The first conscious moment I’m aware he’s in bed with me comes as I slide my palm against his flat stomach, the layered grooves of his abs bringing me out of slumber. He’s so warm, the skin unlike mine, a line of hair in the middle of my hand thickening as I move my hand down. It’s warm, hotter as I hit a line of fabric, then brush against something hard and unyielding.

He makes a low sound in his throat. My nose grazes his shoulder. I sigh, the long sound of coming to, the luxurious, slow exhale of post-sleep awakening. My arm is around Silas’s waist. He’s on his side, turned away from me, and here I am, feeling his bare skin in my sleep.

“Oh!” I say and begin to retreat.

His hand clamps over my wrist. “No. Don’t stop.”

“But I–”

“Jane,” he says roughly, “please don’t stop.”

His voice holds a richness, his breath coming quickly. A ragged sigh emerges as I make a wordless sound to tell him yes, I’ll continue. Yes, I want to touch him. Yes, I want to see the center of his heat.

And yes, I want that heat in me.

“I didn’t mean to touch you in your sleep.”

“I wasn’t asleep.”

“I was.”

“I know. And the fact that you reach out to me even when you aren’t aware of it is enchanting,” he whispers as he turns over, my arm now around his back. Silas kisses me until I am very, very much alert.

My hand runs down the long, hard lines of his back to his ass, the coiled power in his legs so strong. He moves toward me, pressing with a mix of urgency and patience. Nothing holds us back now but ourselves. No interruptions, no killers, no meetings, no constant vigilance. For now, we’re a man and a woman who want to be stripped bare and to enter into each other’s bodies to create a new space.

A refuge.

A haven.

My pajama shirt rides up as Silas blankets my body with his, the tickle of his chest and torso a warm rush of pleasure. He’s kissing me with abandon, taking his time, the attention feeding some part of me that needs to be treated like this. We sink into the bed, my back arching, breasts pressed against the thick heat of him.

“If this is too much,” he says as he ends the kiss, breathing hard against my cheek, “say the word.”

“It’s not that it’s too much,” I gasp. “It’s not enough.”

“I know exactly how you feel,” he replies, his mouth heavy against my lightness. Silas grounds me before I can float away, his tongue so delicious, the delightful play between our lips a choreographed layer of emotion running in tandem with our hands.

You would think that passion would take me out of my anxious mind. You would be wrong. As Silas explores me, all of my looping increases, the frantic thoughts barraging me like gunfire on an open range. I want to stop thinking about my life. I want to get rid of the horrific images of the last few days. I want to stop the voices that tell me I’m unworthy.

I want to give in to what he offers me.

I want to just give.

We do not choose to remain distracted by our crazy minds even in the face of extraordinary pleasure. Silas’s hands and mouth tell me where I need to let myself wander. Oh, how I want to. Oh, how I wish it were so simple.

Our minds choose what they choose, free range and autonomous, the subconscious nothing more than abstract art at work, smearing emotions like paint. We see what is shaped by experience. No two people can share the same thought, the same reaction, the same process.

All we can share is bodies. Space. Touch. Time.

My skin reacts, gooseflesh rippling like a roaring river, my nipples turning to whitewater peaks, body swelling with the overflow of melting abundance that comes with a thaw. This feels so good.

He makes me feel so good.

But the world wants me to feel bad about myself. It’s the only way I’m allowed to function. And when thousands–millions–of voices are telling you one thing, it’s impossible to let his hands say another.

“What’s wrong, Jane?” He stops abruptly, so fast, it makes me jerk, like he’s slammed on the brakes of a car.

“Nothing,” I whisper, suddenly self-conscious, hating that he’s noticed something.

“You seem scared. I don’t want you to be afraid. We can stop anytime.”

“No,” I say, only it comes out more like a moan than a word. “I’m not scared.”

“You’re shaking.”

“That’s not from fear. I’m shaking from excitement.” Every time he touches me, I’m renewed. Silas is here because he wants to be. He wants to reach down and strip off his shirt. He wants to grind his hips against mine as his thigh parts my legs. He wants to move against me like he’s trying to find his way in through every inch of my skin.

