“GET UP,” HIS DEEP voice ordered.
Chills ran down my spine. Anticipation mingled with desire, and I slowly moved off him and sat back on the bed. My nipples hard and aching, naked in front of a man for the first time, I should’ve been nervous. But not even my bruises could compete with my racing heart.
I was going to sleep with Ben. Ben Stark.
His intense blue eyes holding me captive, he stood and finished undoing his jeans. Then he stepped out of them without an ounce of self-consciousness. His body wasn’t just perfect, it was stunning. A testament to the discipline he practiced on the mat as well as on the stage, every hard muscle was majestically defined.
My gaze dropped to the Asian characters on his lower hip then to his hard length, and heat flamed my cheeks. Not knowing what I was doing, not knowing if I could even please him, my mouth still watered to taste him. I licked my lips, and he surged.
His hands wove into my hair and gripped me tight, but he was slow and gentle as he pulled me up to my knees. Kissing me once, he inhaled sharply. “I want to take you so damn bad, but I don’t know any way not to hurt you unless you’re on top.”
Oh God, I was talking about sex with Ben. My stomach curled into a thousand ribbons of heat, and my cheeks flamed, but I didn’t have an answer. Too embarrassed to say I didn’t know what to do, I kept my mouth shut.
Misreading my silence, his lips touched my mouth then my forehead. “As soon as you’re healed, I’m going to take you every damn way you’ve ever dreamed of.”
Oh my God. “Kiss me.”
Achingly sweet, his tongue stroked across my lips then pressed into my mouth. He dropped one hand from my hair and his huge palm fanned out across my hip. Slowly sliding over my stomach, he kept moving lower until he cupped me.
I gasped against his lips as burning need, a thousand times more intense than any time I’d ever touched myself, rushed through my veins and heated my blood. Desire flooded my core.
A low growl erupted from his chest as two of his fingers stroked through my heat. “So wet for me,” he groaned, cupping me harder. “God, Elyssia, I’m not going to last long.”
“Okay.” I didn’t know if that was good or bad, and I didn’t care. I just wanted him. I wanted him before the walls around us came crashing down and I couldn’t be here anymore.
He dominantly angled my head and kissed me hard and deep and quick. “No, not okay. But I promise, I’m going to make you feel so damn good.” He stroked my cheek with one thumb as the other brushed across my clit. “Are you on the pill?”
My whole body shook at his double caress. “No.” God, I wished I was. I didn’t want my first time to be with any barriers. I wanted to feel him. I wanted to feel Ben Stark inside of me so, so bad.
He slid a single finger inside me.
I gasped, loudly.
“Jesus,” he murmured. “So damn tight.” His chest heaved, once twice, as his finger slowly stroked in and out. “You trust me?”
With my life. “Yes.” Oh my God, he felt so good.
“I’m clean,” he rasped, his finger stroking, his thumb circling my clit, his other thumb caressing my cheek.
I didn’t have words. I was only sensation. His fingers played me like an instrument, and my eyes closed as my head fell back.
“Elyssia.” He brought my head back up. “Look at me.”
My eyes opened, and I melted into his intense gaze. No man had ever touched me where Ben was touching me.
His thumb pressed hard on my clit. “I was tested last year,” he continued, misreading my silence. “I haven’t been with anyone since.”
Crippling jealousy struck me in the chest. I told myself his past was his past, but it didn’t matter. The thought of him with other women brought tears to my eyes.
“Stop,” he commanded, as if reading my thoughts. “No one ever meant anything to me.” His forehead met mine. “No one was ever you.”
Oh God. My initials were tattooed on his arm, where he could hold them over his heart. I knew this. I felt the weight of his stare on me, the yearning in his eyes. I’d always felt it. I knew he wasn’t playing games with me, but oh my God, the thought of him touching another woman hurt.
I couldn’t keep the truth from him any longer. “There’s never been anyone else.”
His hand slipped out of me, and his entire body stilled. Then his eyes closed and his face drew tight. “Jesus.”
Embarrassment, horror, regret, it all hit, and my heart shattered. “I’m sorry.”
As fast as his hands flew across his drum kit, he gripped my face and his eyes popped open. “No,” he barked. “Don’t you dare apologize. Jesus, Elyssia.” He searched my face like he couldn’t believe what I’d said. Then his voice dropped with quiet astonishment. “You’re a virgin?”
Ashamed, but not understanding why because I’d never wanted anyone else, I nodded.
A half roar, half growl came from his throat, and he rushed me. His kiss, so hungry and so consuming, was all at once desperate and reverent, until he abruptly pulled back. “Do you know how badly I’ve always wanted this?”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.
He peppered soft kisses across my lips. “Jesus, Elyssia. I’ve never wanted anything more.” He pulled back and stared into my eyes. “I’m honored, so damn honored, and I want to make you mine like you wouldn’t believe, but you have to be sure. You don’t get this back. You don’t ever get another chance to give this gift to someone.”
Warmth filled my heart as nerves swirled in my belly. “I don’t want to give it to anyone else.”
