I couldn’t stop humming, and I was not normally someone who hummed. Or sang. But for some reason that corny old song about beautiful mornings and beautiful days kept running through my head. Grandma used to sing it to me when I was little, and it had been a long time since I’d been possessed by so much optimism.

Happiness. Was that the name of this feeling?

Had to be.

I waved to Jesse and Charlotte, who were hanging out by the pool, and then took the stairs to the third floor two at a time, the big bags of groceries barely slowing me down.

Nick had been tied up long enough. He’d barely stirred in his sleep when I’d washed the come off his belly, and so I’d left him quietly, not wanting to wake him up.

Okay, it wasn’t entirely about not wanting to disturb his slumber. The wicked part of me, the part that had thoroughly enjoyed controlling his pleasure last night, also enjoyed the thought of him waking up helpless, tied to the bed, wondering when he might be released.

Nick was the polar opposite of helpless, and it was fun seeing his tables fully turned.

I opened his door, heard voices, and stopped short. I dropped the groceries and ran to his bedroom.

One of his brothers, the skinny one, was squeezing mayonnaise out of a plastic bottle in long strips, obviously to represent come shooting out of the lewd cock he’d already drawn on Nick’s chest with ketchup. Another brother was taking a picture.

“Stop that!” I grabbed the man’s arm to pull the phone down.

“Hey!” The one with the mayo grinned. “You must be Jade. Thanks for setting this up.”

“Get out of here!” I glared, sharing my ire equally between them. The older one at least looked embarrassed.

“Just having a little family fun,” he said. “But he’s all yours now.” He extended his hand. “Hi, I’m Keagan, by the way. That’s Shane.”

“And I’m pissed!” No way was I going to shake his hand. “You guys are assholes. Bullies! Picking on your little brother.”

“Little brother.” Shane laughed. “Has little Nicky been whining again? Poor little Nicky.” Holding the bottle of mayo at his crotch, Shane squirted a long stream that arched and hit Nick in the face.

“Fuck off!” Nick yelled. “I’m going to kill you!”

“That’s enough,” Keagan said. “Come on, Shane.” He gestured toward the door. “Nice to finally meet you, Jade. Hope you’ll let us make this up to you sometime soon.”

“It’s not me who deserves an apology.”

Keagan shrugged before he left the room and didn’t say anything to Nick.

“I’m so sorry,” I told Nick the second they left. I wiped mayonnaise off his face as best I could with my fingers and the hem of my tank top, then crouched down to release one of his hands.

I fought with the sweat pants I’d used in this corner.

“Hurry,” Nick said.

“I’m trying. You must have tugged the knots tighter.” I went to the corner by his left arm, remembering how the ends of the shirt I’d used there weren’t tucked underneath the bed leg. I tugged at the material until the first knot loosened. I unwound the fabric, untied the final knot, and then headed to the foot of the bed.

“Shit,” he said as he stretched his freed arm over his chest, decorating it with ketchup and mayo. “I am so fucking stiff.”

“Sorry.” I bit my lip as I finally got the ends of fabric out from under the leg and loosened a knot. “I shouldn’t have left you. But I wanted to cook for us and needed groceries. I was gone less than an hour, and, well, you had an erection. Came up while I was wiping the come, and I loved the idea of coming back. Maybe waking you up by fucking you.”

“You planned to rape me in my sleep?”

I gasped. “Oh, god. That’s what I was planning, wasn’t it!” I finally got his left ankle free, and he bent his leg and stretched it again while I moved to the other.

The bindings on his right leg came off easier, and I moved up the side of the bed to free his hand. “I am the worst.”

He reached across the bed and grabbed my arm as I passed. “No, Jade. You are the fucking best.” He pulled me down into a vagina-tightening kiss.

How did he do that to me? A second ago all I could feel was guilt—maybe some hunger—but now all I could think of was having him inside me.

Lying on his side, he held my waist as I bent to free his right hand. I worked on the knots, and his left hand slid to circle my hips and ass. The wet need between my legs grew.

The instant both his hands were free, he parted my legs. One hand over my sex, he pulled me onto his body, and I slid in the mess of condiments.

His kiss was ferocious, his hands even more so, as the one between my legs rubbed so hard I thought he might wear through the denim of my shorts. He worked a finger underneath the edge, and I gasped at the welcome touch.

In one strong motion, he flipped me onto my back. My breath caught, and before I could fully inhale, he’d opened the fly of my shorts and yanked them off me.

“Nick…” I said his name faintly, on the only air I could manage to draw in on such short notice. Then I said it again when he pushed open my legs and thrust deep inside me.

Oh. My eyes shut from the impact.

“Shit.” He pulled out. “No condom.”

“You clean?”

He nodded.

“Then fuck it.”

