One a.m.

I should be home in bed by now.

But I’m not.

Because even though I closed the bar at midnight, it still has one last customer, sitting in a chair by the pool table with a cue in one hand, a drink in the other, staring blankly at nothing.

I haven’t seen Fox in such a peculiar mood in a long time. He’s drunk for sure, but there’s something else affecting him. Tonight was pretty busy for a Monday so I didn’t have a lot of time to talk to him. For the most part, he was playing round after round of pool with Mav and Riley and drinking like a fish.

Then, when everyone started to go home, he told them that he’d go later and catch a cab. I totally expected them to insist he come with them and there was something that Riley was trying to telegraph with her eyes that I couldn’t quite pick up on, but they left and then pretty soon it was just me and Fox as the last people standing.

Only difference between us is I’m stone cold sober and he is very much not.

As if he can read my thoughts, Fox looks up from across the room and meets my eyes.

“You’re off-duty now,” he says in a low voice. “Have a drink with me.”

I debate this for a moment then give in. “Okay. But just one.”

I pour myself a big glass of red wine and then come around the bar, walking over to him. “I’d offer you something but I dare say you’ve had enough.”

He raises his glass of whisky at me and nods, looking me in the eye. “You are quite astute. Cheers.”

I go to clink the glass against his, looking down for a moment to aim and he yanks his glass back toward him in objection.

“Hey,” he says, sounding hurt. “You’re supposed to look me in the eye as you do that. Seven years bad sex if you don’t.”

I laugh softly and force myself to look back into his eyes. Honestly, it’s the most natural thing in the world. I could look at them forever when we’re just like this.

Of course I have to fuck it up and make it all awkward by saying, “Well we wouldn’t want to mess anything up with Julie, would we?”

His expression falls, looking pained.

I quickly slam the drink against his and then take a large gulp of wine. “You know, because of the seven years of bad sex thing,” I add on.

He nods slowly, seeming to think that over and then has a sip of his drink. “Yeah. Well. We broke up.”

He says it so easily that I’m not sure I heard him correctly.

“What?”

“We broke up.” He sighs and sinks back into his chair, shaking his head. “Or she broke up with me. Just what I fucking needed, you know? One minute you think things are going well and the next…”

I’m not sure what to say to him but I’m not so selfish that I don’t recognize he’s in pain. No wonder he’s drinking like he is. He must have really liked her. I ignore the squeeze in my chest and force myself to be his friend right now.

“I’m so sorry,” I tell him. I place the wine on the ledge above his chair and crouch down so I’m at his level, putting my hand on his knee and hoping it’s as innocent as it seems. “You must have really liked her.”

“I thought I did,” he says gruffly, his eyes drifting to my hand. Should I move it? Keep it there? “At least I wanted to. I thought maybe…we had a future together. I know that’s pretty fucking lame for a guy to say but…”

My heart pangs at that but I give his knee a soft squeeze. “It’s not lame, Fox. It’s normal. You should want to find someone to love and settle down with. We’re not getting any younger and everyone else around us seems to be finding someone...”

He glances at me curiously, his eyes both wired and glazed at once. “What about you?”

“Me?” I get to my feet, hating when this question is thrust on me, no matter who is doing the asking. “I’m fine.”

“You really oughta get a tattoo of that somewhere,” he says, getting to his feet as well and resting the cue against the table. “Maybe on your forehead.” He reaches out and runs his thumb above my brow.

I try to give him a look but he just physically raises my brows instead so I can’t frown.

“Very funny,” I tell him, though I’m secretly enjoying his touch.

“I’m serious, Del,” he says and just like that a switch goes off behind his eyes, the hint of playfulness in them fading to something sharp. “Why are you single? You’re so beautiful. So smart. So funny. You make everyone around you feel good. So fucking good.”

Then he lets his hand drop from my face, down to my neck. I’m not breathing as he runs his large, warm palm down my arm, then over to my waist. With one hand slipping to the small of my back, he finishes his whisky, his eyes never leaving mine as he places the empty glass on the pool table.

