Her body couldn’t decide what it wanted—tongue or the pressure of my lips—so I made the decision for her, hungry after a night of secretive, hurried sex and so little intimacy. I surrounded her with my mouth, sucking and reminding her this is how I love you, both soft and wild.

I am f**king lost in you.

Her body was so familiar to me, its dips and curves, the flavor of her sex as she went from sleeping to wild. And although I’d started this wanting to tease her, I couldn’t; her release was a precursor to mine. She came quickly, legs falling away, back bowed until her cries quieted and thighs stopped trembling. She propped herself up on her elbows, watching me.

I kissed up her navel, pushing my shirt up her body as I went, and exposing the soft fullness of her breasts.

“Hello, my lovelies.”

“Did you have fun tonight?” she asked, voice still groggy with sleep and pleasure.

“It was definitely interesting.” My teeth found the bottom swell of her breast, and then my tongue slid up the curve, found her nipple.

“Bennett?”

I paused my gentle attack on her chest to look up and catch the uncertainty on her face. “Hmm?”

“Is it really okay that we did this? That I crashed your bachelor party? I mean, it basically hijacked your first night here.”

“Do you think I’m at all surprised you decided to take charge at the club?”

She closed her eyes, smiling a little. But only a little. “Not being surprised isn’t the same thing as being glad that I did it.”

I pushed my shirt the rest of the way up her arms, trapping her wrists above her head and using it to tie her hands together. “We have all weekend to celebrate the bachelor thing. It’s really okay that you did this.” I leaned down, sucked her neck. “In fact, if you ever stop doing crazy things like that, stop being wild and foolish because you want me so much, it might just ruin me a little.”

“A little?” I could hear the smile in her voice.

Looking down at her face, at her hair fanned across the pillow, eyes heavy with desire and satisfaction in equal measure, I had the sense of being pulled backward through a cable in time. How the f**k had we gotten here? This woman beneath me was the same one I’d despised so viciously for months, the one I’d f**ked with such combustible need and hate. And now, she was in my room, on the weekend of my bachelor party, wearing my grandmother’s ring, hands tied over her head with my favorite T-shirt, the one she’d claimed as her own months ago.

Chloe tilted her head, catching my eye. “Where did you go?”

I closed my eyes, swallowing. “Just remembering.”

She waited, eyes studying me.

“I was just remembering everything and . . .”

“And?”

“Thinking about how we started . . . and what it was like before. I was trying to remember the last woman I was with before you. . . . I don’t think I ever told you about that night.”

Beneath me, she laughed. “This has the potential to be such a romantic conversation.” She wiggled a little, rubbing her slick skin along the underside of my cock.

“Just listen,” I murmured, bending to kiss her. Pulling back, I said, “She was my date at the fund-raiser for Millennium Organics. You were there, too. . . .”

“I remember,” she whispered, watching my lips.

“You had on this dress . . .” I exhaled. “Fuck. That dress. It was—”

“Red.”

“Yes. But not just red. Fire engine red. Siren red. You looked like a f**king beacon, a devil . . . which is pretty appropriate, considering. Anyway, Amber was my date, and—”

“Blond. Tall. Fake boobs?” she asked, clearly remembering. I took a small bit of pleasure knowing she was paying close enough attention even then to remember my date nearly two years later.

“That’s her. And she was . . .” I sighed, remembering my complete apathy that entire evening. “She was nice enough. But she wasn’t you. I was obsessed with you, but in a really fucked-up way. I loved finding ways to push your buttons just to see you react to me for a second. I loved getting a rise out of you, because I think it meant that I was the focus of your thoughts for a moment, however rage-filled.”

She laughed again, stretching to kiss my neck, sucking lightly. “Psychopath.”

