I moan and start to thrash, somehow aware that his eyes are devouring me as I shatter into a million glowing stars.

Moments later, I stir from my dazed stupor to notice he’s caressing one hand across my wet face, the other on my thighs where I was bruised. The touch melts me deep where it hurts me to remember, but right now, in his arms, a contentment and peace wash between us. I can feel it in his body too. As if he likes wiping my tears.

Sighing in relaxation when he kisses my temple and dries the rest of my face, I hook my bound hands around his neck and press myself into his chest.

“Nobody pushes me as far as you do,” I explain, my voice cottony.

“That’s because I’m bad,” he says. He slides one hand up my arm, to where my hands are linked at his nape.

“I’m f**king”—he kisses one eyelid—“bad for you.” He kisses another eyelid, then he kisses my mouth, and his fingers begin playing with my pu**y again. My body surprises me, responding even when I didn’t think it possible.

“Ready for more?”

I nod.

I can’t put a name to what I feel when he’s inside me, so maybe I won’t try to. Does it even have a name? This connection between human beings. Between a woman, and a man; a f**king ass**le.

I look at him, and he doesn’t scare me.

He lures me.

He tempts me, exhilarates me. He makes me want to claim him as if I’m claiming back a part of me that was once lost.

Makes me want to tame him. Let him tame me.

He rolls another condom on his thick c**k and comes up to his knees, and I feel vulnerable and open but I don’t feel like hiding right now. I openly show him my hunger and lick and kiss his thick throat as he grabs my waist and pushes into me. I shudder uncontrollably when he’s all the way in, biting a tendon that juts out on his throat, close to my mouth.

The rumble of the sound he makes tells me he likes it. You like it when I’m feisty? My eyes flutter open, and he looks down at me with a look of wild, hungry, proprietary lust, but also strangely reverent and gentle. We f**k lazily this time, without the initial rush, our bodies moving in synchronicity until I see stars as another cl**ax builds and builds.

“Go on, bite me all you want, little kitten.” He prods into my mouth, his eyes on mine as I comply, licking him, tasting him. “Do you want that to be my c**k in your mouth?” his husky murmur taunts in my ear, breath hot. “Do you want to be sucking on this cock? Biting on it?”

I gasp with renewed hunger. “When I bite it I’m going to bite hard.” With my arms hooked around his neck, I rake my nails into a part of his scalp, my h*ps tilting faster to keep up with his increasing rhythm.

His laugh, once again dark, sensual, intimate as he brushes his wet thumb along my lips, the bed squeaking beneath us. “If you think I’m afraid of a little bit of teeth, you need to get to know me better, princess.” Just like that, he bites my lower lip and sucks it into his mouth, thrusting harder so I moan.

I bite back, and he groans such sexy sounds it only makes the sex that much more intense. My wet, snug body grips him greedily because I want him in me for as long as I can have him, but the pleasure is too absolute to last as long as I want to, even though we both seem to be trying to last.

The mattress squeaks beneath us, harder and harder with his thrusts. I’m being just as noisy, and Greyson? He’s releasing low, male noises of pleasure too. “Get ready, princess, I’m coming so hard,” he rasps.

“Come,” I beg. He has no idea how much I’m aching to feel him go off inside me, go off with me.

He waits to feel me clench around him. Then, the moment it starts for me, he lets go. He comes full force, his body tightening like a bow, and when I feel him jerk in me, his hands clenching on my hips, my pleasure explodes inside me until I’m convulsing so totally I can’t keep my eyes open.

Oh.

My.

God.

I lay in breathless silence for a moment, realizing Greyson is untying me. He rubs my wrists with the pads of his thumbs, then plops onto his back and stares up at the ceiling, his chest heaving, his nipple ring glinting with the little rays of sunlight peeking through the window.

The sun is rising already. I really didn’t want it to rise yet because I don’t want to leave yet.

In silence, I go to the bathroom and when I come back to bed, he’s staring out at the city looking satisfied and exhausted, his shirt all wrinkled, his hair all mussed, his beautiful mouth swollen from me. I should get going. Probably, I should. Instead I stare at him and that mouth and I wonder how many women kissed those lips.

Many, Melanie.

He’s warned me off, but I don’t feel like being warned off. I feel as though somewhere, deep down, he’s bullshitting me. Why would he give me this necklace otherwise? Why would he give me, over and over, THE LOOK?

