His tongue tore past my lips, taking me savage and hungry. There was nothing sweet or gentle. This was a punishment. A reminder that I hadn’t won. He wasn’t kissing me. He was fighting me in every underhanded way.

His hands dropped from my cheeks, cupping my breasts. The violence in his touch throbbed instantly. I arched my back, opening my mouth wider to scream, but he swallowed my cries, kissing me deeper, harder, stealing every inch of sanity I had left.

I thought a kiss would put me on even ground—show him that he did care. That he was human—just like me. I hadn’t gambled on being detonated into a billion tiny pieces that had no notion of who I’d been before he’d stolen my soul.

He backed me up, faster and faster to the bed. His breath saturated my lungs. His touch skated from my cheeks, to my breasts, to my waist, to my arse. Jerking me hard against the huge length of arousal in his jeans.

The bed stopped our motion, tumbling us onto the sheets, but nothing, absolutely nothing could unweld our lips.

We were joined, kissing, frantic, desperate.

He groaned as I slid my hands beneath his t-shirt, needing to feel his skin against mine.

He was blood and fire and heat.

So different to the glacier he pretended to be.

“Fuck,” he grunted as my fingers drifted to his buckle. I thanked my past of making countless pairs of trousers as I ripped through the barrier and dived into his boxer-briefs with eager fingers.

His teeth clamped around my bottom lip as I stroked him. The faint taste of metallic smeared between us as our kiss turned into pure violence.

My vision went black, seeing only white sparks and sensation.

Jethro’s hands suddenly went to my waist, rolling off me to shove up my dress and tear my knickers from my hips. He shoved them desperately down my legs.

The world spun faster and faster as we discarded every item in our way and left the rest. Our lips never unglued; our heads twisted and turned as our tongues slipped and glided.

Moans and groans echoed in my ears, but I didn’t know who made them. Fingers bruised my skin, nails scratched my flesh, and our souls grew teeth—snapping and tearing, trying to consume the other before it was too late.

We were furious.

We were wild.

We were completely delirious with lust.

Jethro grabbed my hip, planting me hard against the mattress. My inner thighs tickled with wetness of all-consuming desire. I’d never been so wet. Never been so slick and dying to be taken.

His hand disappeared between my legs, wedging his naked hips between them. The moment he found how much I wanted him, he groaned. “You—fuck—I—”

My heart winged at his incoherency. I loved that he’d given up, given in. Stabbing my fingernails into his lower back, I panted, “Don’t stop. I don’t want you to stop.”

His head flopped forward, his lips capturing mine again in a soul-searing kiss. His five o’clock shadow razored across my sensitive skin, but I loved the burning, loved the assault.

My back arched as one long finger entered me.

“Yes—God…”

His tongue slipped between my open lips, forcing me to kiss him back. I struggled to pay attention to the exhilarating taste of him and the eye-popping sensation of his finger rubbing my inner walls.

The tingly precipice he’d shown me that first day returned; I latched onto it hungrily.

I wiggled closer, needing more…needing something bigger, broader…I needed his cock.

He grunted as he forced a second finger inside me. The garbled noise might’ve had words strung together, but they poured unheard down my throat.

“Don’t stop.” I arched my hips, welcoming, imploring him to thrust harder.

I didn’t care I wasn’t on birth control. I didn’t care about anything but driving us out of his nightmarish world and into a new dimension.

“I can’t—you don’t—” Jethro groaned between kisses.

“Yes, you can. You can’t stop. Not now.”

His fingers froze.

I refused to let him overthink this. It was my turn to bite his lip. Hard.

He bellowed…then…he went rogue. The final barrier he’d always stayed behind shattered, and he poured his broken soul into my being.

His fingers hooked inside me, making me unbelievably wetter. His lips nibbled and ravaged, leaving me hollow of thoughts and humanity.

His free hand shot to my chest, twisting my nipple beneath the fabric of my dress while his fingers plunged harder, faster inside me.

The invasion blew my mind.

It was too much. It’s not enough.

I arched in his hold, spreading my legs wider. All thoughts were gone. All worries were dead.

I didn’t care how I looked or what would become of me afterward.

I just wanted him.

“Take me. Please.”

He stopped kissing me. His lips swollen, red. His eyes frantic with passion and affliction. His jaw tightened, and for a horrible second, I thought he’d refuse. He knew my sexual history; there was no reason to fear taking me bare. I didn’t know his, but he was impeccable in all facets of his life. Somehow, I couldn't see him sleeping around. I couldn’t see him putting himself in such a vulnerable position.

His lips crashed against mine again, his tongue tearing past my lips. I grabbed the back of his neck, forcing our mouths harder together.

His fingers disappeared from inside me, smearing my wetness onto my thigh as he pushed me ever wider. I let my legs spread shamelessly. I was beyond decency or concern. My body was flushed, acutely sensitive, and entirely feverish.

In a seamless male move, Jethro clamped my hip and pulled himself higher. The relief at finally feeling the broad head of his cock against my entrance sent me spiralling into madness.

“Shit, you feel…” His voice was a decadent purr. “You feel like…”

“Like freedom,” I breathed, taut and trembling, just waiting for him to enter me.

His eyes flared wide, dazzling me with bronze need. “Yes, exactly.”

The moment stretched for far too long, somehow turning this from fucking to something unbearably precious.

With our gazes still locked, he pushed inside me.

A breathless cry escaped me as discomfort blazed. I squirmed beneath him, trying to find relief from the pinching, consuming pressure of him filling me.

I’d been terrified once of taking him. Horrified at his huge size, so sure he would never fit, but inch-by-inch he stretched me, changing my whole perception.