“That night,” I continued, ignoring her, “you were getting a drink at the bar, and I walked up to you and made some crack—I don’t even remember now what it was I’d said. But I’m sure it was nasty, and unnecessary.” I closed my eyes, remembering her face, how she stared at me blankly, without even a trace of interest. “You looked at me and then laughed before taking your drink and just walking away. It f**king wrecked me, I think, though I didn’t really get that until later. I was used to seeing you react to my jabs with a tiny hint of hurt feelings, anger, or frustration. But to see absolutely nothing but indifference . . . fuck. That was it for me.”

“I don’t remember what you said, either,” she admitted. “But I’m sure it took a lot of effort for me to look unaffected.”

“We left not long after that. Amber and I.” I smoothed a hand up Chloe’s body, over her breast to her face. I looked her in the eye and admitted, “I f**ked her. But it was awful. You kept barging into my head. I would close my eyes and imagine what it would be like to touch you. I tried to imagine the sounds you would make when you’d come, how you would feel. That’s when I came. I bit the pillow to keep from saying your name.”

She exhaled sharply, and I realized she’d been holding her breath. “Did you go to her place or yours?”

I looked away from where my fingers ran over her jaw and met her eyes again. How was that relevant? “Hers. Why?”

Shrugging, she whispered, “Just curious.”

I continued to study her and could see the wheels turning, some private curiosity growing in her thoughts.

Bending to kiss her ear, I asked, “What are you thinking, little devil?”

She smiled up at me, caught. “I was wondering . . . what position you were in.”

Ice trickled into my bloodstream. “Do you like hearing about this because you want to imagine me with another woman?”

She shook her head immediately, eyes darkening. Her hands turned into tight fists around the knot of my shirt above her head. “I like hearing how you were thinking about me. I just . . . want to hear about it.”

“I was on top of her, like this,” I murmured, wary. “We only had sex that one time. I’m sure she found me wholly unimpressive as a lover.”

She wiggled, adjusting the position of her hands in their soft binding, watching me. Thinking, thinking, thinking. “Before you had sex with her,” she said, eyes on my mouth. “When you got back to her place. Did she go down on you?”

Shrugging, I admitted, “I think so. A little.”

“And did you?”

“Taste her?” I asked and Chloe nodded. “No,” I said. “I didn’t.”

“Did you wear a condom?”

“I always wore a condom,” I said, laughing. “Well, before you.”

She smiled and rolled her eyes. “Right.” But then her legs slid up around my waist. “Before me.” All I needed to do was shift my h*ps slightly and I would be able to press inside her. Yet somehow, talking about this na**d and over her felt perfect. We had no secrets. “Did she come?” she asked.

Sighing, I admitted, “She faked it.”

Chloe laughed, head pressed back into the pillow so she could see me better. “You’re sure?”

“Positive. It was an impressive effort if not a bit over-the-top.”

“Poor girl didn’t know what she was missing then.”

“It was only a few days before the conference room,” I whispered, kissing the corner of her mouth. “I think I was probably already in love with you. So when I think back to that night with Amber, it feels as though I cheated. Given how you found me tonight—blindfolded, passively accepting an erotic dance—I want to air all of my potential sins. I guess that’s why I’m talking about Amber now.”

Her face straightened, eyes wide and earnest. “Babe. You didn’t cheat. Either with Amber or if had been another woman tonight dancing for you.”

“I wouldn’t, you know,” I said, my voice tight. Reaching above her, I untied her hands, rubbing her wrists carefully. “You saw that I wasn’t aroused until I knew it was you. I couldn’t be unfaithful to you.”

She nodded, and I kissed up her neck to her swollen lips. Swollen from the rough treatment I gave her not long ago. Holy shit she must be sore everywhere. Even still, she lowered her arms, reached between us, and rubbed me over the crease of her sex.

When she kissed me, she moaned quietly against my tongue. “You taste like me.”

“However could that have happened?” I asked, nibbling her bottom lip.

Angling her hips, she pushed up into me, suddenly demanding and urgent.