“You confuse me,” he says, his voice much lower now, throatier, as the distance between us closes in. His fingers press against my back until I find myself nearly held against him, only a few inches keeping our bodies apart. I can feel the heat radiate from him, smell his heady scent of pine and soap. I’m almost dizzy.

“I confuse you?” I whisper.

He’s confusing me. What is he even doing saying these things, standing this close?

Touching me like this.

“The way you make me feel,” he says, his eyes flashing with his words. “How can anyone not want to feel that way?”

Maybe I don’t want anyone else to begin with. But I don’t say that. Instead I have the courage to ask him, “How do I…make you feel?”

He peers down at me, thinking it over as his eyes search mine, looking deep emerald in the dim bar lighting. “I don’t know,” he says slowly, licking his lips. I try not to stare, try not to want to kiss them. “It’s like…in my head and my heart, there’s fire that I can’t control. It’s like nothing in this world, nothing that I’ve seen. The flames are black, sticky, and they rage and it’s just this twisting, churning mess inside and I can’t see straight, I can’t think straight and then, then…I’m with you Del and all of that goes away. The pain fades. You bring me peace. It doesn’t last but when I get it…it makes this life manageable. You just make me fucking happy, whatever being happy is.”

Whoa.

I don’t know what to say, what to think. I’ve never had Fox unload like this before and I’m both horribly flattered that I give him peace and deeply troubled that he needs it to begin with. I mean, I know how messed up Fox can be at times but I honestly didn’t think it was this bad, that he has this black fire raging inside him all the time, something he can’t put out.

“I had no idea,” I finally say, overly conscious of how his gaze has now dropped to my lips.

“I didn’t think you would,” he says. “But it’s the truth. Fuck knows if I’ll find that with anyone now.”

I swallow hard. “So why did she break up with you? Did she say?”

He gives me a lopsided smile. “She did. She says I’m in love with you.”

What?

Did he just say what I think he said?

Holy fuck.

My stomach summersaults over and over and over again.

“That’s crazy,” I whisper, my words barely audible as I stare up into his eyes, my heart pounding so hard that I feel like I’m shaking inside, that whatever is holding me together is about to come loose.

“I know it is,” he says, voice hoarse. “Completely crazy.” His other hand slides behind the back of my neck, his long strong fingers applying pressure against my skin. I fight the urge to let my lids droop, to sink into this feeling of him holding me like he’s never held me before. “But now I’m looking at you Del, and I’m feeling crazy. I’m wondering what it would be like. I just need to know.”

Know what?

But before I have a chance to vocalize it, he’s pulling me so I’m right flush against him, our bodies pressed against each other with enough heat to start a fire and then he’s leaning in closer and closer, his eyes fluttering closed just before his lips brush against mine.

I melt.

From my lips, down my spine, to my toes I’m dissolving as he kisses me, a slow, gentle press of his lips that slowly opens, deepens, until his tongue slides against mine and my world is forever changed.

My heart feels open and clear and wide as a night sky and fireworks are exploding, lighting me up inside.

This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening.

But it is.

Fox is kissing me.

He’s kissing me.

His mouth open, his kiss soft, the easy, wet slide of his tongue, the gentle pressure of his lips. He’s holding me tighter and I feel his erection against my hip and I’m just gone, I’m gone.

I can’t handle this.

And yet I am.

I’m kissing him back, tentatively because I’m afraid what might happen if I let loose, if I let all these years of pent-up feelings out. I might just devour him.

“Del,” he says, voice choked, as he pulls back enough so that his lips brush mine as he speaks. I feel the ache and need in his voice all the way to my bones. “I need you. I need this.”

I can’t even speak, I can only whimper, my body winding around itself, tighter and tighter as his hand drops to the button of my jean shorts and undoes it.

Wait, wait, wait.

A thin voice echoes through my head.

