hands free. Will was predatory and seductive every minute of the day; but in the morning, he should be illegal.

He grinned in understanding, slowly brushing his hands through the ends of my hair, smoothing it down my spine. I shivered at the emotion in his eyes, how his fingers set off sparks that settled warm and heavy between my thighs. I wished I knew what exactly it was I saw there: friendship, fondness, something more? I bit back the question that continued to rise up in the back of my throat, not sure either of us was ready to have an honest conversation so soon after the last, disastrous one.

The sky that peeked through the window was still purple and hazy, making each inked line across his skin seem sharper, each tattoo stark against his skin. The bluebird looked almost black; the words that wrapped around his ribs seemed as if they’d been carved there in delicate script. I reached to touch them, to press my thumb into the groove formed by his obliques, the flat planes of his stomach and lower. He hissed in a breath when I slipped a finger just under the waistband of his boxers.