I should be saying no right now. I should be laughing my ass off and showing him the door. Because if I’ve learned anything over the past eleven months, it’s that I belong to me. I don’t need a man to decide my worth. I don’t need a man to make me feel good about myself.

I don’t.

I don’t need a man.

I need this man.

I need Patrick.

Whoever he is. Whatever he’s become. I need him.

I need him so much that when he steps away from me, I almost weep. It should scare me—how needy and desperate his absence makes me. How frantic and wild I feel without his hands on me. How far I’m willing to go to please him.

It should.

It should scare the shit out of me, needing him this much.

Right now, the only thing that scares me is the thought of him walking away.

The only light in the room streams in from the kitchen, spilling across the bed, leaving the rest of the room in shadows. Patrick’s standing in those shadows, his eyes and face unreadable. “Step out of your panties,” he says calmly, stepping into the light, his hands dug casually into the pockets of his suit pants.

I comply, lifting my foot to free myself before setting it back down, the movement opening my legs even wider and his green gaze goes dark and heavy, traveling down the length of me—The pulse pounding in my throat. My swollen breasts. My dripping wet pussy. The panties still hooked around one of my ankles—leaving a trail of heat that sets fire to my skin.

Eventually, his eyes make their way back to mine, “Are you still taking birth control?” he asks in that same calm, casual tone, and I nod, catching my lip between my teeth to keep from whimpering. The corner of his mouth lifts, flashing his dimple as he lifts his hands from his pockets. “Good,” he says, taking off his watch and dropping it on the floor. “Sit on the edge of the bed. Hands on your knees.”

I sit, stifling a sigh of relief. I’m not sure how much longer my knees would’ve held out. I start to draw them together, but he stops me.

“Keep your legs open, so I can look at my pussy.”

His words stain my cheeks with heat but, holding his gaze, I put my hands on my knees and do as he says, opening my legs wide.

He moves again, closer this time, until he’s standing in the space between my legs, his huge cock, straining against the front of his pants, inches from my mouth.

He reaches out, his fingertips trailing over my collarbone, soft and tender, his thumb brushing over my birthmark, his touch almost cool against the heat of it.

“Take out my cock, Cari.”

I can’t move fast enough. My hands find the front closure of his pants, yanking it open with the moan of a desperate animal. Jerking them down around his thighs, my fingers scramble against the waistband of his black boxer briefs, nails digging in and raking against his skin as I drag them down his hips, freeing his cock completely. I wrap my hands around his shaft, and it jerks in my grip, his answering groan coupled by a bead of pre-cum, welling from its tip, begging to be licked clean.

Before I can act on the impulse racing through me, I feel a hand fist itself in my hair, almost painfully, and pull back, forcing me to look up at him.

“Hands on your knees,” he says, need, almost as desperate as mine, bleeding through the calm.

Reluctantly, I drop my hands and settle them on my knees.

Still looking down at me, his hand goes soft in my hair, cradling the back of my head. “You want my cock in your mouth?”

The question pounds its way down my spine, straight to my pussy and I moan in response, my fingers gripping my knees. “Yes.”

“You want me to fuck that throat of yours?”

Oh god... “Yes.”

His hand still in my hair, the other cups my face, his thumb brushing along my lower lip, slipping inside my mouth and I run my tongue along the pad of it, hungry for any part of him he’ll let me taste.

“Open your mouth,” Patrick growls, angling his thumb away from my tongue to pull down gently. Slipping his thumb free to run the wet pad of it across my trembling lips.

Gaze locked on his, I do as he says.

“Fuck...” He breathes the word, low and guttural, his hands in my hair, holding my head steady as he slides his cock into my waiting mouth, pushing until the head of it hits the back of my throat. “Your mouth was made for me,” he says, looking down at me, hips flexing and retreating, his hands holding my head still as he works his cock in and out of my mouth with short, shallow thrusts. “It’s mine. Your mouth is mine, Cari.” One of his hands falls away from my face and wraps around the base of his shaft, holding it steady so he can thrust deeper. Faster. “Mine to kiss. Mine to fuck.”

Unable to stop myself, he lets out a groan as I start to lick and suck, greedy for the taste of him, sounds coming out of me that I’ve never made before. Animal sounds, needy, almost frantic.  “You like that?” he says, gaze pinned to mine, hips thrusting against my face, faster and faster. “You like sucking my cock?”

