Then anxiety and relief and every other identifiable emotion fled my thoughts as his thumb flicked my nipple while his tongue tasted the inside of my lower lip.

  “Mark,” I groaned again, completely aware that it was one of a very few words I even felt capable of saying at the moment.

  “I want you,” he growled into my mouth, sending a shiver down my spine.

  “Yes,” I answered breathlessly. I chewed on my lip debating whether to push him onto his back and get to work separating his clothing from that body I wanted so badly to be pressed up against, or to let him have his way with me.

  To hell with debates, just take advantage of this while he’s so willing. God, he was like a suddenly changed man, mouthing at my neck now with teeth and tongue. I pushed up on my elbow, hoping to stun him for a second so I could tug his shirt off and mess up his hair even more.

  How many times had I imagined what his sex-ruffled hair would look like? Finally, I was about to find out. My stomach flipped.

  He took my shift as a directive, apparently, and pushed up to kneeling, then standing, stretching his hand down to me. I took it. I would have taken his hand if we were about to jump off a cliff at that moment, just as long as I thought there was a reasonable chance at getting him inside me shortly thereafter.

  He tugged me to my feet, then planted his palms on my waist and hoisted me into his arms. My legs went around him and I squirmed against the hardness pressing between my thighs, exactly where I wanted it—but there were too many layers of clothes between us.

  Mark stretched his neck up to murmur in my ear. “This living room is right above Mrs. Esposito’s living room. If we stay here, I’ll never hear the end of it from her.”

  Oh. So he wanted this to be loud. I was most certainly not going to complain about that. “I’m not gonna argue with moving to the bedroom,” I said, grinning.

  His hand gripped my ass, his fingers digging in even through my jeans, and fire raced across my skin. If he didn’t tear my clothes off soon, I’d die. Thankfully, he was already striding toward the bedroom, and within seconds, he laid me down on his bed. I scooted back and he climbed over me, his eyes glowing with something soft and happy. My heart twisted, and I reached up to grab his neck, pulling him down for a hard, decisive kiss. He responded by dotting kisses on each corner of my mouth, then my chin, then down my neck.

  The weight of his body lifted as he kissed his way down my torso, and I whimpered, part from the loss of closeness and part from sheer anticipation.

  As I tugged his shirt over his head, I dimly registered his bedding, black and gray, masculine, yet soft and smelling like him. Cedar and something warm. The comforter and sheets were all tangled in the spot where he’d slept last night – only one side of the bed, while the other remained completely untouched.

  If his lips weren’t feasting on my abdomen, his tongue flicking into my navel, I might have surveyed the rest of his room, looking to judge every damp towel flung to the floor or stray sock stuck to the side of his comforter. His hands went to work at my waistband, though, and it was all I could do to close my eyes and try not to moan too loudly.

  I wanted to save that for later.

  He tugged my pants down over my hips, chuckling at the resistance he met with the tightness of the fabric against my legs. “You know, I thought I loved these jeans…” He chuckled. “But now I think I'm going to hide them from you. Only elastic pants from here on out.”

  “Oh yeah?” I managed, breathless. “You think you're gonna pull my pants off again, huh?” I hoped he could hear the teasing in my voice. If someone told me we'd never do this again, I'd hiss and bare claws like a cat. There was no way this one time would ever be enough.

  Mark rested his forehead on my hip bone, nuzzling in his nose into the skin right inside. His mouth was so close to my...

  “Jesus, Toby, you’re not wearing panties?”

  In fact, I hated the damn things. Too many lines and too much sticking to places that I’d rather let breathe free. I laughed. “Are you complaining?”

  “I want to taste you,” he said, stealing my thoughts with a deep voice that melted me at my core. His tongue flicked against my skin as his left arm snaked under my leg, his hand wrapping around my thigh so that he could control my entire bottom half.

  My left leg, the one that wasn't pinned in place by Mark's shockingly strong arm, spread wider, like my body was answering his request before I could. I covered my face with my hand. “Okay, but you should know that I've never really...”

  Before I could finish my sentence, Mark's mouth was on me, covering my pussy and licking into it like it was a dripping scoop of ice cream on a cone.

  The “dripping” part was right, at least.

  What I hadn't had a chance to tell him was that I was a freak. I'd never come this way before. Though it felt nice when a guy went down on me, ultimately, the stiff, clit-flicking tongue or the slurping, loose-lipped kisses had never been able to take me all the way. I'd enjoyed a lot of sex in my early twenties, and I assumed that the handful of guys that had tried to make me come with their mouths represented the full menu of skill out there.

  I'd assumed wrong. So, so very wrong.

