“Stop pulling away!”

Liam heard the frustration in her tone. It ramped up his need. “Do you give the orders, sub?”

“No,” she whispered, suitably chastened. “I’m sorry, Sir.”

“What made you demand more?”

“I want more.”

“I want a billion dollars, but you don’t see me robbing banks for it.”

She sighed. “That’s different.”

“Tell me how.”

“You’re right in front of me, looking at me like I mean…something to you.”

“Everything,” he corrected. “You mean everything to me.”

Raine lowered her gaze. She was still afraid to believe him, damn it to hell.

“Keep going,” he demanded.

“When you look at me like that, I…it makes me feel good inside,” she spoke, but she’d gone quiet. “Worthy. Your touch says you value me.”

He cupped her cheek, then caressed his way down to cup her chin, lifting it to make sure she had nowhere to look but at him. “Do you feel treasured when I touch you this way?”

A little flush splashed across her cheeks. “Yes.”

“You feel that I care for you, love?”

She hesitated. “Y-yes.”

Liam felt her body tighten, saw her expression start to retreat. He was approaching her comfort zone. She didn’t have a hard time loving, he realized. She had a hard time believing that anyone loved her. If he could change that, she would feel secure revealing her devotion in return. His chest twisted up. Raine might be closed off, but she had such a big heart to give. He wanted it for his own.

“I do, Raine,” he reassured her. “I’ve told you many times.”

He bent to press his mouth fully onto hers, sinking in for a slow melding of lips, an unhurried stroke of her tongue, and a shared breath. Liam anchored himself in the moment, never rushing, always simply letting her feel how much he wanted and adored her.

Her response began cautiously, as if she wasn’t sure whether to believe all the affection in the kiss. With every sweep, he met her, giving her a bit more, always there to guide her, catch her, encourage her.

The hesitation left her gradually, an inch of starch at a time softening, until she opened completely and whimpered, giving him all her passion in that one kiss. Desperation poured from her. And need. With every moan and glide of her tongue, she told him that he mattered to her. She loved him. Liam felt waves of it from her. This was part of what addicted him to her, not just her beauty or sexuality, but the way he could feel her vulnerability, need, and caring when he held her.

With one fist in her hair to keep her close and the other clamped onto her hip, he broke away. “Where are you?”

“Very green,” she breathed.

“What did that kiss make you feel?”

Raine shrank back a bit. A little furrow appeared between her brows. He tried not to grit his teeth in frustration.

“There’s no right or wrong answer, love. I only ask because I care.”

She relaxed. “Languid. Connected to you.”

“I’d hoped you would say that.” For starters, anyway. He ran a hand up her soft, smooth torso to her breast, brushing his knuckles across the swell. “What did that kiss tell you about my feelings?”

“That you were there for me.” She had a harder time getting the next words out. Liam watched her struggle and urged her to fight. “That you care.”

That shouldn’t be news to her. “Of course I do. But I always want you to feel it.”

She nodded. She didn’t speak, but her stare never wavered. Hope and need and a silent pleading for his affection all lay there. She wanted more and wanted to share herself.

Anticipation charged his blood. “Something you want to say, love?”

Raine blinked, bit her lip, then shook her head and lowered her gaze. She was so bloody bottled up. Liam forced down more disappointment. He refused to give up.

Lowering himself to his elbows, he settled his face closer, brushing his lips over hers. “You can tell me anything.”

“I know.”

No, she didn’t. He sighed.

Shimmying down her body, he knelt to kiss the insteps of her little feet and nip at her toes. The ticklish girl giggled, then watched him with wide eyes, her expression somewhere between awestruck and afraid. Bloody hell, there was a wealth of information on her face. She’d been fucked—by the bastard who had taken her virginity, by Hammer, even by him—but no one had truly taken the time to show her his caring through touch. It made him doubly determined to reveal his heart without words now.

He kissed his way up her smooth legs, lingered at the soft caps of her knees, laving his way up her thighs, until he breathed over her pussy. The lass was wetter than he’d ever seen her. The closer his lips came, the more ragged and uneven her breath turned. She thrust her hips at him. He pinned her gently to the mattress.

“No, love. Where are you?”

“Green.” She couldn’t get the word out fast enough.

He smiled, then blew a hot breath on her slick folds and rubbed the pad of his thumb right above the plump flesh. “What does my touch make you feel now? Tell me.”

“More than wanted. Like…no one else matters more to you. It sounds crazy, but—”

“No. You’re exactly right. I’m proud of you.”

With both thumbs, he opened her cunt to his gaze, his tongue. Liam lifted her hips high, his hands banded about her thighs, as he buried his face in her folds, eating her slick flesh like a man starved. He kissed the most feminine part of her with his whole body, giving her all the thoroughness he’d bestowed on her mouth. Even though his cock wept, hard as steel and pounding with need to be inside her, he lingered, aroused, encouraged, brought her higher.

Intoxicated by her slippery musk sliding across his tongue, he hummed his approval against her softness. “Does that make you feel cared for?”

“My head is swimming,” she panted. “My blood is rushing. My pussy aches.”

Easy responses to confess, and probably ones that had stroked his masculine pride in the past. Now he wanted more. “Good. What about your heart?”

“I…can’t imagine you giving that intensity, in that way, unless it meant something to you.”

A better response, but still not what he sought. “Yes. But what do you feel in your heart when I do this?”

He bent to give her another loving, longing lick deep in her furrow, delighting when she tensed under him and softly moaned, writhing.

“It makes me feel like…you want me to know that you care.”