His forehead touched mine. “I don’t want to hurt you, baby, not right now.”
“Please,” I pleaded. “Don’t make me wait any longer.”
Emotions slid across his features, but his gaze never wavered. Then he inhaled. “If at any point it’s too much, you tell me and we stop.”
I wasn’t going to tell him to stop, not now. “Okay.” I wanted him too bad, and I’d wanted this for so long. The man standing in front of me wasn’t the cold, detached man who’d helped me after my mom’s funeral. He wasn’t the aloof drummer who always kept me at arm’s length. He was the man I knew in my heart. The one who’d quietly paid off my mother’s mortgage so she wouldn’t have to worry before she died. He was the man who was going to try to help Marcus. He was the man who’d come for me the second he got back in town. And he was the man who’d inked my initials into his skin, forever branding me to him.
I wanted Ben Stark more than I wanted my next breath.
And he wanted me.
As if he couldn’t take another second not touching me, his lips landed on mine with such intensity and heat that I swayed back. Kissing me deep, so, so deep, he growled into my mouth and his tongue surged like a coming flood.
My arms tangled around his neck as my fingers sank into his impossibly soft hair, and I forgot about everything.
I wasn’t the girl with bruises her brother could never erase. I wasn’t an injured, weak person. I wasn’t sad or desperate or lost. I was in the man of my dream’s arms and he was kissing me like he needed me to breathe.
But then he eased back, and with his intense gaze penetrating my very soul, he dropped to his knees in front of the bed.
Heat flushed my cheeks as soon as I realized what he was intending. “Ben—”
“Trust me.”
Two words. Two simple words, but spoken with such dominance, and so much need, I didn’t have a choice. I’d never had a choice with him and my heart.
When I didn’t move, he gently held my inner thighs and pushed my legs wider. Still on my knees, my chest heaving, I felt the moisture between my legs surge as my desire grew to an impossible ache. “Kiss me,” I pleaded.
His mouth landed on my clit with exact precision, and he sucked.
“Oh my God.” My head fell back as my hands tangled in his hair and every inch of my flesh tingled. Desire, need, desperation for more, for less, I couldn’t single out any one thing I was feeling because I felt it all.
His tongue swirled, and I groaned with shameless abandon as my hips ground into him. Then his large hands gripped my ass and he thrust his tongue inside me.
Suddenly, I was coming.
No warning, no slow build, no time to prepare, the orgasm robbed me of speech and shook my body. Indecipherable sounds coming from my chest, my core pulsing, I thought my heart was going to stop.
With a final drag of his teeth over my clit, he released my still pulsing core, stood, and his mouth landed on mine. Kissing me deep, I tasted my own desire as he gripped my waist and turned. I landed on top of him as he sank to the bed and stroked his tongue through my mouth like he’d stroked my core.
“So damn beautiful,” he whispered against my lips, reaching between us. “We’re taking this slow, baby. I’m going to do everything I can not to hurt you.” He rubbed his hard length through my desire. “You let me know if we need to stop.”
Aftershocks still ripping through my body, my muscles liquid, I thought I would be done, but I wasn’t. I wanted more, so much more. “Okay.”
Hot, hard, and intoxicating, the head of his cock pressed against my entrance. “You ready, baby?”
Oh my God, I loved him calling me baby. I loved when he said my full name too, so much, but the dichotomy of his seriousness to the softness of his term of endearment was everything. “Yes,” I breathed.
He pushed in an inch.
Stretching, full, hot, oh my God. I sucked in a sharp breath. Ben Stark was inside me. Years, so many years, I had dreamed of this, and it was happening.
His chest heaving, his gaze locked on mine, his face went tense as he gently circled my clit. “You have to talk to me, love.”
Love.
Tears welled.
“Shit.” He pulled out. “Elyssia.” He sat up and his arms wrapped around me. “Shh, it’s okay. I’m sorry. Jesus, I’m sorry. Come here.”
“No.” I choked on emotions I didn’t know were possible. “I’m not in pain.”
Serious blue eyes that stole my reason and made me want to be a better person looked at me with determination. “We’ll wait.”
No, no, no. I didn’t want to wait. I’d waited forever, and it felt like everything in my life was slipping away. I didn’t want to let this slip away too. I wanted to grab this moment and have it to hold on to, because no matter what he’d said, I knew a storm was coming.
I reached between us and grabbed him. Hard, so very hard, and thicker than I could put my fingers around, I fisted Ben like he’d fisted himself and I brought him to my entrance.
“Elyssia,” he barked, stern and demanding and all warning.
I didn’t listen to his words. I listened to the desire in my hand and the look in his eyes, and I lowered myself onto him in one thrust.
“Jesus,” Ben roared out in a growl.
I cried out as a fullness that was more shock than pain ripped through my core.
Giant hands that played drums like the devil himself caught my face. “It’s done.” His thumbs swept at the tears on my cheeks. “I’m in, baby. Breathe for me. Just breathe.”