“Easy,” I whispered, pulling back and sinking into her slowly, groaning into her neck. “Don’t go too fast.” Fuck. She even felt like honey, smooth and sweet. “So good. Always so f**king good, Chlo.”

“How did you know?”

I paused for a moment as I pulled my h*ps back, interpreting her question. “How did I know you’re sore?”

She nodded.

It was her favorite game, the one where I told her every tiny thing I noticed. I paid attention; she loved it.

“You rode my fingers pretty hard earlier.”

She hummed, eyes closed and hands running down my back.

“And I wasn’t particularly gentle in the restroom.”

“You really weren’t,” she whispered, turning her head to suck on my shoulder.

I started an easy, steady rhythm moving in her. “So just now, when I put my mouth on you? I wasn’t surprised you were a little swollen.”

“Close. Faster, please, baby,” she gasped, but I didn’t pick up speed.

“Not faster,” I objected, lips near her ear. “It’s the slow sex that drives me most wild. It’s when I can feel you best, hear every sound you’re making. I can imagine how we might look beneath the blankets, where I’m moving in you. I think about how many times I’ll make you come. I don’t have all of those thoughts when I’m f**king you hard in a bed, or in a bathroom of a casino.”

Her breath faltered, and she held it, silently begging me to get her there. She ran her hands up my back, around my neck to my face. I felt the cool press of her engagement ring, thinking holy shit, this woman is going to be my wife, have my children, share my home and my life. She’ll see me grow old and most likely insane. She’ll promise to love me through all of it.

I lifted myself above her, arms straight so I could watch what I was feeling, moving inside her. But her hands cupped my face, brought my attention back to her eyes.

“Hey.”

I tried to catch my breath, felt sweat drop from my forehead onto her chest. “Yeah?”

She licked her lips, swallowed. “I am so in love with you.” Her thumb slipped into my mouth and I bit down sharply, causing her to let out a tight moan. “And whatever happens outside of this, of us like this . . .”

“I know.”

We shared a desperate look, a mutual, silent agreement that we would never get enough, that maybe the ideal life was us here like this, alone and touching, but it would never be our reality to exist here exclusively. It was why she crashed my bachelor party but would leave tomorrow. It was why I couldn’t stay away, knowing she was in the same city.

And here she was, limbs heavy and fevered beneath me, h*ps rising urgently up to mine to get what she needed. She would always belong to me—at home, at work, in bed—and that thought sent me barreling down the road to my release.

She was close, but unfortunately I was closer. “Get there, sweet thing. I . . . I can’t . . .”

Her hands gripped my hips, head pushing back into the pillow. “Please.”

My body tensed, h*ps thrusting wildly, my orgasm held back by barely a thread. “Fucking get there, Mills.”

It was the voice I used sparingly because I never wanted it to lose its effect on her. With a flush down her chest, she arched off the bed, pulling her thighs high up against her body to send me deep into her. With her lips parting in a sharp cry, she dissolved into her orgasm beneath me.

I’d never tire of the view of Chloe coming. The blush on her skin, the nearly drugged darkness of her eyes as she watched me, and the way her lips shaped my name . . . Every f**king time it reminded me that I was the only man to ever give her pleasure like this. Her arms fell away, heavy with exhaustion, and her tongue peeked out to wet her lips.

“Fuck,” she whispered, shaking.

Relief washed through me, opening the floodgates and permitting my own body to tumble forward, blind to everything but the sensation of her around me. The sweetness of her, the wetness of her . . . My back bowed back as I came, shouting out into the quiet, sterile room.

The sound of my yell echoed from the ceiling when I collapsed onto her, sweaty and heavy. I wanted to nestle my face into the smooth curve of her neck and sleep for at least three days.

She laughed, groaning under my weight. “Get off me, Hulk.”

I rolled away, practically crashing into the mattress beside her. “Damn, Chlo. That was . . .”

She curled into me, purring, “Very, very good.” Stretching to nibble at my jaw, she whispered, “I’m going to need at least ten minutes before we do that again.”