“I do.” She danced around the words he really wanted to hear. Her insecurities and needs all glimmered in those blue eyes. She’d nearly drowned him at first glance; nothing had changed, especially the fact that she was too afraid to tell him how she felt.

But he still had more ways in order to help her try.

Crawling up her body, he rested his weight on one elbow, his face level with her breasts. After a quick tug on the chain, he released one nipple, sucking it directly into his mouth, soothing it even as he drew more blood to the tip.

“Raine?”

“I tingle. I ache. I…need. Liam…”

“What does my touch say to you?”

“That you know how to play my body so well.”

“Look at me.” He waited until she complied. “Why would I have paid so much attention to you, love?”

“I matter.” She whispered the words, and he almost didn’t hear. Almost as if she was afraid to voice the guess or jinx herself.

Liam grabbed her shoulders, his stare penetrating her, reaching for her soul. “You always have.”

He rewarded her by removing the other clamp and treating the nipple to a thorough coaxing with his tongue. He filtered his fingers through her hair, loving the little groans and whimpers that slipped from her throat.

Liam couldn’t stand it anymore. He had to be closer to her.

Covering her body with his own, he sank into her mouth and simply lost himself. No woman he’d ever fucked in a club, taken in a casual hook-up, shared with another, or even married had ever awakened this fever in his heart. Just Raine. He stopped trying to give her messages and simply let everything he felt pour all over her.

As he did, Liam pressed himself against her, his cock burrowing ceaselessly back and forth at her cunt, bumping her clit and avoiding the tantalizing well that coated his cock with her cream, promising nirvana if he’d only plunge inside.

Raine moaned, thrusting her hips up at him.

Reaching around her, he fisted her hair and clamped her delicate skull with his fingers. “You’ll hold fast to me. You’ll not come until I tell you. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, Sir.” Her voice was breathy.

As she often did when he commanded her, Raine softened, turning pliant. Submissive. Anticipation zipped through him.

“Good. And you will not look away from me. Not once.” He tugged again at the thick strands of her hair to let her know he meant that. He could—and would—keep her stare exactly where he wanted it.

“I won’t,” she vowed, her stare clinging to his.

“Where are you?”

“Green.” Her face showed tinges of apprehension, but she still sounded steady. Strong.

“Good to hear.”

He leaned across the bed and grabbed a condom, wishing she’d already been protected with birth control as he sheathed his hungry, waiting shaft. Lifting Raine, he settled her delicate curves against him. Aligning himself against her silky body, his nerve endings ignited in a heated rush. He wanted to be tender with her, but when he parted her slick, wet heat with his ready cock, he plunged home in an endless stroke that sent him deep.

“I’m completely inside you,” he groaned. “How does that make you feel?”

Her head fell back, her dark mane spreading across the pale sheets. She rocked beneath him. Her soft kitten moans made his inner Dom howl.

“Look at me,” he growled.

Raine did with a gasp, and a jolt of electricity rattled his spine.

“I feel taken,” she moaned. “Possessed.”

“Do you like feeling owned?” Using the fist in her hair, he cocked her head to one side, exposing her neck. He feathered kisses up the milky column, feeling her pulse flutter under his lips.

“Yes. Every time you touch me, I melt. Every time we’re apart, I can’t wait for you again. Please, Liam...” She writhed against him with a soft moan, trying to encourage him to thrust.

“Patience. I enjoy your body. Touching you. Commanding you. Making you come when I will it. You intoxicate me. I love to watch you unravel.”

A rosy hue crept over her fair skin, and he loved that he could still make her blush.

“I’m not just going to fuck you, Raine.” If he showed her how much he loved her, maybe it would take the sting out of all he needed to say.

He pressed a ravenous kiss to her throat, sucking and nipping the heated skin. He burned alive as her cunt consumed him. Her legs wrapped as tightly around his hips as the chains allowed.

“Oh, Raine. You slay me.”

“Liam,” she whimpered. “More.”

“Why?”

“It feels amazing.”

It did, and that barely scratched the surface of sensations jetting through his veins. “And?”

“I feel needed.” Her body bucked. Her eyes teared up. “I need that. From you.”

Clutching her, he stroked her torturously slow, a deep slide into forever. Again. And again. One blurred into the next, her cries filling his ears. She pleaded and begged. Her flesh squeezed him as he plundered her pussy with each thrust. With every retreat, her slick folds tightened, trying to suck him back in.

Baring his teeth with a grunt, he drove up into her tight, velvety passage. Her little feminine sounds boiled his blood and urged him to take her harder, higher, deeper. God, he loved this woman.

He could ask himself why. He could ask himself what tomorrow would bring. But the answers to those questions came back to Raine, as did the biggest question of all: What was it going to take to finally make her understand that peace and happiness lay within her own grasp? All he could do was shower her with his love and be the catalyst.

Gripping Raine tighter, he captured her lips, sliding inside her mouth to take everything—her flavor, her passion, her softness—all the way to her deepest recesses. Everything about her inflamed him. He’d come to crave her, need her like he needed food or water or air.

He pinched her nipples again. Yes, he needed those little cries, too. He needed her to beg. So he slowed his strokes to a torturous drag over every sensitive spot inside her cunt. “Tell me how you feel, Raine.”

She writhed all over him. “Burning, aching. I’m dying.”

He groaned and nipped the swollen tips of her breasts bouncing in front of him. She bit into his shoulder. With her, nothing was easy, nor would it ever be. He understood that, just as he understood that her love and commitment to them was worth fighting for. He was steeled for the battle of his life, but by god, if she wanted him, she’d have to fight, too. If she did…by the time this was over, she’d feel him beneath her skin and wonder how she’d ever done without everything he offered.