He drove again, hard, so hard I slid on the bed and my head slammed into the wall. I reached up above to brace myself. Without fully pulling out of me, he yanked me down a few feet and pushed my legs up by my head.

One hand on the wall, the other on my shoulder, he thrust. Thrust so hard and deep I shouted—from pain, or pleasure—I didn’t know.

“You okay?” He paused.

I nodded, not sure I could speak.

“You sure?”

“Yes. Fuck me. Please. Nick…”

The sound of his name seemed to be the reassurance he needed. He adjusted his position, pulling out to the tip, and then drove hard again. The sweet tangy smell of the ketchup filled my senses as his speed increased. Long, hard, unrelenting drives that filled me so completely I thought I might burst.

He came quickly, his body shuddering and tensing through his few final thrusts, then he stayed inside me, staring down into my eyes, panting. A drop of sweat fell from his brow onto mine.

“Fuck, Jade. Are you okay?”

I nodded. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the size of your cock.”

“Too big?” He pulled out and rolled to the side letting my legs drop down.

“Not a chance. I love how your cock feels inside me.”

“This looks like a murder scene.” He traced his hand over my breasts, which were covered in ketchup.

“Your brothers are assholes.”

He laughed. “I’m so pissed at them for that, but they’re not so bad. You got a shitty first impression.”

“After the stuff they did to you when you were little…”

He cupped my face. “My badass girl, protecting me from the mean bullies.”

“Always.”

His eyes widened and then he scooped me up into his arms.

“Where are we going?” I asked as he strode toward the bedroom door.

“The only acceptable place for us now. The shower.”

Within moments, the warm water soothed my body as Nick’s hands gently stroked, and the soapsuds turned pink from the ketchup on my breasts and neck.

Turning me, he held me from behind, and the water rinsed away all the ketchup, not to mention the sweat of last night and this morning’s lovemaking. And it had been lovemaking.

Even with the hard fuck I’d just taken, even with all the ways I’d teased and tortured Nick last night, I’d felt connected to him through all of it, close to him, closer to him than I’d felt to anyone in my whole life.

My insides already ached to have him inside me again.

He gently washed my hair, and then we swapped positions, my turn to fondle his body as I washed away the remnants of his brothers’ cruelty.

His cock woke again, semi-hard, and I bent, wanting to feel him harden in my mouth.

“Nope,” he said, then he picked me up and backed me into the wall at the end of the bathtub. “Watch your head.”

I stretched to find a towel rack just a few inches above my head and grabbed onto it as he reached outside the tub for the bathmat. He knelt down on the mat in front of me, and his hand slipped through my folds, stroking, parting, probing as my wetness blended with the water from the shower.

Holding my hips with one arm, he stroked with the other, teasing my opening, circling my clit, driving me nearly crazy. I lifted one leg to his shoulder, wanting to give him better access, wanting to be so open to him that he could live inside me.

His mouth claimed my clit, and two of his fingers pressed inside. His tongue flicked and circled, his fingers moved slowly, curving at the end and stroking my G-spot. I gasped, barely able to hold onto the towel rack, almost ready to come.

My hips thrust into his face as he licked and sucked, and his fingers continued to fuck me. Then his other hand slid from its lock on my hips to press against my asshole. I cried out, gripping the towel rack hard.

My foot slipped on the wet porcelain, my body now fully supported by a tripod made up of my leg on his shoulder, his fingers fucking me and my tenuous hold on the towel rack behind me.

As he continued to suckle and finger me, his other hand rubbed my asshole. He pressed his pinky finger inside, and my orgasm exploded.

I rocked, crying out, twisting and writhing as if my body wanted to simultaneously escape the stimulation and increase it.

The towel rack broke off the wall.

I screamed, but Nick caught me.

“Sorry,” I said.

He threw it past the shower curtain, and it clattered to the tile floor of his bathroom.

He turned me, and I braced my hands on the tiled wall to keep from landing face first. One of his feet stepped on the shower curtain, holding it down against the outside edge of the tub, and then with his hands on my hips he bent me over and thrust deep inside me. Thrust so hard I had to push back against the wall to keep from cracking my head.

“Fuck,” he cried out. “You make me so hard, Jade. You drive my body to want sex so rough.” He thrust again. “This okay?” He pulled slowly back.

“Yes.” I cried out as he pushed in deep again. “Fuck me as hard as you want to.”

He pulled out and drove hard again, but I could tell he was holding back.

“Nick.” I gasped on the breath he forced out of me. “I trust you. I’ll stop you if you hurt me.”

At those words, he gripped my hips tightly and started to thrust in earnest, his hips pumping like a piston, his hands pulling me forward and back to his rhythm, the friction burning my cunt, his body taking mine so completely, I knew I’d never be able to get it back.