Even so, I’ve gotta go, so I walk back to that big bed, my eyes scanning the floor for my dress even though the thought of going home alone to my apartment makes my stomach churn. I could call Pandora, but I’ll have to be prepared for her drilling the shit out of me, I guess.

“Do you see my dress?” I whisper to him.

His voice is gruff with tiredness, his eyes hooded as he pulls open the bedsheet for me.

“Yeah, I set it aside to avoid the clutter. Come here and get some sleep.”

Oh, god, I really didn’t want to leave, but I don’t want him to know how much I want to sleep here tonight either.

So I stand there, na**d and unsure for a moment.

“I don’t have to stay,” I say, but there’s this way he has of looking at you—as if he’s commanding you. It’s very odd. I’ve never encountered anyone who could have such control with a single look.

Caving in to it, I find myself quietly heading over. His lips curl as he lifts the sheet higher and I see his na**d body under the cover.

I feel strangely awkward as I slide into bed with him, first sitting on the corner of the bed and quickly braiding my hair; I wouldn’t fall asleep otherwise, I simply can’t stand waking up and feeling it on my face.

I sense his curious gaze watching my every move, and when I sigh and lie down on my side, facing a stone fireplace on the far side of the room, he laughs behind me. “You really plan to sleep way over there?”

“I don’t want to intrude!” I laugh nervously. “I don’t stay over usually.”

“You just like to f**k and get away, that’s fine, princess. Except for the fact that I’m not done with you.”

He reaches out and guides me toward him by my braid, and when I don’t protest the maneuver and actually feel like tucking myself closer to his warmth, he exhales softly. “You’re something, aren’t you,” he murmurs, taking my braid in his fist and forcing me to roll over and face him. Then he pins my head against his, forehead to forehead. “Maybe I’ll sleep tonight; you wear a man out.”

“What do you mean?” I peer up at him, notice the hard set of his jaw. “You don’t sleep?”

“Not well, but I’ll go for it if you will,” he softly teases me.

“Then let’s go for it,” I say, grinning.

It feels like, for several minutes, we stay as we are, him with the merest curve of his lips while I’m smiling completely, both of us looking into each other’s eyes. I have no idea what he sees in my eyes that holds him so intently engrossed, but I can’t look away from his gaze either. It’s so closed and mysterious while, at the same time, I can see a fiery rawness in his gaze, as if he desperately wants something from me.

Not something: all of me.

“Come here,” he rasps. He makes the first move, easing one of his arms around me, pulling me against his side. I cuddle into his large body, a little tense at first, but at the same time, achingly aware of every spot where our na**d bodies are touching. Where my br**sts press into his ribs, my cheek on his chest, one of my legs hooking in between his.

God, this is as intimate as it gets with a man and I cannot relax, I cannot oxygenate, I cannot formulate a thought.

His breathing begins to deepen and . . . oh, wow. He’s asleep.

He fell asleep holding me, with his arm locked around my shoulders, and I don’t understand why I get butterflies over this.

There’s a little blood on his shirt, on the sleeve of the arm curved around me. I touch the red stain, wondering if I scratched him. Then I stare up into his beautiful, masculine face, wondering about him. For the first time in my life, I want to lie in bed next to a guy and listen to him breathe, slow and deep, like he’s breathing. I don’t understand my visceral reactions to him.

This hot man with a secret room. Who in the world has a secret room?

This man does. And I’m so curious about him, I study his features and tell myself I can sleep when I’m alone . . . so I touch his nipple ring and watch him lie in his big lonely apartment, deep asleep with one arm around me, wondering what other secrets he keeps from me.

♥ ♥ ♥

A PHONE IS beeping, and beeping, and beeping. I moan and twist around, feeling something against my body that’s so hot and so hard it’s definitely not a pillow. “What is that sound?”

Sleepy hazel eyes open and meet mine, and my lungs tighten in the most delicious way. Did I really sleep in this man’s arms? This man who told me he was going to be my worst nightmare? He sits up in bed and works the kinks out of his neck, stretching out his arms until every muscle is tight and flexed, then he curses as the beeping continues, grabs the offending machine and stalks out of bed and steps, buck naked, out onto the balcony of his apartment. I survey his butt with a tingly feeling in the pit of my stomach. What day is today? Saturday? Sunday?