The first time I was in this bedroom I rescued her kitty. The second time I made her come. Both of those times I wanted to help Bea, but this time is completely different. It’s my own need that drives me as I lead her by the hand to the bed. The need to undress her and feel her naked skin against my own. It’s a wild animal inside me, this need. Gnashing and growling with hunger.

She’s trembling. I feel the tremors where my hand holds hers. There’s uncertainty in her eyes, enough to give me pause. Not enough to make me stop. I undress her with slow deliberation, undoing the small buttons at her back, then the zipper the rest of the way, revealing so much covered skin that I feel drunk with it.

Make this good for her.

I never have to remind myself of that. It’s always my primary purpose. From the very beginning, sex has been a way to make a woman feel beautiful, feel pleasure. Only now does it seem like something else.

She wears a white lace bra, which I remove from her body an inch at a time, placing an almost chaste kiss to every inch revealed. Her white lace panties go next, but I don’t kiss her there. Not yet. Not when she’s looking at me like I’m going to ravish her, a little worried.

Desire beats a heavy drum in my veins. This time it’s different because I want to touch her more than I want her to be touched. I want to fuck her more than she wants to be fucked. I want her…

More than she wants me.

I’m wild with this wanting, my hands too rough, my breathing harsh.

There’s something primal about what’s happening to me. It’s out of my control, the way I push her back onto the bed, the way I slide between her legs, the way I push my cock against her. There are still clothes between us, but I have no intention of letting her grind against me to completion like we did in the dining room. The only way this ends is with me pulsing inside her wet heat.

“I’m nervous,” she whispers, her eyes an opaque jade green.

“I won’t hurt you.”

There may not be any of my usual finesse, but I’ll make her come hard enough to see stars. The way the ceiling of Beau Ciel lights up, pinpricks of white on a painted blue swirl.

She gives me a quick grin, full of mischief. “What if I hurt you?”

Mon Dieu, I’m already aching. How much more can I take? “You don’t need to worry about me. You never need to worry. There’s only your beautiful body.”

And I need to feel her against me, naked and warm, so I pull back enough to unbutton my white dress shirt and push down my slacks. My boxer briefs are left, and I consider leaving them on for her comfort. But I’d rather she know what she’s getting into.

So I strip completely, releasing my cock, heavy and dark with arousal.

Her gaze darts away, skittish now. And when she looks back at me, I have the sensation I had when her kitty looked up at me from behind the dresser. “I know I’m not who you would be with, not really, but I still want to make this good for you. If there’s something I should do, you have to tell me.”

My heart pounds. Not who I would be with?

Her hair curls wildly around her head, framing her pale face, decorating the pillow. Her lashes are the same copper color, fanning around those pretty eyes. Her eyebrows are a shade darker, two crescents I want to trace with my thumb. And then there’s her nose. Should there be any allure to a nose? It’s a utilitarian feature, not a form of seduction. But hers is small and curving up, a reminder of the innocence that brought me to her. Her lips are full and plush. I want to sink into them.

Not who I would be with?

If I wanted to be with her any more than this, I would expire on the spot.

“For that,” I say, pressing a kiss to a cluster of freckles at the corner of her eyes, “I will have to make you come so hard you cannot think. There’s no other solution to such a claim.”

Her eyes widen. “What? No, you don’t have to—”

“And when I’m licking you and drinking you down, lapping every drop with a hunger so great, you won’t be able to doubt how much I want you, how beautiful I find you.”

Her breath catches, which is better than self-doubt. I don’t want doubt anywhere near her. Only the confidence she has when she plays at the piano, all the time.

I move down her body one constellation at a time, stroking her skin, pressing a quick kiss. Laving her with my tongue. Her freckles are pale on pale, almost an optical illusion. I can only see them under certain light, so I move her body as I go, lifting her hips, touching her so that she arches up toward my mouth. When I’m at the top of her sex, she presses her legs together.

I’m so starved for her. Can’t she see that? But no, she’s busy thinking of how she looks. Wondering if I like the bronze hair or the porcelain skin. It seems impossible that she doesn’t know.

It almost seems impossible that she’s real.