Rebound. You’re a rebound.

And I know I should listen to that voice. I know I should put my hand on Fox’s chest and push him back. I know that he’s upset and drunk and that he’s probably not thinking straight and I’m just a rebound, just the right girl at the right time.

But I don’t listen to that voice. Because I’ve wanted this, needed this and never in a million years did I actually believe this would happen.

So I’m taking this for all it is, for all Fox has got.

I grab him, my hand at the back of his neck, the other making a fist in his shirt and I hold him next to me, the massive width of his firm chest pressing against mine, our mouths working against each other as the hunger grows.

Fuck, he tastes amazing. Our kisses are dark magic, this easy rhythm that we both fall into, kisses that burn in my blood and light me on fire. I’m growing wild along with him, knowing that if we continue we’ll never be tamed.

I don’t want to be tamed tonight.

I want to be taken and let loose, feral and out of control.

“Del,” he groans into my mouth. “Fuck…god, I need you.”

Each of his words and desperate sounds throttle me, shaking me until I know I’m wet already between my legs.

He knows too as he slips his large hand into my underwear, the brush of his rough fingers sliding down between my legs causing me to ache with need.

I can’t believe this is happening.

He has his hand down my shorts, he’s…

My thoughts falter as his thick finger slides along my clit and my body immediately melts into his hand, needing more, wanting more. I’d never had the need to get off strike me like this before, like a match against the striker.

I’ve had years of playing it safe.

I want him to throw gasoline on the fire.

“Fuck me,” I whisper as I pull back and stare into his eyes, his eyes which are drowning with desire, making me feel like he’s close to just devouring me.

“Jesus,” he swears, biting down on my neck, the pain sweet.

My body is greedy for him. His fingers play gently along my clit, teasing like fluttery wings, before the they plunge up inside me.

A gasp escapes my mouth as I spread around him.

“Oh god,” he says thickly, bringing his lips back to mine. “You sound like a fucking angel.” Then he lowers his head to my breast, pulling the neckline of my shirt to the side until my nipple is exposed and hardening in the air. His lips gently suck at the tip before he draws it into his mouth in one long, hard pull.

My back is arching for more and breathless groans are coaxed out of me. We're still standing in the middle of the bar and I'm not sure how much more I can take like this. I'm getting desperate for him in a way I never thought possible, an aching need that's clawing its way up through my core, turning every part of my body into an addict.

He pinches my nipple between his teeth and, as he does so, plunges his fingers back inside me, three of them this time. I expand around him, needing more. The desire is so acute that it feels like I’m on drugs, like if I don’t get off, if I don’t get him inside me, I might die.

“Fuck,” he growls, yanking down my shorts and underwear, then he’s grabbing me around the waist and lifting me up so I’m sitting on the pool table, my shorts and underwear dangling off one foot.

He’s between my legs and I’m completely bare for him but I don’t feel a hint of self-consciousness. I feel like it was always supposed to be this way, that Fox was always supposed to look at me this way.

And, fuck, is he ever looking. He’s gnawing on his lip as he stares and my skin heats under his carnal gaze and he’s slowly sliding both of his hands up along my thighs, my sensitive skin dancing.

“Are you sure you want this?” he manages to say, his voice coated with this huskiness that makes the hairs on my arms stand up, the space between my legs flush with heat.

My “yes” is caught in my throat. I can only nod.

Please touch me. Touch me everywhere.

My whole body moves toward him like gravity, wanting more. Craving more.

He gives me a half-smile that borders on predatory. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited to do this.”

“Tell me about it,” I manage to say as his mouth dips toward my jawline, nibbling along it before it slides down my neck, a hot trail of lips and tongue and teeth.

His mouth returns to mine, his lips soft and strong, and I’m melting into his mouth, dissolving underneath his tongue. It’s just as raw as sex, and I feel open and bare from just the heat of our kiss, the languid, penetrating way he explores my mouth. It’s like he’s devouring me, conquering me, and I’ve never been happier to give in.

