Pleasure looked rough on him. It made the veins on the side of his neck stick out and flushed his face a dark shade of red. His thigh muscles bulged and his torso went tight and taut. There was power in every line of his big body and desire leeched out of every part of him. His breathing was harsh, loud, and erratic against the tin walls. I swore I was on the verge of my own orgasm simply by watching him chase his own. His cock slipped easily in out of his grip as his forearm jacked up and down. There was a breathless moment, a stillness when his eyes popped back open and met mine. He didn’t say my name but it was on his lips anyway as the thick and creamy threads of his release jetted out and smeared across his thick knuckles and hit the rusted wall in front of him.

I wanted him to come on me that way, mark me up and claim me in a way that was as wild and as untamed as the area we were in. I wanted to tell him he could come on my ass, on my tits, on my stomach . . . anywhere he wanted to, as long as he was the one making me his. I’d never let anyone do anything remotely close to that in bed before. In fact, I was typically the girl on top kind of lover so I could get mine and go home, but this man had me wanting all kinds of things that I had never wanted before.

He turned to crank the water up so he could wash away the evidence of his little . . . well, not so little . . . show, and when his back was to me I finally made it all the way to him so that I could hand him the towel. When he turned back to me our eyes met, his blazing, mine full of more questions than I’d had before.

“What does that mean, you more than like most of the redheads you like?” He took the towel and rubbed it over his hair first, then across his chest. It wasn’t until he got to his waist and had it wrapped around his hips that he answered me.

“My mom was a redhead. She broke my dad’s heart a hundred times and left my brothers and me every chance she got because this life was not for her. We always let her come back. I loved her anyway, because she’s my mom and because my dad worshiped her. My ex-wife is a redhead. I met her in college and it was love at first sight. She only broke my heart once, but it was enough that I never intend to repeat the experience.” I felt my eyes go wide at his curt description of the most important women in his life. I was also struggling with the fact that a woman had had him and was brave enough to let him go. I wondered if the woman woke up every morning kicking her own ass for not being able to make it work with a man like Cy.

“Brynn is a redhead and I love her like a sister, but she’s broken my little brother’s heart more than once and she doesn’t even know it. Redheads are easy to love but are hard to keep ahold of, which is why you went from distracting to dangerous as soon as you opened that smart-ass mouth of yours, Sunshine. I don’t have the time or the patience to deal with the kind destruction you are capable of.”

I reared back and almost slipped in the pool of water he had left underneath him. He reached out to grab me. When he had me in his grip, he pulled me to his bare chest. My hands landed on the hard muscle and curled into the smattering of hair there.

“I’m not here to destroy anything. I’m trying to rebuild something.” And I was making pretty good headway. And it was partly due to the way he fired me up after I’d allowed myself to be frozen in my own self-blame and regret. Like Em said, he made me burn and I was made up of stuff that was dying for him to blaze his way through it.

“Women like you don’t have to try and destroy things, Leo. You just do, because men like me aren’t strong enough to stay away and we end up wanting things the other isn’t capable of giving.”

Those were probably the most honest words anyone had ever spoken to me. They were so sweet in a twisted and tragic kind of way. It was better to be wanted knowing it wasn’t going to be perfect or thoughtfully planned. I’d been wanted because I made it so easy to and that hadn’t worked out at all. I much preferred being desired because I was a challenge, and as much of a risk as I thought he was. I didn’t want a manufactured, faultless man. I wanted this one. One who was real, flawed, and so far out of my comfort zone I couldn’t even see safety and security anymore. I still wanted to run but now it was toward him and the way he made me feel.

I kissed him because he could be sweet, even if he hadn’t meant to be.

The first touch of my lips to his ignited my blood and made my head swim. I could feel the strength in his big body and the coiled tension that locked in all of his muscles as I pressed against him.

I kissed him because he was in front of me, almost naked, still wet, and outrageously sexy.

That sexiness went up a million notches when he took a step into my space and walked me backwards into the tin wall behind me. I heard it rattle but couldn’t think beyond that because one of his hands wrapped around my jaw and forced my mouth open as the other tangled in my hair. I couldn’t move. There was nowhere to go . . . and I’d never been happier to be trapped in my entire life. I could feel his wakening erection pressed against my stomach and it made me groan. He took the opportunity to slip his tongue between my parted lips.

I kissed him back with slippery tongue and nibbling teeth because I’d just watched him get off while thinking about me and I wanted the next time it happened to be because of me. I wanted to own his pleasure and his desire. I wanted to come with him and feel what it was like to have all that power and passion unleashed on me and inside me.

I curled my hands around his sides and let myself get lost in the moment. I’d never been as aware of the parts of me that made me distinctly female as I was with Cy pressing into them. I could feel the rasp of my aroused nipples against my shirt. I could feel my inner thighs quiver and my center clench hard and fast. I was dizzy and I was wet between my legs. He must have been able to feel the effect he was having on me because he shoved one of his legs between mine and leaned more fully into my chest. My pointed nipples rasped against his damp chest hair and my hips moved of their own volition against the rock-hard thigh that was pressed into my softest spot. I wanted to be wanton and wild. I wanted to rub myself against him until the throb between my legs went away. My heart couldn’t beat without knocking into his and every breath I took tasted like him.