“Let me taste you, sweet Bea. I won’t force you, but I want you bad enough that it hurts me inside. I’m imagining how you taste, how you’ll feel on my tongue. The way you’ll clench when you come. And it’s a physical pain.” I put a hand to my breastbone so she’ll know where. There are barbs. “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Let me in.”

Her eyes close briefly, as if in prayer. “How do you do this?”

“What?”

“How do you make me believe it?”

I want to say more, but then she opens her legs for me, and the sight is enough to render me speechless. The pain becomes a driving spear inside me, until I bend down and lick her deep at her core. She gasps a sound of shock and pleasure, so I do it again.

“You taste like sweetness and sex, Bea.” I don’t have the willpower to lift my mouth from her completely, so my words come out muffled, but I think she understands. Her hips press up, asking for more, and I run my tongue along the ridge of her sex. “My cock is as hard as it’s ever been. I’m pressing it into the sheets for relief, but it doesn’t help.”

A soft moan. “Hugo.”

I kiss an open-mouthed trail up to her clit. “And right here, this sweet bud. I’ve been dreaming about it and look at you. Even your sex is shy, hiding from me. Uncertain.”

It needs to be reassured, like the woman beneath me, so I press my tongue flat against her bud. Her whole body goes tense and quivering, and I have to hold her down at her hips. She only has enough room to nudge her body up, up, up. I wait for her to realize this, to try it out, to feel the mind-melting pleasure of it. I’m not licking her at this moment; I’m letting her fuck my tongue.

“You’re so beautiful,” she murmurs.

I realize I’ve closed my eyes, the taste of her so incredible I want to memorize it. Because this won’t last forever. How can it? She will move on to a man equal of her, and I will be left with a hollow loft and a cold madam. There’s only now.

The corner of my lip kicks up. “Beautiful?”

She laughs a little. “Are you offended? But you are. You’re handsome, too. And strong. I mean you have an actual six-pack. I thought those weren’t even real.”

The six-pack in question flexes against the mattress, as if showing off for her. Working out is something of a requirement for this profession. It’s also a pleasant way to pass the time, but now it seems imperative, as if I’ve been lifting and running and swimming all these years for this.

“But you’re beautiful, too,” she says, soft and hurting.

I press one final kiss to her clit and am rewarded with a whimper. Then I climb up her body, my cock leaking a line of precum along the sheets. “I wish to be beautiful for you, if that’s what you want. And handsome. And strong.”

When I’m close enough, she traces two fingers over my lips which are still damp from her arousal. Her brow is furrowed in concentration, like maybe she’s trying to memorize me too.

“Will you have sex with me now?” she asks, and I can’t tell from her tone what answer she wants.

Somehow I find the condom in my wallet and tear the foil open, slipping the latex over my cock. “I think I’ll die if I don’t.”

That makes her smile. “You’re the only man I’ve ever wanted like this.”

Those are the last words I hear before I notch my cock against her pussy and slide home. The pride wars with pleasure, a galaxy implosion in my chest. Her private walls stretch to accommodate me, but not far enough. It feels like a vise around my cock, and I shudder against the sensations.

Bea gasps and strains at the intrusion, her hands pushing weakly against my shoulders. Her hair in disarray, her face flushed. She’s like wildflowers in full bloom across the valley. It makes me feel like the sun, beaming down on her, making her turn toward me.

“Too much,” I say between gritted teeth.

It’s not a question because I know I gave her too much and too fast. Her body trembles underneath me, struggling, maybe even in pain. I can’t hurt her. Mon Dieu, I need to pull out.

Except that would be torture.

I drop my forehead to the pillow beside her, my body outside my control, my cock still hard and throbbing inside her. It’s all I can do not to thrust again and again. “Forgive me.”

She makes little panting noises. “I didn’t know—”

“Didn’t know what?” I ask, my jaw clenched hard, eyes shut tight. It’s a terrible knot, our bodies together. Too tight for me to pull away. Pulled hard enough to hurt her.

“That it could actually be too big.” A strange riff that might be laughter. Or maybe tears. “I thought it would always work. I mean it looked big, but what do I know?”

“It will work,” I assure her, pressing a kiss to her temple even while my lower body pushes hard to stay inside her. “Once you have more experience. I’m so sorry for hurting you. I am an animal. A savage. A brute.”

“I did ask for it,” she offers weakly.