“Del,” he says, our mouths parting for a moment, my name an urgent hiss on his lips. His hands are now moving down to my shirt, sliding over my skin. His hands feel so warm, so possessive as they glide over my waist and stomach, slowly making their way up to my breasts.

I help him out by grabbing the hem of my shirt and pulling it up and over my head.

He lowers his head to my breasts, kissing the swell of them while he quickly reaches behind my back and deftly undoes my bra, discarding it on the peanut shell-covered floor beside us.

My nipples tighten in the air, begging to be touched. He cups one breast and brings his mouth to them slowly dragging his tongue around it in circles, over and over again, before giving it a hard flick.

I moan, my head back, as his tongue continues to flick my nipple, hard and fast. It pulls every nerve ending into a tightened knot. I’m growing more turned on and desperate by the minute. My back arches, and I push my breasts up to him, craving more and less at the same time.

I don’t have any time in my foggy brain to think about it being Fox.

But it is Fox.

It’s his teeth now razing over my nipples, causing me to gently cry out.

It’s his hands sliding up my legs to where I’m warm and wet.

It’s his cock that presses against me, pushing against the fabric of his pants.

Lust hits me like a rush. I want nothing more than to come. I want him to make me come, I want his clothes off, I want to be fucked silly on this pool table until I’m screaming his name.

If he wants to spank me with the cue stick, I wouldn’t complain.

My god.

This is actually happening.

“Lay back,” he murmurs gruffly, putting his hand on my chest and urging me down.

I lie back, the soft green felt of the table pushing into my shoulder blades while he takes his hand and slides it between my legs, his fingers skirting over my clit, before one finger slowly makes its way inside of me. He leans forward, gazing at me, drunk on lust. “And so very, very wet.”

His eyes are unnerving. I don’t think I’ve ever been looked at so sexually before and never by him. It’s almost too intimate. I have always been lost in his eyes but never like this.

Not even close.

I close my eyes and try to control my breathing as he slowly pushes another finger inside me. I gasp, clenching around him, while the pad of his thumb grinds against my clit.

It’s fucking bliss.

“Are you ever going to get naked?” I ask breathlessly, looking up at him.

“When I put my cock inside you and fuck you on this pool table, yes,” he says, his voice hoarse. “For now though, I want to taste you.”

Then he gets to his knees and puts his head between my legs as I’m hanging halfway off the table. His hands spread my thighs wide before he presses his fingers into my hips, holding me in place.

I’m not ready for this, for him to go down on me. It was something I fantasized about daily, but I never imagined it would happen with me completely naked on this pool table in my pub, him fully clothed, head between my legs.

I try and sit up to watch, utterly fascinated and turned on by the sight, but as his tongue languidly slides over my clit, washing over my nerves, slippery and wet, I have to lie back down. The feeling is too much and I feel like a sponge trying to soak up stars and lightning and everything beautiful, and it’s too overwhelming for this world.

And Fox is relentless.

I mean, good lord, the man can eat pussy. He’s at me with messy precision, his lips, tongue, and occasionally those long fingers of his working me into a wild frenzy.

I can’t think.

I can’t breathe.

I can only feel as my blood runs hot, my nerves tying up in knots upon knots, pulling, pulling, pulling, until he’s groaning against me and I’m digging my nails into his hair and his tongue is pushing into me in hot, quick stabs.

I’m so swollen, so desperate, that when he brushes his fucking nose against my clit, the knots all come undone at once.

I come. Hard.

I am blasting through space, groaning, writhing on the table as the orgasm rips through me, feeling like I’ve had a million swirling stars being born inside me.

But the relief is short-lived.

As I catch my breath, my limbs still loose, and peer up at him as he stands between my legs, he’s taking off his shirt.

Undoing his belt.

Letting his pants drop.

He’s just in his grey boxer briefs.

Damn.

He might as well be naked.

I can see every hard, rigid detail of his cock.

