Mina gasped as Cam’s tongue swept inside her mouth and his body pressed hard against hers. She didn’t know if it was lust or adrenaline that pounded through her veins. All she knew was that she wanted this—the taste of him, the feel of him. The strength and safety of his arms.

With heated purpose, his mouth explored hers, his tongue warring with hers, his teeth tugging on her lower lip. It was a kiss that claimed—that demanded surrender. And she willingly gave herself over to him, wanting nothing more than to get lost in this wild, wicked, and unexpected sensual assault.

Nearby, she could hear the sound of cars rushing down the streets. She could smell the fetid scent of the alley and feel the rough brick abrading her back through the thin cotton of her shirt. But none of that mattered. The only thing she wanted was more—more Cameron, more power, more of the lightning that was crackling around them, making her skin tingle as if electricity was surging through her body, fueled by his touch and her desire.

Gently, he lessened the assault of his kiss, stepping back so that the charged air filled the space between them. At first, she whimpered, wanting to regain that connection, but then he trailed his lips over the soft corner of her mouth, then across her cheek to her ear. His tongue teased her, and she felt the sensation rocket through her, cutting straight to her core and filling her with a liquid heat that made her body throb in silent demand.

“Tell me you like that.” Cam’s voice was low, powerful, and as it reverberated through her body, she felt more than heard his words.

“Yes.” She had to lick her lips because her mouth had gone so dry.

“Me, too,” he murmured. “You taste sweet. I want to taste every inch of you.”

She whimpered, her imagination conjuring the most wonderful fantasies of his tongue exploring her body. “Cam.” The word was soft. A plea, and as if in response, he gently trailed his finger down her body, following the line of her shoulder, her collarbone, then moving on to the swell of her breast.

Her nipples were hard as pebbles, and he teased one lightly through the cotton of her shirt and the thin material of her bra. So lightly that she wanted to scream. To beg him to touch her harder. Wilder. She wanted to get lost in the storm that was ripping through her. More than that, she wanted to get lost in him. His kisses. His touch. His silent demands.

He kept one hand on her breast, but with the other, he continued a slow exploration, leaving her skin lightning-kissed as he moved lower and lower.

“Yes,” she moaned as his hands slid down and found the hem of her tee-shirt. Slowly, he tugged it up, higher and higher until he’d exposed her bra. And when he tugged down her bra cup, then closed his mouth over her breast, she had bite her lip not to scream with pleasure.

The shirt had ridden up her torso, and the feel of the bricks on her now-exposed lower back made some of her sanity return. They were in an alley. They were in public.

But she didn’t care. Dear God, she really didn’t care. She just wanted Cam. This intimacy. This moment.

With his free hand, he fumbled at the button on her jeans, but she pushed his hands away and unfastened them herself. Then she yanked down the zipper with a whispered, “Yes. Oh, please, yes.” She craved him, desperate for the feel of him against her, in her. His body covering hers, claiming her. Protecting her.

He groaned, low in his throat, the sound full of surprise and pleasure. Then his fingers slipped into her panties. She reveled in the connection, closing her eyes and arching her back as his fingers slid down inside her tight jeans, cupping her. “Baby, you’re so wet.”

“Please.” It was the only word she could manage. But with a low, demanding groan, she buried her fingers in his hair, pulling him closer. He took the hint and thrust his fingers inside her.

“Yes,” she cried, her mouth hard against his, the sound muffled as he finger-fucked her hard and deep.

“God, Mina, you feel so good.”

“Cam,” she begged. “I want you inside me.”

“Do you have any idea how much I want that, too?”

“Please,” she urged, grinding against his hand. She felt lost. Drunk. And she’d only had the one glass of wine, and dammit, she wasn’t even scared anymore. She was high on his touch, wild with need. Perfectly sober and drowning in lust and desire and a sexual craving that was so intense it bordered on painful.

Slowly, his fingers moved inside her, and she bit her lip, wriggling against his hand. “You feel so amazing,” he said. “I want you, and I’m just drunk enough to take you right here.”

“Yes,” she said. “Oh, God, yes.” She felt her body clench tight around his fingers, then heard his soft sound of surprise and pleasure at the evidence of just how much that idea appealed to her.

He bent his head closer to her ear, his slick fingers stroking her shaved pussy as he slid in and out in a rhythm designed to make her crazed.

“Oh, God, baby,” he murmured, his lips caressing the corner of her mouth. “You feel so good it’s making me dizzy. I want to turn you around and take you hard against this wall, then get on my knees, spread your legs and taste every inch of you. I want to tease you with my tongue until you beg me to make you come, and I’m just drunk enough to tell you all this out loud.”

“Don’t just tell me,” she whimpered, craving an explosion that seemed just out of reach. “Do it,” she begged, so ready for his touch, so desperate to lose herself to him. “Cameron, yes. Now, please.”

