I’m a goner. I’m on fire. I’m done. No, wait. I want more. So much more.

“Hand me my wallet,” he says, signaling in the general direction of his jeans next to the bed. I lean down, fumbling with the back pockets, until I find it. I hand it to him and he flicks it open with one hand and pulls out a condom.

“How many condoms do you have in your wallet at any given moment?” Jealousy leaks into my tone.

“One. Which I never use.” He leans down for a demanding kiss, pulling up on his knees above my opened legs and sliding the condom over his cock. I forgot to ask him if they even make them for his size. What is he? XXL?

“Women bore me,” he croaks.

“I’m pretty sure that I’m a woman,” I reply.

“You’re not a woman.” He guides his cock to my entrance, sinking his teeth into his lower lip. “You’re a storm.”

He thrusts into me and I arch my back in pleasure. It’s not as painful as it was the first time, probably because I knew what to expect this time. He’s riding me like the devil’s inside him. I’m holding on to him like he is a hurricane I have to survive, and the bed creaks so loud, I’m afraid its frame is going to break. When he comes, sprawled out on top of me, our foreheads sticking together, both dripping wet in the tiny, windowless room, I actually let out a laugh, my lips searching for his again.

“Can I ask you for a favor?” I murmur.

“Ask away.”

“When I finally get my hands on Camden, I want you to f*ck me in front of him with his eyes propped open by toothpicks, like in Clockwork Orange. It’d drive him crazy. Think you can do that for me?”

He chuckles, a laugh that fizzes out from the pit of his stomach and makes his abs shake against my stomach.

“It’s on.”

We f*ck.

On his bed.

On his floor.

Against every surface in this grimy, horrid house.

In the tiny bathroom where we stole so many small, hauntingly painful and blissful moments.

Against the tiles.

Under the rusty showerhead.

My sex is burning with the relentless friction and my insides feel numb. The majority of my muscles—abs, quads, even glutes—shake under the strain of working his body so hard. But we keep at it.

On the kitchen counter, the shelves behind us shaking, their contents spilling onto the floor.

We’re an earthquake, and we destroy everything we bump into.

The last time we do it, we’re back in his bed. My whole body throbbing and my muscles shaking like I spent the last couple of years working the fields under the sun. But Nate? He has all of his early twenties to make up for, sex-wise. It takes him exactly twenty minutes to get back up again and the minute Nate Junior is ready, so am I.

Because injured or not—it is still Nate Vela.

I’m not supposed to know his last name. . .but I wonder if he trusts me just a little now?

“What’s your last name?” I pant above him. I’m riding him reverse cowgirl-style, his hands on my hips, bouncing me up and down. Reverse, because I can’t chance him having access to my throbbing nipples anymore. He just spent twenty minutes sucking and biting on them until they turned from pink to red, the flesh around them bruised and cracked. At one point, he dragged them so slowly and painfully through his teeth, they pulled like an elastic rubber for about five seconds too long before he let them free.

He halts only for a second before grunting, “No offense, Baby-Cakes, but I don’t trust you with a f*cking plastic spoon. No way in hell am I telling you my last name.”

“No,” I pant. “No.” My voice matches the rhythm he thrusts into me with. “If we’re going to do this, we need to trust each other.”

A reluctant grumble leaves his mouth.

“Vela. Nate Vela.”

“I’m Prescott Burlington-Smyth.” I snake my palm behind me for a handshake and peek at him. He cocks one thick eyebrow, shaking my hand while still using the other one to hold my waist and drive my body onto his cock.

“Nice to f*ck you, Nate Vela.”

“My pleasure.”

He is just about to show me exactly how much pleasure he is in—I can feel him expanding inside me—when we hear the front door open, then bang shut.

Irvin.

He was supposed to be on a family visit for the next two days. What happened?

I stop moving on top of Nate and swivel my head. Our eyes lock. Wordlessly, Nate jerks his hips forward in one go and squeezes my waist, his fingers digging into my flesh, and comes inside me. He opens his mouth in a mute moan, rolls me over so that my back hits the wall by his bed and stands, pulling on his briefs and black, ripped jeans. I lie on his bed, watching his every move. For all I know, he could throw me back into the basement any minute now. Just because we f*cked for the past three hours doesn’t mean he really is on my team.

But this time, I’m not going into the basement, even if it means shedding blood. No matter whose.

We hear his roommate moving around the house. His Crocs squeaking in the hallway while he mumbles to himself. He’s taking a leak with the bathroom door open, then moves to the kitchen, raiding the fridge.

“What are we going to do?” I mouth, my head propped on my hand. Nate throws me a calm look.

“Stay here. Don’t move.”