I swallow hard, amazed how quickly I’ve gone from spent and sated to hungry and, well, a little afraid in a matter of seconds.

Fox is a big man and so my fantasies always took that into consideration but the real thing is blowing all my fantasies about him out of the water.

He’s huge.

Beautiful.

Perfect.

Somehow I manage to pry my eyes away from his underwear and take in the rest of him. As I’d known, Fox is fit as fuck with a body sculpted by hard and dangerous work. He’s all firm angles and long planes, from the wide breadth of his tattooed shoulders and chest, to the definition in his abs and the way they lead to the sharp V of his hips. A dusting of chest hair thins out before becoming a treasure trail again. I’ve seen his body so many times over the years but never ever like this. It’s like seeing him for the first time.

He’s so manly, and his posture suggests he’s completely at ease with his body. I want to get to know that body better, like I never have before. I want to run my lips and fingers and breasts along every lean, hard-earned inch of him. I want to feel it press against mine, damp with sweat.

“Are you just going to stand there?” I say to him, feeling just a tad bit vulnerable that I’m still naked and spread eagle and waiting.

He flashes me an assured smile and pulls down his boxer briefs, letting his cock, swollen and thick, jut out in front of him.

Damn. This is now an urgent debilitating lust he’s stroked within me. The kind that wants it all hard and fast and now.

He steps between my legs, the dark, wet tip of his cock rubbing against my sensitive clit before he pauses. “I don’t have anything. But I’m clean.”

“I’m on the pill,” I tell him, impatience running through me, hot and tight. “Now hurry up.”

His eyes gleam with intensity. It’s something dark and deep, like he’s not just after my body but my soul. I can feel it in his gaze, in the way he keeps sifting through the layers, searching for something to satisfy him.

He’s seeing me for the first time.

“Sit up,” he murmurs, sliding his arms around my waist and pulling me up. I wrap my legs around him, place my hands behind his neck, already damp with sweat. Our faces are inches apart, but he’s not kissing me. He’s fucking me with his eyes, the way they simmer over my mouth, as if he’s thinking of all the things my mouth could do.

I want to show him.

I bring my face closer, take his bottom lip between my teeth and gently suck.

I feel a rumbling groan build through his chest, like he’s barely holding his lust in check, a million wild mustangs waiting to be unleashed.

“I’m trying to have patience with you,” he whispers hoarsely, kissing the corner of my mouth. “I can’t have this over too fast. I need to savor,” he kisses my jaw, “every,” he kisses my neck, “part of you. Who knows if we’ll have this again.”

Oh god.

Oh god, I hope we do.

“Savor me later,” I tell him, as a sudden surge of adrenaline rockets through me. I grab the back of his neck, wanting, needing him to kiss me hard. His cock is this hot, stiff pressure rubbing against my clit, and I’m desperate, so desperate, for him to come inside me.

His mouth continues along my collarbone, nipping and licking, and my legs pull him closer. I’m whimpering, his lips ducking down to my nipples, so swollen and sensitive.

“Please,” I beg, my voice ragged in my throat. “I need you inside me.”

He brings his head up, his eyes wild with this hazy, heavy kind of lust. “I’ve always dreamed of you saying that,” he says thickly. He reaches down, positioning his cock against me. His eyes hold mine at knifepoint, and I’m unable to look away as he slowly pushes himself inside.

I stretch around him, my breath hitching tight in my throat.

“Oh, fuck,” Fox gasps against my neck, his hands dropping to the small of my waist and pulling himself deeper into me. “Fuck. Deilahl.”

My name has never sounded so good.

Meanwhile, my body is still adjusting to his size, feeling absolutely stretched and full. Thank god I’m drenched.

He pulls back—so fucking deliberate, like he’s trying to feel every centimeter—and I’m ravenous.

I’m crazed.

An animal.

I need more.

Crave more.

My hands move to his shoulders, and I dig them into his skin, wanting all of him.