“I want to,” he said, and there was pain in his voice. “You don’t know how much I want to.”

She looked into his eyes and saw the blue-gray steel of resolve.

“But not now,” he whispered, tearing her heart in two. “Not like this.”

---

Cameron couldn’t believe he was actually putting the brakes on. Especially since every cell in his body wanted to turn her around, cup his hands over her breasts, and take her hard. To make her his. To erase the thought of every other guy so that she saw only him. Wanted only him.

And he would.

But not like this. Not in a stinking alley.

She deserved candlelight and silk sheets. Strawberries and champagne. At the very least, she deserved a bed—not to have her back scratched up by rough brick as he buried himself in her. Not to have her remember the rank odor of rotting food instead of the scent of him and the musk of sex.

“Cam. Please.”

She stood right in front of him, her mouth mere inches from his, her body boxed in by his palms that were now flat on the brick wall behind her. Her voice was a plea and her eyes—her wonderfully sober eyes—brimmed with a green fire that sparked with blatant, sexual need.

He felt his cock grow harder as his need grew and his resolve faded. He might be a fool who believed he could chase down a thug with a knife, but none of that mattered because this woman—this gorgeous, vibrant, amazing woman—wanted him.

Her hand slid down to cup his balls, and he moaned as liquid fire poured through him. He felt as weak as a kitten and as strong as Hercules, and he leaned forward, burying his face at the crook of her neck as she murmured, “Please. Oh, God, Cam, please.”

Yes, he thought. Oh, hell, yes. His hands moved to cup her perfect ass. To tug her roughly against him so that he felt the press of her everywhere. Thighs, sex, breasts.

His heart pounded in time with hers, and he knew that if she said his name one more time he really would take her right there—and he also knew that he’d regret it in the morning. Her voice was a plea, an incantation. And he was just tipsy enough to fall under its spell.

With supreme effort, he gathered his resolve. “Not here.” Roughly, he pulled away, the motion taking more effort than any regimen of torture he’d ever suffered in Matthew’s gym. For the first time in years he regretted not staying in the South Austin house he and Kiki had inherited from their grandmother. A house where there was privacy. Tons of privacy.

But the house was rented now, and he bunked in a co-op near campus, paid for by his scholarship’s housing allowance. But there was no way in hell he was making love to Mina in a ratty twin bed with his suite-mate in the next room jacking off to their moans and the squeak of his bed springs.

“My place.” Her voice burned into him, hoarse and urgent.

He thought of Darryl and his room that looked out over the grounds—and Mina’s apartment. “Are you sure?”

“Hell, yes.”

Thank God.

Tomorrow, Cam would think about the ramifications of sleeping with Mina, the woman he’d craved forever. The woman his best friend watched over like a hawk.

A woman who, Cam had always believed, was so far out of his league he’d have a better shot climbing a ladder to heaven.

But he must have earned his way to salvation, because she’d just invited him through the pearly gates, and for better or worse, there was no way he was saying no.

He stepped back, giving her room to move, but taking her hand as he did, simply because he was unwilling to break the connection. “Are you okay to drive?”

“I’m fine.” She licked her lips, looking suddenly unsure. “How about you? Are you okay?”

“I’m not driving.”

Her eyes slid away from his. “I mean—”

“I know what you mean,” he said, then bent forward to kiss her gently. “And I’m fine. I’m coherent. I’m bubbling over with free will. And,” he added as he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her palm, “I’ve wanted to do this for about as long as I can remember. The only thing the bourbon’s done is give me a jolt of courage.”

He could hear the relief in her laughter. “Oh. Well, then thank God for bourbon.”

“You got that right.”

She fished in her pocket for her keys, and he had to once again admire her foresight in removing everything except her make-up from her purse.

“Let’s go. The car's just one block over.”

It took only a few minutes to get to her sporty Mercedes, and then only twenty minutes after that to get from downtown to her house on the south side of the river, just off of Redbud Trail. But as far as Cam was concerned, that was twenty minutes too long.

She parked at the end of the drive, as close to the door to her apartment as it was possible to get. And though neither of them spoke about it, Cam knew they were both hurrying to get inside not just to get their hands on each other, but because the faster they got behind closed doors, the less chance there was that Darryl would see them.

Mina fumbled the key in the lock, and then, laughing, pushed it open and pulled him inside. The door clicked shut behind him, and for a moment, they both just stood there, the hall light shining bright around them, as if they’d been thrust out of a sensual land of shadows and dreams and into the harsh light of an examination room.

“Mina,” he said, suddenly unsure of himself, of the situation, of everything.

She swallowed, then took a step back so that she was leaning on the door, her hand resting on the knob as if in silent assurance that she could open it at any time. “I—” She drew a breath and started again. “This is going to sound crazy, but I kind of wish we’d stayed in that horrible alley.”