He wants me to stroke him over his pajama pants until he makes a hushed, choking sound that turns to a rush, a grunt, a growl filled with sex and lust.

He wants me.

And I want him right back.

Before he can hesitate, I reach between us and slip his pajama pants down until the hot cotton of his boxers cools with my breach. He’s hard, the long thickness of him centered against his lower abs. Moving on his side against the back of the bed, he does something I never expected.

He opens himself up to me.

While I am technically still a virgin, I’ve messed around enough to know how the preliminaries work, and Silas is using a different playbook from any other guy I’ve been with. Men don’t stretch out, casual and open, like this. Foreplay and sex play is frantic, fevered, done in darkness while half drunk.

Not out in the open, lights on, eyes locked.

His gaze pins me in place. He wants to own me. We’re about to take all the time we need to get to know each other’s bodies.

Confidence and a determined attitude that how this all rolls out is natural. Special.

Ours.

It’s ours, only ours, and just like that, with an intense look and a smile of genuine pleasure welcoming me into his world, Silas clears me. The rest of the never-ending chatter in my mind floats off like dust on the wind. I move against him and kiss him with an earnestness that makes our lips so sweet, the stroke of his hands against my bare back so perfect. None of the rest of the voices in society are here. This is not their place. They do not deserve access to me 24/7.

Only Silas does.

I watch my own movements with a heated rush as I wrap my fingers around his waistband and slowly, exquisitely, pull off his boxers. His erection pulls with the fabric, then springs back with a thick power that makes me want to pull him into my mouth, give him pleasure.

Make him want me as much as I want him.

Kicking his pants off the bed, Silas props himself up on one hand and grins at me.

“Your turn.”

I look down, my shirt half off, pants still on. The lights are on. We can see each other completely. There is nothing being hidden.

There is no reason.

Impulse makes me rise up on my knees, untamed breasts bobbing slightly as I pull the shirt completely off, stretching to point myself closer to him, giving Silas a show. Those deep-blue eyes never leave me, tracking my breasts, my hips, my face.

I sit on the edge of the bed and hook my thumbs into my panty waistband. Arching up off the bed, I slide them down, then sit on the cool cotton comforter while I finish removing them.

Before I can do it, I’m dragged back, Silas’s hot mouth on mine, our bodies askew. He’s kissing me like he’s drowning, like I am how he breathes, and I’m matching him.

The way the light shines off the muscles in his back as I give myself the luxury of opening my eyes while we kiss makes me think of Greek gods. Of men in the woods, strong and sculpted by hard work and necessity, by honor and truth. We move our naked bodies against each other, his skin coarse with hair, mine smooth and shivering.

After a while, I lose the sense that we’re two separate bodies, until he moves me back and sits up over me. Silas takes his hands and places them gently, reverently, on my hips, gliding up over my ribs, my breasts, and along my underarms.

I lift my hands up until my wrists cross above my head, skirting through my shorter hair until they rest on the pillow.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs, bending down to plant an open-mouthed kiss on each nipple. As he finishes the first, his tongue lingers, making me tighten and pulse. I forget to breathe as he blows gently on the wet skin, which curls inward, closing like a rosebud, waiting for another time to reveal itself.

I’m all gasp and throb by the time he kisses his way between my legs. My heart quickens, breath picking up, but he pauses.

“These scrapes,” he says, one gentle finger tracing a couple of cuts. “I hate seeing them on you. They’re marks of my failure.”

“No,” I whisper.

“Yes. I’m so sorry you’re hurting. I’m going to do everything I can to make sure you don’t hurt anymore.”

“Everything?” My answer is loaded with innuendo. He picks it up.

“I’ve wanted you,” he murmurs to my belly, “since we first met.”

“You hated me,” I whisper, my fingers loose in his hair.

“No. I mean before. When you met with Lindsay after she came home. I thought you were the most captivating woman I’d ever met.”