More tears slid down my cheeks and dripped onto his chest as the fullest feeling I could’ve ever imagined filled my heart and branded my soul. “Ben.” He was inside me.
“I’m right here, beautiful. Breathe for me. Tell me if you’re okay.” His lips coasted across my face and neck.
We were one. Me and Ben. “I’m okay.” I wasn’t crying because it hurt. I was crying because I couldn’t keep this. I couldn’t hold on to him. The thought fractured my heart as the overwhelming fullness in my core eased into a pulsing need that matched my desperation.
As if knowing exactly what I needed, Ben’s hand dropped between us and his thumb circled my clit. “You’re beautiful, Elyssia.” He sucked on the sensitive flesh under my ear. “And so damn perfect.”
His huge length inside me, his mouth on my neck, his finger on my clit, he played me perfectly, and my hips began to move.
“Yes,” he hissed. “That’s it.” Slow, methodical, like the pulse of a soundless beat, he moved with me.
A second, a minute, a lifetime—a tangible thread formed between us that I knew would never break. This moment was what we would have forever. Even if we had nothing else, we would have this. “I want to make you feel good.” God, I wanted to make him feel good. I wanted him to never, ever forget this.
His hands dropped to my hips, and he leaned back as he thrust up. His angle inside me changed, and I gasped. All at once, I was caged in by him as he sat back up.
His arms, his body, his scent, they surrounded me. “Elyssia.” My name rasped across his tongue like fire and earth. “If you felt any better, I’d be coming inside you.”
Oh God. “I want that.” I wanted everything he was willing to give me.
His eyes closed, his face twisted, and when he looked back at me, his expression was so fierce, he scared me. “Don’t say that to me.”
My hips moving of their own accord, I rocked against his fingers playing me like he knew my song. “Why not?”
“Elyssia,” he growled. “Damn it. Don’t test me.”
I wasn’t. I was begging. The pressure in my core building, the swelling in my chest threatening to burst, I wanted everything. And I wanted it all at once because this moment, however permanent in my memory, was fleeting and our clock was ticking. “Come inside me.”
“No.”
It was a simple, straight cut, but it hurt like a thousand knives. “The timing is wrong.” I knew my body. I knew every cycle it went through. I’d never had sex, but I knew how to get pregnant. I wasn’t vulnerable right now.
“I’m not putting you at risk.”
His tone, so authoritative, so final, it shouldn’t have made my stomach flutter, but it did. “Then show me how to make you come.”
“Jesus Christ.” His mouth slammed over mine, and we were moving like a rushing tide.
We either fit perfectly or he knew every way to make my body sway to his beat. He dominated the kiss with his mouth, and he commanded my hips with his hands. The burn in my core slipped completely away, turning into a consuming need I’d never known existed. Every thrust into me, he hit something so deep, it made me want to cry out in pain but at the same time demand more.
I was frantic.
I would’ve crawled across broken glass to get to the other side of what was building inside me. But I didn’t want to just get there, I needed to get there. I needed to fall apart. I needed to break free. I needed to make this man mine.
“That’s it.” His deep voice caressed my mind like his hands caressed my body. “Come for me, baby.” Words tumbled out of his mouth, like control slipped out of my grasp. “Let it go. Give me that release, beautiful. Show me how good this feels, baby.”
My back arched. My hips ground into him, and he pressed so hard on my clit, I became nothing except sensation as the orgasm ripped through my body. Pulsing, aching, sweet intoxicating release, it curled into a storm of addiction as animalistic moans rushed past my throat.
“Oh my God, Ben.” My hands dug into his flesh, my hips stilled and my mouth opened on a silent cry.
“Hell yes.” Thrusting three more times, he pounded into me, hitting that special spot deep inside. “Jesus, baby, I’m coming.” Gripping his shaft, he abruptly pulled out and stroked himself as he bathed my stomach with his hot release.
My core pulsing at the sudden emptiness, I still shuddered at the intimate sight of him coming.
He stroked through his release, then took my face in his hands, and his mouth covered mine. Languid and sweet, he kissed me.
But the hot fluid between us, spread all over my stomach, it felt like betrayal.
Pulling back, he studied me with a gaze that was noticeably less intense, but no less searching. “You okay?”
“Why didn’t you want to come inside me?” I blurted the question like an accusation.
Slow, careful, he brushed a strand of hair from my face. “It’s not that I didn’t want to. You’re not on birth control.”
He was right. I wasn’t. I didn’t say anything.
His grip on me tightened. “You think that doesn’t make you mine?”
I dropped my gaze. “No.” I didn’t know. I didn’t understand the thoughts in my head, much less how to navigate them.
“Look at me,” he demanded.
I didn’t look. I moved to get off him instead.
One hand clamped down on my thigh, the other caught my chin, and his voice turned rough with warning. “Every goddamn way a woman belongs to a man, you belong to me. You hear me?”
Why did I want to cry?
He grasped my hand and dragged it through the sticky release coating my stomach. “This doesn’t make you mine.” He brought my hand to his heart and held my gaze like his life depended on it. “This does.”