He frowned, trying to parse out her meaning from her words. “Do you want me to go?”

“No,” she said, but the word seemed tentative, and he was desperately afraid that what she meant was yes. “It’s just that I’m thinking about it now. What it was like, I mean.”

She spoke so softly that he had to strain to hear her. But then a wild, primal need rippled through his body as his mind finally put the pieces together.

That’s what she wanted. That rawness. That fear-induced lust that had overtaken them in that fetid alley and erased their inhibitions. Because Cam knew damn well that if that thief hadn’t stolen her purse, she’d have politely driven him home, and he’d have politely said goodnight.

But instead they’d ended up almost fucking in an alley. They’d crossed a line, goddammit. A line that he’d been dreaming about for most of his life.

And he damn sure didn’t intend to turn back now.

He took a single step toward her, but that was enough to put him right in front of her. He said nothing, but reached out and ran his hand along her hairline, his eyes focused on hers. His heart pounded wildly in his chest, but he knew she couldn’t tell. He looked calm. He looked in control. And goddammit, he was going to turn that fiction into a reality.

“You have one chance to tell me to go,” he said, moving his hand from her face to the wall behind her. The other hand hung by his side, so that she wasn’t fully boxed in. “One chance to stop this.”

He inched closer. “I’m going to undress you, Mina. I’m going to spread your legs and get on my knees, and I’m going to make you scream my name. And baby, that’s just the beginning. So if you want me to go, say so now. Because once I start touching you, I really don’t think I can stop.”

He held his breath, afraid that she’d seen through his bravado. That now that they were out of the alley she’d realized it was all a big mistake. The world was tilting under him as he gave her a chance to tell him to leave. And when she drew in a breath and her lips moved, the knowledge that she was about to kick him out struck him with the force of a blow.

But then she said nothing. Just pressed her lips together and stared him down. “Good answer,” he whispered, then just about melted when her mouth twitched in the tiniest of smiles.

“Arms up,” he said, and when she complied, he peeled off her shirt, leaving her in the hallway clad in her jeans and bra.

She released a shaky breath, her teeth on her lower lip. But her eyes were bright with arousal, and he felt a masculine pride in knowing that she wanted him. Wanted the pleasure of surrendering.

Just the thought made him hard, and spurred him on, and soon she stood naked in front of him, her clothes tossed casually toward her couch.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered, then watched her skin flush with pleasure.

“I never imagined you like this,” she said.

He tilted his head. “So you’ve imagined me?”

She nodded, and his cock that had gotten hard at the sight of her, now stiffened painfully from the knowledge that he’d played a role in her fantasies.

“If not like this, then how?”

“Sweet,” she said, not meeting his eyes.

He laughed. “I can do sweet. Do you want me to?”

He watched her face, the unfocused desire in her eyes. Then he let his eyes trail down to her breasts, her nipples hard, her areolae puckered. She didn’t want sweet, and his assumption was proven right when she shook her head and said, “Not tonight.”

His stomach flip-flopped with glee. “Next time, then. Tell me what you want tonight.”

He already knew, but he wanted her to say it.

“Those things you said in the alley. Or was that the bourbon talking?”

“I don’t need bourbon when I’m around you to be buzzed. And I can be sweet when you want me to be. But just so we’re clear, Mina, when I imagine you, this is how it is. Because how else could I ever get you if I didn’t just take what I want?”

She licked her lips. “Then stop talking and take, already.”

He laughed, her playfulness and open desire making him even more turned on. “Yeah,” he said, brushing a kiss across her lips. “I think I will.”

He hadn’t lied when he said he wanted to get on his knees and taste her, but he intended to get there slowly. This beautiful woman was naked in front of him, and he trailed his fingers over her body, exploring and teasing and kissing and tasting, as he worked his way down lower and lower.

He wanted to memorize her skin, her reactions, the places on her body that made her tremble and sigh. And then he wanted to go back to each of them and explore all the decadent possibilities.

Now, he just wanted to revel in the fact that she was right in front of him, naked and open and ready—and that it was him she wanted.

With deliberate slowness, he ran his hands over every inch of her. Exploring, touching, teasing. And only when he was certain he’d committed every curve and every freckle to memory did he ease down onto his knees as he pressed gentle kisses from her cleavage to her navel, and then lower still.

She was so damn wet, and she tasted sweet and earthy and feminine. He teased her clit with the tip of his tongue, and she surprised him by grabbing his hair as her whole body shook. He smiled, realizing she was closer than he’d thought, and he used his hands to gently spread her thighs, and as she knotted her fingers in his hair, he sucked and teased and licked and tasted as he reveled in the scent and taste of her.

