Patiently, he sat back and watched her decide. Finally, she crawled back across the bed to him, then stopped without turning around. “Do you want me on my back?”

Tempting, but . . . “No.” He wanted her absolutely vulnerable, where she couldn’t see what he was doing but would have to simply trust him.

She bit her lip. Tyler saw her tension rise. He made her nervous. She had good reason to be. A faint smile fell across his mouth. He wasn’t playing her bullshit game. He planned to get closer than ever and make her feel him in a way she never had. So she’d never again doubt that he meant to have all of her, now and always.

Still, she hesitated. “I’m, um, sore.”

Stunning that she’d lie simply to put distance between them. Definitely, he had to fucking address that now.

“I’ll keep that in mind. Turn around, Del.”

She swallowed. “Can’t we take a shower? It will ease my muscles, and I can, um, suck you.”

Nice offer, but far more impersonal than what he had in mind. “Either come back here, in the position I’ve indicated, or tell me what the hell is really bothering you. Because I haven’t fucked you enough to be sore. When I have, you’ll feel it.”

Del hesitated, debated, then took a breath to steel herself. Then she turned around, bent over, with her ass exposed and her pussy looking all swollen, wet, and vulnerable.

Knowing a bit about Xander, Tyler suspected he’d find exactly what he needed in the nightstand drawer. Silently, he padded over and opened it. Bingo! Grabbing it quickly, he stood behind Del again. She looked over her shoulder at him with vulnerable blue eyes.

“Talk to me, angel.”

She blinked, and the look was gone. “Nothing to say.”

More crap. There was plenty left unsaid, and if she didn’t want talk now, they’d get to it soon.

In the meantime . . . Tyler unscrewed the cap on the tube in his hand and squeezed out a healthy dose of lube, realizing this could backfire on him in a major way. They hadn’t discussed anal sex, and she had no experience with it. But he had more than enough to know that no act was more intimate. She’d be allowing him where no other man had been. And she’d feel every inch of him inside her, all through her. She wouldn’t know how to counter the pleasure or put up barriers between them. He’d strip away all this fronting and get strictly to him and her and whatever she was trying to hide.

He slathered the lube on his cock with one hand, then grabbed her hair in his fist with the other. “I told you we were going to do things my way. I want this. I want to give this to you. I want you to feel it because I intend to make sure this is unlike any experience you’ve ever had. And when it’s over, we’re going to talk, and you’re going to tell me whatever is in that head of yours that you’re hiding from me.”

Before she could deny it again, he rubbed the rest of the lube on his fingers across the untried rosette of her ass.

Finally understanding, Del gasped. “Tyler, I don’t—”

“You haven’t yet,” he corrected. “But you will. Because you can, and there’s no reason to hold back from me, angel. I’m going to make it so good for you.”

To bring his point home, he pressed one finger into her back entrance. She gasped. Her hips wriggled. Trying to seat him deeper or dislodge him? He wasn’t sure, but the result was that his entire finger slid all the way into her hot depths.

Fuck, she felt beyond hot and tight. He wasn’t going to last long once he got his cock in there, but it was going to be one sweet ride. Nothing ever felt like Del, and knowing that he was the first—and the last—man to take her this intimately was going to blow the top of his head off.

He withdrew for a moment, then pressed two fingers inside her ass. Del didn’t gasp this time. She moaned, a little involuntary animal sound of pleasure.

“It’s going to feel even better when it’s my cock back here, angel. You think you feel every touch now? Just wait. I’m going to fuck you so deep and slow, there’s no way you’re going to be able to deny the pleasure. You’ll absolutely feel every inch of me, totally joined with you.”

And he was going to use every weapon he had to get under her defenses, strip her bare, and overcome her objections. As far as he was concerned, he’d tear down a cement wall with his bare hands to get to her. Whatever emotional barriers she was trying to erect now should be no match for his determination.

Slowly, he slid his hand out of her hair, caressing his way down her spine, circling her waist, before he slid over her belly, then between her thighs to rub her tender, swollen flesh. She might be slightly sore, but more than anything, she was needy. Her cunt wept, and when he put his fingers over her clit, her body leapt to life, bucking. She tossed her head back, and the spill of her dark hair across her skin, almost to her ass, turned him on even more. Everything about this woman—her intelligence and determination, the way she loved his son unconditionally, the fact that she represented home for him—all made her downright perfect.

With his right hand, he lined his cock up with her little rosette and gently pushed in until his head began to breach her tissue.

“Tyler.” Her body went taut, and she was already clawing the sheets.

It was nerves, not pain. He hadn’t tried to push past the tight ring of her muscle. Yet.

“Relax, angel. I’m not going to hurt you.”

She was panting. “You’re big. And you’re going to get too deep.”

Tyler heard the fear in her voice, and he caressed her hip, trying to gentle her. “Yeah, I’m going to get deep. Very deep. But there’s no such thing as too deep, angel.” He pressed his hand into the small of her back. “Arch for me.”

She succumbed to his demand, and he focused on his cock sinking into her body. He parted the cheeks of her ass with his fingers and watched her body slowly accept him.

Finally, the thick ridge of his flesh encountered the barrier of her tight muscles. Tyler pressed his thumbs across her tense lower back, then caressed her hips again. “Relax. Just take a deep breath and push out.”

To entice her, he brushed his fingertips across her clit again. She gasped instantly and arched a bit more. The action opened her up just enough that the head of his cock slipped past that tight ring. After a little scream of panic, she gasped long and low. Fuck, she was like a burning vise, pressing in from all sides with a heat he’d never known.

Forcing himself to move slowly, he penetrated her, sliding down, down, down into the tightest recesses of her body. Beneath him, her head thrashed, and she clawed at the sheets.

