I’ve been helpless before: trapped beneath a car, under the sharp command of an instructor, burned by my father’s heated disdain. But never like this. This kind of helpless is liberating; it’s what it feels like to have every nerve ending rise to the surface and drink in sensation. It’s what it feels like to be touched by someone I trust with my body, trust with my heart.

But I want to feel him inside me when I fall to pieces, and my release is too close to the surface. I lift my hips, take hold of him, and lower myself down his length as we both let out shuddering groans.

We stay motionless for a few seconds, as my body adjusts to him.

I slide forward and up. Back and down. Again, and again, closing my eyes only when his shaking voice—Just . . . please . . . faster . . . faster Mia—breaks away and he slides his hands up the front of my body, to my neck. His thumb strokes the delicate skin at the hollow of my throat.

It shouldn’t be so easy to bring me back to this point again, and again, but when Ansel drops one hand to my thigh, and moves it between my legs, his broad fingertips circling, his quiet, hoarse sex voice telling me how good it feels . . . I can’t stop my body from giving in.

“C’est ça, c’est ça.” I don’t need him to translate. That’s it, he said. That’s him touching me perfectly, and my body responding just as he knew it would.

I don’t know what sensation to focus on; it’s impossible to feel each thing at once. His fingers digging into my hips, the heavy length of him stroking inside me, the feel of his mouth on my neck sucking sucking sucking so perfectly until that tiny flash of pain where he pulls a mark to the surface.

I feel like he’s taking over every part of me: filling my vision with the things he’s doing, reaching into my chest and making my heart beat so hard and fast it’s terrifying and thrilling in equal measure.

He pushes up beneath me, moving so I’m spilled onto my hands and knees and we both moan at the new depth, and the new visual in the window of him braced behind me. His hands curl around my hips, head falls back, and eyes close as he begins to move. He’s the portrait of bliss, the picture of relief. Each muscle in his torso is flexed and beaded with sweat but he manages to look more relaxed than I’ve ever seen him, lazily thrusting into me.

“Harder,” I tell him, my voice thick and quiet with need.

His eyes open and a dark smile spreads over his face. Digging his fingers tighter into the flesh around my hips, he drives brutally into me once, pausing, and then picks up a perfectly punishing rhythm.

“Harder.”

He grips my hips, tilting them, and grunts with effort as he pushes deep, hitting me in a place I’ve never known existed and making me cry out, clutched by an orgasm so sudden and overwhelming I seem to lose the use of my arms. I fall to my elbows as Ansel holds me by my hips, rutting rhythmically, his voice coming out in sharp, deep grunts.

“Mia,” he rasps, stilling behind me and shaking as he comes.

I collapse, boneless, and he catches me, cradling my head to his chest. With my ear pressed against him, I can hear the heavy, vital pounding of his heart.

Ansel rolls me to my back, carefully sliding back into me as he always seems to, even when we’re done, and watching my face with clear, serious eyes.

“It felt good?” he asks quietly.

I nod.

“You like me?”

“I do.”

Our hips rock together slowly, trying to hold on.

Chapter EIGHTEEN

“SO WHAT TIME is this party?” I mumble into my pillow. Ansel rests heavily on top of me, his front to my back, the fabric of his suit pressed against my bare skin, his hair tickling the side of my face. I start to laugh, struggling to get away, but this only encourages him. “Mmpf. You’re so heavy. Do you have bricks in your pocket? Get off me.”

“But you’re so warm,” he whines. “And soft. And you smell so good. Like woman and sex and me.” His fingers find my sides and curl, tickling me relentlessly until he rolls me to my back and then he’s there, hovering above me, his thumb tracing my mouth. “The party’s at seven,” he says, eyes mossy green and filled with a weight that tells me he’d much rather take off the suit than get out of this bed. “I’ll meet you here and we’ll go together. I promise not to be late.”

He leans down and kisses me, making a sound that’s somewhere between contentment and longing, and I know he’s telling himself not to get carried away, that as good as this is, there will be time for more later. After work.

I push my hand beneath his jacket and tug his shirt free from where it’s tucked into the waistband of his pants, as I unapologetically search for skin.

“I can hear you thinking,” I say, repeating the line he’s used on me at least a dozen times. “Wondering how much time you have?”

He groans and lets his head fall to my neck. “I can’t believe there was a time when I used to be up and practically out the door before my alarm even went off. Now I don’t want to leave.”

I push my hands through his hair, scratching lightly against his scalp. He works to keep the majority of his weight off me, but I can feel him relax more every second.

“Je ne veux pas partir,” he repeats, voice a little rough now. “Et je ne veux pas que tu partes.”

And I don’t want you to leave.

I blink up to the ceiling, wanting to commit every detail of this moment to memory.

“I can’t wait to show you off tonight,” he says, brighter now, pushing up onto his elbow and looking down at me. “I can’t wait to tell everyone how I tricked you into proposing to me. We’ll ignore the pesky detail that you’re leaving me soon.”