Aria stepped onto the bottom rung of the ladder at the back of the boat and climbed aboard, all too aware of Damian’s eyes on her naked body. They’d swam until the sun had dipped below the horizon, the sky turning indigo as stars wheeled overhead.

She’d never felt more alive, every nerve ending tingling with perception, the delicious chill of night air as water sluiced off her body, her body more than ready for Damian after hours in his proximity.

He was right behind her, and she laughed as she hurried to their blanket on the bow with him on her heels. He swept aside the remains of their picnic like it was nothing and pulled her into his arms, his naked body exquisitely cool against her skin as he kissed her feverishly, his hands roaming her body like he wanted to learn her all over again.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, opened her mouth to him, her tongue parrying his until she bit down on his lower lip. He growled and lifted her onto his hips. She gasped as his erect cock slid between her folds to bump against her already-sensitive clit.

She was floating, the sky all around her, the water under them providing a strange kind of buoyancy to Damian’s solid stance as his big hands cupped her ass.

He kissed his way along her jaw and she tipped her head back to the sky as he licked the saltwater from her neck. She locked her hands around his neck as he continued downward, letting her body fall back as his tongue traveled between her breasts. Then the heat of his mouth closed over one of her nipples and she moaned into the night air.

He flicked the erect peak with his tongue before sucking hard enough to send a bolt of lightning to her center. She shifted on his cock, desperate for him to fill her.

He chuckled low and rough. “Not yet, beautiful.”

He spun her around, lay her on the blanket from their picnic and hovered over her body, his hand trailing fire as it made its way from her neck to her chest, over each bare breast, down to her stomach, circling her navel before sliding between her legs, cupping her sex like it was something precious.

“You’re the only thing that could be as beautiful as this place,” he murmured, lowering his mouth to her, sweeping it up in a slow, sensuous kiss, his tongue making the rounds of her mouth carefully, like he wanted to memorize every hidden corner of it.

But he’d had ample opportunity to look at her the first time they’d slept together. In fact, she didn’t think anyone had ever looked at her as closely as he had in the days since they’d met.

Now it was her turn.

She hooked a leg around his hip and rolled on top of him, straddling his hips, his cock nestled between her folds.

“I think you underestimate yourself,” she said softly, bending to touch her lips to his. She lingered there, relishing the pillowy feel of his mouth against hers, the hot urgency of his tongue, the feel of his hands on the swell of her ass.

She leaned back, ran her hands over the peaks of his sculpted chest, across the mountains of his broad shoulders, down the perfectly defined biceps and back up again. She followed the path of her hands with her mouth, licking and kissing her way across the perfect map of his body, taking one of his nipples in her mouth, sucking and nipping until he groaned, his hips pushing into her, his cock calling forward a flood of moisture to her center.

She let her mouth travel down the corded ridge of his abs, let it follow the arrow pointing to the thick cock standing erect between his legs.

He looked at her through hooded eyes as she kneeled between his legs, ran her hands up his muscled thighs. His eyes drifted closed as she closed her hand around his shaft, a groan escaping his lips as she bent forward, flicked her tongue against his swollen crown.

His hands were in her hair as she closed her mouth around the tip, sucking a drop of come from it before sliding her mouth slowly down his length.

He hissed when she hit the bottom, his head bumping against the back of her throat, his hands grabbing a fistful of hair in a movement that only served to make her wetter.

She cupped his balls in her hands, massaging as she slid her mouth slowly up his cock, lingering at the top where she sucked and lapped, savoring the feel of him lengthening and hardening in her hand.

It was a heady kind of power to have over a man as commanding as Damian Cavallo, but she was surprised to find something tender in it too. Something that wanted to soothe and comfort this man who seemed like he’d had too little of both in his life. More than anything she wanted to give him a taste of what he’d given her, and while there was little she could do to offer him the kind of refugee he’d offered her, she could show him what it meant to be adored.

She picked up a rhythm on his shaft, stroking the base with her hands while she worked the shaft with her mouth, using her tongue to stroke him along the way. His hips moved with her, pushing into her mouth on the downstroke, withdrawing when she worked her way to the top.

Her own sex was swollen and wet, her ministrations turning her on every bit as much as they aroused him, and she could barely contain her moans as he grew thicker in her mouth, her body anticipating the way he would feel pushing through her pussy. She reached one hand down, desperate to relieve herself of the first orgasm while she made him come, and felt him grab her wrist.

“Don’t you dare.” She’d barely registered the words when he pulled her up onto his hips. “No one makes you come but me.”

She didn’t have time to be disappointed. His cock insinuated itself between her legs, hard and demanding. Her body ached for him and she let him slide between the slick petals of her sex as she bent down to kiss him, his tongue pillaging her mouth in a motion all too similar to the one her body was demanding from his cock.

He reached between their bodies and positioned his head at her opening. Then he grabbed ahold of her hips and thrust into her while he slid her forcefully down his shaft.

She cried out as he stretched her to the limit. He leaned up, his hands cupping her breasts, his mouth closing around one nipple, sucking as her body accommodated him. The motion of his mouth on her breast set a rhythm in her body and her hips moved of their own accord, slowly at first, and then more quickly as she grew used to the length and thickness of him again.

“Fuck, Aria…” he gasped, his eyes shining. “You’re so fucking tight. So fucking good.”

The words were like dry kindling to the fire in her body, her clit swelling against the friction of his body, the invasion of his cock that felt like a homecoming. His hands traveled down across the taper of her waist, across the flare of her hips. He spread her ass cheeks wide and his cock sunk even deeper inside her, the impact sending a sharp and erotic pulse through her core.

“Oh, my god…” she moaned. “I’m going to come.”

“Not until you say my name,” he said. “I don’t ever want you coming without saying my name.”

Even in her current state, out of her mind with desire, she understood. He wanted to be sure she knew it was him — his cock inside her, his body against hers. There were obstacles between them, but there would be no denying that much.

“I’m going to come, Damian. And I want you to come with me.”

The words seemed to cut something loose in him. He grabbed hold of her hips and drove up into her in a frenzy. She was at the end of the rope that was still tethering her to reality, and she threw her head back, let the spinning sky full of stars carry her away as she tipped into space, her body exploding around the thrust of his cock.

He groaned, his heat spilling into her as she clamped down on him, her body not wanting to let him go any more than her heart did. He didn’t stop moving until she was draped over his body, dropping kisses on his damp skin, the only way she knew how to show him how she felt about what was happening between them.

Reverence.

It was the only word she had for it.