I moan my answer, eyes wide, nails digging into my knees with the effort to keep them still. My pussy is throbbing, so wet and swollen with need I feel the pulse of it between my legs, as fast and heavy as a heartbeat.

Without warning, he pulls out of my mouth, his hand dropping away from my hair as he steps away from me completely. Chest heaving, cock wet and engorged from my mouth. He reaches up, yanking on the tie around his neck until it comes loose in his hand. “Lay back on the bed.” Free of his tie, Patrick makes short work of his shirt, his fingers slipping the buttons free, one by one before jerking his shirt off his powerful shoulders and down his arms before dropping it at his feet.

I do as he says laying back completely, the movement drawing my hands up the length of my thighs, feet still planted on the floor.

“Open your legs. I want to see my pussy.” His voice is strange and disembodied, floating above me, reminding me of last night. How he ordered me to finger fuck myself over the phone.

That’s my cock.

I’m fucking you with my cock, Cari. Deeper. Faster.

Driven by memory, I slide my hand along the inside of my thigh, letting out a shuddering moan when my trembling fingers make contact with the slick seam of my pussy. Before I’ve made more than the barest of contacts, strong hands grip my knees and jerk me forward until my ass is hanging off the edge of the bed, Patrick kneeling on the floor between my feet, completely naked.

“Did I say you could touch my pussy?” he says, shoulders pressed into the space between my knees, mouth between my legs, so close to my core, his lips brush against mine with every word.

I drop my hands onto the bed, fingers twisting in the sheets. “Patrick, please...” I’m begging, and I don’t care. “Please...”

“Please what?’ he says a moment before I feel his tongue skim along my slit, teasing me. “Say it, Cari.”

“Please lick my pussy.” I practically shout it, eyes screwed shut in frustration, my breath shallow and erratic.

“Whose pussy?” Patrick pushes the tip of his tongue deeper, parting the seam of me to tease my entrance and I lift my hips against his mouth, a second before the wide palm of his hand presses against my stomach to hold me flat on the mattress.  “Not until you say what I want to hear,” he growls against me, teeth nipping the inside of my thigh. “Who does your pussy belong to?”

“You.” I whisper it, my hands going soft in the sheets, my eyes wide and staring at the stars above our heads. “My pussy belongs to you, Patrick.” He curses under his breath, a second before he closes his mouth over the top of my mound pushing his tongue past my folds to press against my clit. He sucks me hard, fitting his hands under my knees, lifting my legs to throw them over his shoulders, dragging me closer, his tongue thrusting deep inside me.

“Who makes you come, Cari?” he says, his voice rough with need as his mouth works against me, tongue sliding over my slit, flicking against my clit.

“You,” I cry out.

“Who fucks you?”

“You.” I buck against his hand. His mouth, the word ending on a low-pitched whimper. “Only you.”

“No one else.” It’s not a question. He locks his mouth around my clit and sucks me so hard I come instantly, screaming his name.

Not giving me a chance to recover, he flips me over onto my belly. Yanking my hips off the bed, he spreads my pussy from behind, pushing the engorged head of his cock against my opening. “You’re mine.” Standing at the edge of the bed, he slams past my entrance, pumping into me so hard and deep, filling me so completely, I lose my breath.

He fucks me fast and hard, the entire length of his cock stretching me, the blunt tip of it stroking my g-spot with every thrust. Within seconds I’m on the edge again, begging him to make me come.

He turns me over again, dragging my hips to the edge of the bed and lifting them so my legs are draped over his forearms, his hands wrapped around the tops of my thighs, angling my pelvis so he can bottom out on every stroke. Leaning closer, the pressure of his hips opening me even wider, so he can stroke my clit with his thumb. “You want to come?”

“Yes,” I moan, straining against the hold he has on me, lifting myself higher, trying to take him even deeper. “Please, Patrick...”

“Say it, Cari,” he tells me, his words harsh, clipped short by the hard, deep strokes he’s giving me. “Not until you say it.”

“I’m yours.” I scream it, the words raw and powerful, my throat burning with the truth. “I’m yours, Patrick. Yours.”

“Fuck!” He shouts it, his cock spasming inside me as he comes. My legs slip free as he falls forward, still fucking me through his own orgasm.

“I need you to come,” he growls in my ear. “Come on my cock—right now.”

A second orgasm washes over me, and he gathers me in his arms, holding me close. As I shudder and break beneath him, Patrick is the only thing holding me together.