“Not like this.” She wanted my patience and skill. She paid for it, but she’s getting a side of me I didn’t even know existed. I press my open mouth against her collarbone, tasting the salty sweetness of her skin.

A small sound, almost pain, but her lips are parted. There’s pleasure in her eyes, and I think that maybe she likes me this way. Not the way I’m a steel rod inside her, but the way I’m consuming her. And so I rock my hips gently against her, pressing my body against her clit.

Her hands unclench and fall back to the mattress. “So good.”

It’s like the scent of blood, the small proof of her pleasure. I’m a predator crouched over her, untamed, made ferocious by the taste of her. That’s the only excuse for what happens next, when I hold her hips in place and find the angle that I know will release her entirely. And I pound into her swollen body with every ounce of my passion, no regard for her newly lost innocence.

In the reckless thrusts that follow I hit the place inside her body that makes her head fall back, her breasts push up, her legs open wider. “Oh my God.”

Despite the intensity inside me, an unsteady laugh escapes me. “You are breathtaking. You are perfection. And I don’t think I can ever leave your body.”

For a moment she looks lost. “Is it always like this?”

In this moment there is only raw honesty. “It’s never like this.”

The thought terrifies me. This is supposed to be new for her, not for me. Never for me.

Then her lips are under mine, her body pliant and accepting, and I am lost. There’s only the drive to make her come, fucking into her until she moans and stiffens. “Yes,” I mutter. “Again.”

There’s a faint protest, I think. You don’t have to, she says, but she does not understand how much I want this. So I show her, with the unrelenting drive into her body, against the place inside her that makes her legs shake. She comes again and again, drenching my cock with her pleasure, testing unused muscles that might make her sore tomorrow.

I can’t think about tomorrow, when I definitely won’t be inside her. Won’t be in this large bed. Won’t be breathing in the air around Bea.

So I fuck her until her eyes are hazy with orgasms.

The jade green clears slightly and she places a hand on my cheek, impossibly soft and not quite steady. “Aren’t you going to?”

I don’t know why I haven’t already. I would have with any other woman, with any other client, after bringing her to climax a few times, if only to punctuate our evening. But I don’t want this to end. As soon as I spill inside her I have to leave.

Ripping my body away from her is an acute pain, the cold air like razor blades on my cock. I grab one of the white pillows, feeling the abrasion of lace. There are two of them, enough to pad my beautiful girl as I turn her over.

“Oh,” she says in lovely surprise.

There are a sprinkling of freckles coming down from her shoulders, like a shooting star fading into empty space. She’s pale white down to her lovely ass, where she’s peachy and flushed from my grasp. It’s a beautiful sight, but I didn’t flip her over to see this; I did it to hide myself.

“This will be an education,” I murmur against her ear, my body covering her back. “That’s why you wanted me, yes? Because of things I know. Things I can teach you.”

Her moan is tortured pleasure. “Yes. Please. More.”

I slide back into her as if her body was made for mine. She squeezes me in welcome, and it’s enough to make me curse in Arabic under my breath. “My name,” I tell her.

And thank the sweet Lord, she understands. “Hugo.”

“Again,” I say, reaching around to stroke two blunt fingers over her clit. She’s slick and wet and warm, and I never want to leave this, never want to leave her.

“Hugo!” So low and breathy I feel the vibration in my cock.

“One more time, sweet Bea. For me. I want to feel you come like this.”

Each one of my thrusts pushes out a little whimper from her, every strum of her clit makes her breath suck in. Mon Dieu, how am I going to last? Because I want one more.

I run the edge of my teeth along the curl of her ear and feel her shiver in response. “Do you know what it does to me? Having you like this? Helpless underneath me? I want to tear your pretty lace sheets into strips and tie you to the bedpost. I want to fuck you all night long, until we’ve made you come a hundred times. And even then it wouldn’t be enough.”

The words bring her close, but it’s the bite of my teeth on her shoulder that sends her over the edge. She comes with a scream that makes me insane.

I want to come on her pale back, on her plush ass, on the pretty lace sheets. But I can’t do that. This isn’t about what I want. This has never been about what I want.

The pulse of her chatte is ecstasy on my cock, fierce even through the latex, and I come with sharp, bright-light bursts that seem to go on forever, longer than can be borne, until I collapse, wrung out on her sated body.