“When we were at The Toast? You–you did? You thought that?”

“I did. It was hard to hide it.”

“I just thought you were a super-innocent, nice guy.”

“You’re half right.”

“Which half?”

His lips move against the tender skin right below my navel. “Let me show you.”

My abs tighten every second his lips graze me. The light stubble of his late-day beard feels like an electric skin, like someone has added a layer to me, all wire and heat and wetness. I’m tingling everywhere, his hands moving my thighs apart, until I arch up and gasp at the warm pleasure he gives me with his tongue.

I didn’t know.

I didn’t know that a man could touch me like this, so masterful and bold, yet make me feel delicate and worthy at the same time. I didn’t know that a man could play my body like an instrument, bringing blood to a crescendo, breathing con slancio that soaks into my pores as he licks me, his passion raw and atavistic, laid out as if it were a given.

I didn’t know.

I do now.

Too much emotion turns my blood to lava, the light strokes of his hands on me a quick accumulation of aching unanswered prayers. My body moves toward him, drawn by need, his gravitational pull too much. If I thought I was overcome by my crazy, dangerous life, I am learning as he runs his hands up over my hipbones straight to my breasts, touching me like a man who is determined to study me until he’s an expert, that crazy and dangerous apply to this, too.

What do I do with my hands? I want to touch him, explore him, my palms curling around his shoulders and touching the thick muscle I find. My mind races as he turns me into nothing but quivers. Exposed like this in the night, I open my eyes, shadows mingling with the whispers of the flesh.

And then it all fades, a soft infusion that makes me feel light, so light, I’ll float away. His fingers perform magic across my ribcage, calloused hands pulling me to him through the simple act of pressure. His body gives and I take, my hips arching toward him until he stops, pausing only to give me something even better.

His mouth.

The kiss is firelight and peace, sanctuary and trust, my hands finally free to feel all of him, finding a long torso, the well-worn terrain of hard work. This man protects people with his body. It must be a fortress. As I touch him, his hand dips between my legs, the fevered rush of his kiss giving me a taste of myself, the hedonism so intoxicating.

Come with me, his fingers say, turning me up until I’m about to explode. Let me take you to a place where there is no shame.

So I do.

Pleasure crowds out all of my doubts, emptying my mind with a suddenness that defies the neat orderliness I assumed it required. I kiss him back, hard, and grind into his hand, then move until I’m straddling him, his erection pressed between my legs, the wet friction making me gasp as he looks at me with dark eyes that promise more.

I’m not sure how much more I can take.

My pulse is in every pore of my body, synched perfectly to give me an exquisite sense of Silas, as if his naked journey matches mine. He reaches up and moves a strand of hair off my face, eyes boring into me, trying to see my soul. I move against him and he groans, closing his eyes, giving in to me. Having him release the protective wall that makes me feel safe is an illicit, welcome pleasure.

It means he trusts me.

It means he wants me.

It means I am in.

In his head. In his heart. In his life.

And now it’s my turn to let him in.

A simple roll of my hip and one wet thigh’s slick shift and he’s poised at the entrance, so close to slipping in me, his body a study in restraint.

“Are you sure?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“We need something,” he says, turning toward his bedside table drawer. A condom is in his hand as he rolls back over, and within seconds, he puts it on.

He looks at me, breathing hard. Intensity deepens between us. I can’t look away.

He won’t.

“Not like this,” he whispers, moving me out of range, making me almost cry out in frustration. “Let me make sure it won’t hurt.” Kissing me deeply, he pulls me to him, then rotates our joined bodies until I’m on my back. Strong arms bulge as he holds himself above me, my knees falling to each side, my heart slamming between my legs like it’s relocated.

“I want you to tell me to stop if you want to stop, Jane.”

“I don’t.”

“Do you understand, though? I mean it.” He kisses me, a sweet kiss that is too chaste for the moment. I want raunchy and naughty, dirty and wild, and right now, he’s so earnest.

I grab his ass with both hands and pull him in.