“Hurt, angel?” He paused immediately and waited, swirling a little friction against her clit to keep her pleasure high.

“Yes. No. More. God, more!”

A feral smile stretched across his face, and he finished burrowing his cock in her backside. A giant rush of air filled her lungs. Her body tensed as she screeched out in a sound of pleasure unlike anything he’d ever heard.

“It’s okay, angel. I’m in. All the way in. Now it’s just going to feel good.”

She nodded frantically. “Now! Please. More. Everything.”

Del was completely with him, thinking only about the pleasure coursing through her body, not about protecting her heart. He wasn’t about to risk hurting her, so he couldn’t fuck her too hard, but he’d definitely give her something to scream about.

Tyler picked up the pace a bit, experimentally withdrawing and plunging into her. Tight. Silken. Perfect. And all his. He draped his body over her back. The sheen of perspiration across her skin merged with the sweat beginning to dampen his. This wasn’t going to be a simple, gentle ride. The more she felt, the more she’d fight. The more he’d have to hold on. And he was determined to do exactly that.

He circled her clit with his fingers again and settled his chin in the crook of her neck so he could whisper in her ear, “Angel, I’m going to stay right here, keep after you so deep and hard until you come for me like you never have. You’re going to take me here, just like this, until you let go for me.”

Her panting grew rougher.

“Understand?” he prompted.

“Yes. Yes!” she screamed as he put a bit more force behind his thrust.

Jesus, the pleasure staggered him. Lightning shot down his spine. Electricity gathered in his balls. Inside, a perfect storm of need, possessiveness, and love brewed. He wanted to claim her, mark her, leave her—and every other man on the planet—absolutely no doubt who she belonged to.

He worked his fingers a bit faster over her clit. Del responded, thrusting her body back at him, taking his cock even deeper in her ass. God, he couldn’t stand it. He absolutely needed more of her, needed her against him.

Tyler stood tall, lifting her torso upright until her back rested against his chest. Her nipples stabbed the air, and he trailed a hand up to them, pinching one, then the other. Instead of trying to get away, she reached behind her and clasped her hands around his head, sinking her fingers into his hair.

With a last brush against her nipples, he latched onto her hip and drove into her even faster, even deeper. “Take me. Every bit. All the way inside, angel.”

“Yes.” She gyrated back on him, and the slap of their flesh together was frantic, intimate. “I need more.”

He pumped inside her in a measured, relentless pace and watched her skin flush, her muscles begin to tense and quiver. Her breathing grew erratic. Another brush of his fingers over her nipples told him they were harder than he’d ever felt. Her pussy was so swollen and dripping.

As much as he wanted to just lose himself in the pleasure, now was the time to press his advantage.

“Just when you think we’re done here, I’m going to fuck you again. And again. Until you admit that we’re good together and beg me to never stop.”

“Yes. God, yes.” She turned her head to press frantic kisses across his jaw.

“Not just sexually,” he growled. “We’re good, period. We’ve got something, and it’s more than lust, angel. Isn’t it?”

Del thrust back on him again. “Please. Don’t talk. I just need . . .”

“You need it? Or you need me?”

She nipped at his neck, then pinched her own nipples. The sight nearly undid Tyler. Goddamn, everything about her was so beautiful, so sexual, yet so familiar and sweet. He’d always been able to walk away from anything or anyone. He’d done it once for Del because she’d asked him. Never fucking happening again.

No matter how much it killed him or how much restraint it cost, he had to show her that he meant business. He froze and clutched her hips, not allowing her to move. He was still lodged deep inside her, but not moving, not touching her sensitive little clit, now so hard it was a ticking time bomb.

“Tyler!” she screeched, her body bucking frantically.

“Answer the question,” he growled in her ear. “Is it just sex, angel? Or is it me?”

“Why are you doing this?” she demanded, trying to gyrate on him, sliding her fingers over her clit.

With one hand, he grabbed her wrist and held it away from her body. With the other, he exuded an iron grip on her hip, keeping her still.

“That cheap orgasm you’re trying to steal isn’t going to make you feel half as good as I can, and you know it. Answer the fucking question.”

Her pants turned to sobs, and the starch left her body. Tyler had to hold her to keep her against him, keep his breath in her ear to remind her that he wasn’t going anywhere.

“You, damn you. It’s always you. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

The accusation in her voice was a knife to the chest, but she’d been completely honest. Tyler had no doubt about that. Now that he’d wrung the truth from her, he had to please her, gentle her, complete her.

“Yeah, angel. It’s always you for me. From the first minute I touched you, it was always you. Every other day and every other minute, I was marking time. No one else ever meant a damn thing. But you haunted me. The moment you knocked on my door in Lafayette, you sealed your fate. There’s no way I’m letting you get away from me again.” He might not know a damn thing about commitment firsthand, but he wasn’t letting his mother’s bitter voice crawl up in his head and fuck this up. He was determined to work it out and keep her. “Now move with me.”

Tyler withdrew slowly and inched in once more, his pace maddening. Beneath him, Del released a string of short, stuttering gasps, each one higher-pitched than the last. Her body tensed again.

He slid his fingers over her clit again. “We’re going to come together. And you’re not going to hold anything back. Afterward, you’re going to fall into my arms and kiss me with all the emotion racing through you. I’m going to kiss you back with the same intensity.”

Then he lowered her to the bed, covering her body with his own, and shoved a pillow under her hips. Tyler gripped the edge of the bed and used his grip as leverage to fill her in agonizingly slow, deep strokes. Under him, Del melted, and he linked the fingers of one hand with hers, splayed across the mattress. The other hand, he fitted against her clit. Every stroke into her rubbed that bundle of nerves into his hand.