I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to touch him. I had to try and smooth some of that roughness out of his practically vibrating body. Never had any man needed to come home to a gentle touch like this one did. I lifted up onto my knees and reached both hands up so that they were lying near the center of his chest right over his heart. It thudded heavy and slow under my fingertips, like beating was just too much effort.

“Shane won’t stay down for long, and while he and Race might be like brothers, you are his brother, Titus. So you’re allowed to be just as worried and just as freaked out as the rest of them are. You don’t have to hold it together all the time. You’re a man, not a machine. Someone needs to be there to tell you that everything is okay every once in a while.”

Suddenly it was like his heart woke up and the rhythm under my fingers started to surge and dance. His bandaged hands came up and wrapped around each of my wrists. I looked down at his grip as it slowly started to tighten.

“What happened to your hands?”

His chest rose and fell with a deep breath and his eyes drifted shut. When the long, black lashes fluttered back open, the color of his remarkable eyes had switched from blue to that luminous silver. My skin tingled instinctively.

“I tried to pull Bax out of the wreck and I cut them on the frame of the car and on the broken glass.”

Oh my God, he was amazing and fearless. How could one man care so much about everyone else and not see the damage that it was doing to him? He couldn’t be responsible for the entire world. It would kill him.

“Titus . . .” My voice got caught on the emotion that welled up.

I didn’t have to add to it because he simply shook his head and told me quietly, “Tell me everything is going to be okay, Reeve.”

There was no hesitation as the words fell fast and furiously from my lips. “Everything will be okay.”

I met him halfway as he lowered his head toward me. The setting was different and far more appropriate, but the way he put his mouth on mine wasn’t. There was still the raw and brutal edge to it. Still the harsh scrape of teeth and the urgent twist of his tongue as it twirled all around mine. His lips were hard and eager. His breathing got jagged and uneven as he let go of my wrists and put his hands around my waist.

In a show of pure strength he lifted me up from my kneeling position and lifted me onto the edge of the couch. I thought he was going to settle me into that position once my legs were coiled around his waist but he didn’t. He put a hand under my ass and held me up, walking toward the wall of windows until my back hit the glass, his mouth moving over mine, devouring me the entire trip.

Once he had me secure between his big body and the glass behind me, he started pulling at my clothes. The soft cotton of my T-shirt and the delicate satin of my bra were no match for his questing and impatient hands. Between one gasp as my aroused nipples hit his chest and another as his heavy thigh forced its way between that notch in my legs that was getting damp and heated under his attentions, he had me mostly naked and was steadily working on getting my pants open. Things were moving fast, too fast. He was in some kind of frenzy and I could feel it as his lips and hands raced haphazardly across my skin. This was all about want and had very little to do with need, at least on his part, but I was greedy enough, gone enough over this man to let him take . . . for right now.

The button on my jeans proved to be very little deterrent as without warning, his hand and his very nimble fingers were all over me and unerringly finding all the places that would welcome him even if my common sense was screaming at me that I should put a stop to this right now. The bandage across his palm was rough on delicate skin and the brush of his fingertips even more so as they dipped inside of me. I moaned in response and my entire body jerked against his where he had me pinned. He pulled his mouth off of mine and we both sucked in a much-needed breath. His eyes burned and all I could do was smolder and move with him as he started to stroke me with firm, steady motions. Nothing about the way he touched me felt reverent. It was frantic and wild. The urgency made it all the more exciting and hot.

“You’re so gorgeous. You feel even better than you look. Do you know that?” There wasn’t a lot of room down there since I still had my jeans on and his hands were big, but his words made me clench around him and move even harder on his swirling fingers. The pleasure was tight, so tight and so full it felt like it didn’t fit inside of my body. It needed to get out.

I curled the fingers of one hand into the corded muscles at the base of his neck and locked the other in the hair at back of his head. It was surprisingly soft. Probably the only thing on him that was. I threw my head back so that it thumped against the window when his thumb suddenly landed with precision on my clit. Every nerve in my body went tight and I felt my blood start to rush around between my ears as desire started to bleed from every pore.

“Titus.” His name was a plea to give me more or give me less. I needed one or the other if I was going to make it out of this alive.

He moved his leg higher into the apex of my legs and the motion shoved my breasts even tighter against his chest. He still had his T-shirt on but the friction of the cotton against the aching peaks was enough to make me gasp his name again. He grinned at me and it wasn’t very nice. His eyes were hot enough to brand scars where they raked over me, and I thought I was going to pass out when he added another finger to the sexual games he was playing with my body. The walls of my sex clenched in automatic response against the fullness and I knew I wasn’t going to last much longer under the sensual assault.

“Are you done, Reeve? Is this as much as you can take? I always want more, there is always so much more.”

His voice sounded like sandpaper as he lowered his face and sank his teeth into the skin at the side of my neck. It felt amazing and the scrape of his beard across my tender skin made it even better. I wanted to know what it would feel like lower. I lowered my hand from his hair and put it on his cheek. I waited until he lifted his head up and met my gaze. He turned his wrist at the same time and I almost shattered under the sensation. I wasn’t sure what kind of battle of wills we were engaged in, but I knew if I didn’t hold out for the rest of what he had, I was never going to get all that was Titus King.

So I simply told him what he needed to hear. “It’s okay, Titus. Give me all you got. I want more.”

It was the green light he needed. Suddenly he was everywhere. His mouth biting, sucking each aching nipple into his mouth. His hands working feverishly to get the rest of my clothes out of his way without separating us. I had to admire the sheer strength it took to hold me up and pull my clothes off at the same time. I heard the leather of his belt slip free and suddenly a heavy wallet was in my hand. I looked at it in confusion while he wrestled his shirt off over his head with one hand. I couldn’t make words work anymore.