As Fox pushes back in, I expand around him, accepting him as if he’s always belonged in me, as if he’s always been home.

Because he has been,

From the start.

The connection between us is tight and frightening, and the intimacy is nearly too much for my heart to swallow. Our eyes dance with each other, glancing through lowered lashes, through the sweat and haze, searing deep and then moving on to other parts. He takes in my mouth like a glass of water, and the carnality in his gaze snaps a million strings inside me.

He murmurs my name again, his voice sliding over me like rough silk, and I am enraptured by his surrendering, his pleasure, lost in the hot, ragged draw of his breath against my skin and his raw grunts in my ear.

I can’t believe this is happening.

Fox Nelson.

Inside me.

I’m on a pool table in The Bear Trap Pub.

Being thoroughly fucked by a man I had only dreamed about.

A man who has my heart.

This is unlike anything I’ve felt in this world. This is holding fire and electricity in your burning hands. This is magic and light running through your veins, a switch being turned on, turning you into everything primal and basic and real.

This is the us we always should have been.

The table starts to shake underneath me. An earthquake of his doing. My legs grip him harder. I reach down and shrug his toned, round ass between my hands, pulling him into me. His grunts are hoarser now, loud from lust, and I still can’t believe this is my reality, that this is my moody, brooding, wonderful Fox, and he’s so deep inside me I can’t breathe. I can’t do anything but hold on.

His pace becomes frantic. A drop of hot sweat rolls off his brow and onto my collarbone. His lungs gasp with exertion, because this is a workout to fuck me like this, so fast, so deep, so thorough.

I never want it to end.

Then his hand slips between my legs, his thumb finding my clit, and now I’m frantically chasing my release until I’m at its mercy, on the edge, ready to fall.

I groan loudly.

I’m opening, I’m opening, I’m opening, legs falling apart, wider and wider.

I’m coming.

I’m coming.

I’m…

And then I’m off like a bomb.

Crying unintelligible words.

My body convulses violently, spasming around him.

It’s so good, it’s too good.

I never want anything else. Anyone else.

Just this, this, this.

Him.

All the time.

Forever.

His neck cranes, head back, jaw tense as he grinds his teeth together. He comes, and I watch with a sense of relief and wonderment that I’m doing this to him.

Me.

This is all my doing.

His face is pinched in a mix of rapture and anguish, and he’s swearing in a low guttural voice, his grip on my hips so hard I think he’s going to leave plum-colored bruises.

“Fuck,” he swears as he slows his pumping. He’s shaking. I’m shaking. His eyes flit over my body in a daze, sex-soaked and spent. I stare up at him, and it’s like looking through a dream.

It hits me slowly, like dissipating smoke, what exactly we’ve done and what it means to me.

Everything.

He pulls out of me, and I’m immediately hollow. I want to keep him inside. My terror builds as he retreats, pulling up his briefs, and I want reassurance that the world isn’t ending. I need to feel that this wasn’t a one-time fling, that I’m not alone and adrift. The urge for his contact is unbearable.

Fox’s chest rises and falls as he stares down at me in a mix of worry and amazement.

“Hey,” he says gently, his voice thick. He reaches down and slowly pulls me up by my waist and shoulders like I’m a ragdoll. His longer fingers press against my cheeks as he holds me in place, searching my eyes. “Are you okay?”

I can’t speak. I can only swallow, though it’s like bread crusts are lodged in my throat. I nod.

He rubs his lips together, looking worried. I don’t want him to be worried, I don’t want him to regret anything.

“I’m more than okay,” I manage to say.

“Good,” he says, his eyes gazing over me. Lazy, sated, glimmering at what we’ve just done. He reaches behind my head, pulls me into him and kisses me.

My emotions won’t stop swirling.

I’m not sure if I’ll ever come down from this high.

He pulls away and gives me a lopsided smile. “Can you give me a ride home?”

I laugh, glad that things are back to being easy between us. “Of course.”

Easy but forever changed.