Turns out he’s stronger than me, even in that region.

The next thing I know, my mouth and body are plundered, the pain of being entered completely outweighed by the intensity of this kiss. My mouth is now taking more than I knew possible, emotion transforming me from the inside out. He licks, he sucks, he bites, he tells me all his secrets but I can’t understand any of them, my fingers finding every scar on his back and arms, over his abs and chest, back to his perfect ass, until he moves inside me, pulling back with a hiss.

And then he moves inside me again, slow and steady, the air changing between us. I smell musk and sweat, sex and juices, but I also sense a scent that is new. Wholly original.

As I breathe, his head dips down, kissing my shoulder as he thrusts. Coiled power radiates from him, my hands on his ass loosening their grip, riding up the small, curved surface of his lower back into the corded rope of his spine.

“Widen your legs,” he commands, my body intuitively submitting, waiting for him to give me guidance. “Relax.”

“I am relaxed with you,” I whisper into the hard curve of his ear, taking in every second and scent, every thrust and stroke, marveling in real time that we’re together like this, accepting it, welcoming it.

Loving it.

Lush kisses and deep strokes turn us into a twisting, entangled, sublime knot, his body so big above me, my own so deeply here. Grounded and present as a tactile sense inside me builds, I kiss him back, so connected to him that I lose my own edges.

I blur into him.

There is pain, yes. It’s a tender, yanking ache that isn’t fading. But it’s a reminder. A talisman, of sorts, but one you can’t hold in a pocket or your hand.

My breath breaks away and fills the curved space between us, his hair against my shoulder, his wide chest and big body making me feel wanted. A flicker, a sunburst, a change, turn me into a bonfire, and suddenly he tells me, “I can’t hold back. Are you ready?”

The push and release are so hard, so good, so–oh, oh, I’m flying, the heat lifting me up until all that is left is Silas. I am enough, gasping and moaning, letting go of voices and thoughts and fears and pain until all I am is whatever he gives me. We’re moving against each other to give and give and give until we’re empty.

Emptiness is underrated.

Our breath is so fast, so ragged, like smoke scraping against a diamond. In the soft, dusky light I catalog my senses. Electricity races across each pore. My legs shake, newly awakened. Silas’s breath thunders in my ear, his chest against mine, my soft breasts moving to fit against his thickness.

Hearts can break so easily.

But hearts can also be the greatest cure of all.

“Jane,” he says to me in the quiet. I turn just so, trying to control my shaking as he slides out of me. I look at him, unabashedly watching his body as he moves, enjoying every second of this unfettered view.

“Mmm?”

“You okay?”

“Better than okay.”

“Did I hurt you?”

“No.”

“Come on,” he urges, propping himself up on one elbow, facing me. He strokes a long, gentle line from my chin to one breast. “Tell me. It hurt?”

“Only a little. And it wasn’t your fault.” I smile.

“Oh, but it was all my fault.” He smiles back.

“It was worth it. You’re worth it,” I say. The words feel inadequate.

“Thank you,” he says.

I jolt, absolutely not expecting that. “For what? Sex?”

“For trusting me.”

“How do you know I trust you? Maybe I’m some devious double agent who sleeps her way to information.”

“I don’t think so.” A yawn overpowers him, so intense, he shakes a little. It’s endearing. I melt a little more.

“You don’t?” I arch one eyebrow. “Then my evil plan is working.”

“If your evil plan involves letting me have lots of sex with you, then let’s make that evil plan work.”

“You liked it?” I ask, shy again.

“I like you.”

“That’s not an answer.” I reach between us and find him, hard again.

His turn to arch an eyebrow. “Again?”

“You said you wanted to work my evil plan.”

He pulls me into his arms. “I like the way you think, even if you might be a spy.”

I kiss him quickly, then begin to stroke him. “Oh, I see something I’d like to spy...”

“That involves going deep undercover, Jane,” he says, then moans as I do just that.

Turns out he’s right.

My evil plan does require a lot of practice.

So we do.