He didn’t let her come, though, and when he slowly kissed his way up her body she begged him to rectify that little oversight.

“You promised to make me come,” she said, when he only held out his hand to lead her to the bedroom.

“I promised to make you scream. And I did.”

Her eyes narrowed, and she tossed a couple of not so nice names in his direction. But it was true. She’d screamed his name. Screamed that she was close.

And now she was even closer. Now when he took her in the bed, he knew that she’d explode.

That’s where they were going, of course. Because, frankly, Cameron couldn’t stand waiting another second to be inside her. And as he walked, he unbuttoned his shirt and slipped out of his shoes so that once they reached the bedroom it would be easier to get naked.

Easier still with Mina’s eager fingers helping undress him.

When he was naked, she slowly looked him up and down, subjecting him to the same inspection through which he’d put her. She lingered at his cock, then raised her eyes to his. “You’ll do,” she said, making him laugh.

“Do you have a condom.”

“Only one in my wallet,” he said. “I wasn’t anticipating tonight.”

“That’s okay. I’m a girl who likes to be prepared. There’s more if we need them.”

He pulled her close and cupped her ass. “I think we’ll need them,” he said, and she nodded, laughing.

“On the bed,” he said, but this time she shook her head. “My turn to do a little exploring,” she said, pointing toward the bed and ordering him to stretch out. It was, frankly, a command he wasn’t about to disobey

He laid down, and she got on top of him, straddling him at the waist and sitting just low enough that her ass rubbed against his cock. “Thought I’d torment you a little,” she said, wriggling.

“If this is your idea of torment, I’ll take it.”

She kissed him, then winked, then laid her body on top of his, her heat coiling through him and firing his senses. “I like your chest,” she murmured, kissing it lightly, then lifting her head to meet his eyes. “Keep working out.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And your earring,” she added, sliding up his body so that she could suck on his earlobe and the small gold stud he’d worn since he and Darryl got drunk freshman year. “Darryl let his piercing close up, but I’m glad you kept it. It’s sexy.”

She trailed her finger to his mouth. “And these lips. I like them, especially,” she said, and kissed him soft and deep, then surprised him by sucking hard on his lower lip. So hard he felt the intensity of it all the way in his cock.

“Christ, Mina,” he groaned when she did it again. “You’re going to make me come without even trying.”

“Oh, I’m trying,” she said, then laughed. “Want to watch me try harder?” She eased down him, peering up coyly before wrapping her hand around his cock and then running her tongue over the tip.

He closed his eyes, arching his head back and surrendering to the building intensity that she was wreaking within him. His body seeming to reduce to nothing but his cock and her mouth, and it was so fucking incredible the way the explosion built, coming closer and closer and—

“Mina.”

It took all of his strength, but he pulled away, then flipped her over so that it was his turn to straddle her. “Inside you,” he said, so desperate to have her that he could barely utter the words.

She nodded, her face bright with desire as she pulled her knees up, giving herself to him. “Yes. God, yes.”

He didn’t waste any time. He was hard as steel and almost came simply from looking at her pussy, all pink and wet and ready for him. “It’ll be fast,” he said, hurrying to slide on a condom before thrusting deep inside her. “I can’t go slow.”

“Fast is good,” she said, moving in time with his thrusts. “Fast is great.”

The both fell silent then, their bodies now doing all the talking as he claimed her. As he sank deep inside her. As he made her his.

And when he felt her core tighten around his cock, he couldn’t hold back any longer. “Come with me,” he demanded, and she arched up crying out, “Yes, yes,” as she went over, her climax coming so hard and so intense that she milked him dry, and he collapsed, spent, on the bed beside her, his body little more than a well-satisfied shell.

She curled up next to him, practically purring, and he draped and arm over her waist, letting the warmth of their joined bodies curl through them. He felt amazing—and at the same time, a little surreal.

This was Mina. Naked and satisfied in his arms.

The woman he’d wanted forever.

The girl who was his best friend’s sister.

The sudden reality hit him like a splash of cold water. He’d slept with Mina. With the “little” sister that Darryl had looked out for his whole life.

He drew in a breath, not entirely sure how to handle that particular truth. But one course of action came to mind and he started to sit up.

“Hey,” she protested, pulling him back. “What are you doing?”

“I should probably go,” he said, reluctantly pulling away from her to sit on the side of the bed.

“Go?”

He squinted at the floor searching for his pants, then looked back at her over his shoulder. “It’s ridiculously late. Do you think I should walk down to the street? If I call for a ride share and it comes up the drive, Darryl might wake up and notice. And I don’t think he—”

“Cam.” She propped herself up on her elbow, the sheet falling away to reveal one perfect breast as she said his name.

“Mina, I—”

She reached out, then rested her hand gently over his. “Stay,” she said. “I want to do that again.”

And so he did.