  His open mouth suctioned between my legs, licking and tasting, tongue penetrating me and then sweeping up to blanket my clit in warm ecstasy in a slow, sensuous rhythm.

  “Mark,” I managed with a surprised gasp, my arm flailing to the side and eventually reaching up to tweak my nipple.

  He raised his head with one eyebrow quirked. “Yes? Were you going to say something?”

  “No. Nothing. Just...continue.”

  “Yes, ma'am,” he replied, lowering his head again with a cocky grin.

  The telltale warmth gathering at the tips of my toes meant this man had begun to bring me to orgasm. In no more than a minute.

  “Mark, I don't...I don't think I'm going to last.”

  “You're not supposed to,” he murmured against me, and I couldn't help but grin with the repetition of what I'd said to him in the dark studio storage room yesterday.

  He guided his mouth a bit higher, his upper lip cupping around the hood of my clit while his tongue went to work flicking. The wet heat of his lips combined with the insistent rhythm of his tongue on that bundle of nerves had my hips desperate to arch up into him, searching for more, harder, but his grip on me was firm. For a second, I wished that he'd held me with both hands, but then I was infinitely grateful that he hadn't. He teased my slit with one finger, and I tensed just the slightest bit. When he thrust inside me, though, it was like my whole body melted down to surround him, welcoming the invasion, begging for more.

  He pulled it out, and I whined desperately until he pushed back in with two fingers this time. My breaths were coming fast, noisy gasps and uncontrollable panting. Every second he was winding me up more, filling me with more and more quivering heat, until I was meeting his mouth with a rocking pelvis. I was completely out of control and I couldn't have cared less. This was beyond anything I'd ever experienced.

  And then his fingers, buried deep inside me and teasing me with little half-inch thrusts, crooked up, pressing into my upper wall.

  He might as well have pushed an ignition button. Whatever fire had been slowly building inside of me suddenly exploded me, and I screamed at the top of my lungs, an uncontrolled noise that I supposed approximated the pleasure wracking my body, its center Mark's incredible, relentless, beautiful mouth.

  I dimly registered his fingers sliding out of me, his mouth still hovering between my thighs, not willing to subject me to the cool air just yet. His lips feathered kisses there as the hand that had held me in place for him gently massaged my skin.

  It was the sweetest thing a guy had ever done for me after I'd come. It was gentle, considerate. Almost...loving.

  I let my head flop to one side on the pillow, then the other, dazed and slow after every one of my nerves had just been temporarily burned out.

  Finally, after several long seconds, Mark slid up so that his body was completely flush with mine, and buried his face in the crook of my neck.

  “You taste incredible,” he said, his hot breath eddying against my collar bone.

  “That’s...” I said, still trying to find my words. “I have never heard that before.” No man had ever used his mouth on me like that, let alone commented on my taste.

  Mark's mouth latched onto my neck, where he sucked long and hard, drawing a light moan out of me. I'd have a mark there tomorrow. I didn't care. The opposite. I liked the idea of having something to remember this by, even if it was a hickey. “You are kidding me,” he said when he came up for air. “That is a crime. For a woman as delicious as you to never hear it.”

  I rolled my neck, pressing my lips to his hair.

  “Nobody has ever made me come like that before. With their mouth.”

  “You are fucking kidding me,” Mark repeated. Mark raised himself over my body, hovering over me for a second before descending on the other side of my neck.

  “I just always got the general sense that it was kind of...yucky. Just sort of like something they had to do.”

  “Thank you for letting me,” he murmured between slow kisses from collarbone to ear and back down again. “I couldn't stop thinking about it, ever since the other day.”

  Mark's right hand slid down my side, his palm resting on my belly and then moving up to cup my breast. His kisses moved downward, thoroughly worshiping my sternum, then my breastbone, before he latched onto the inside of my breast, sucking hard. He dug his teeth in and I gasped.

  “I'm going to have a mark there tomorrow,” I murmured.

  “Hmmm,” he said, his brow furrowed in mock concern. “We'd better stay inside, then.” I giggled, but it turned to a moan when he leaned back down to swirl his tongue around my nipple, wrap his lips around it, then suck my breast, hard, into his eager mouth. I'd always hated how small my breasts were, barely a handful for most men I dated, but he made me feel like they were luscious and exactly the right size.

  Unthinkingly, I reached down and flicked open the button of his jeans. He grunted, and reached down, tugging them off, kicking wildly.

  I laughed, full-throated, luxuriating in the fact that this man had just given me an explosive orgasm with the most skilled mouth and hands I'd ever had on my body, yet he couldn't even get his own jeans off.

  “Hey, Miss Eisen,” he murmured when he returned from that kerfuffle, devouring my mouth with a long kiss. “No laughing at me. It might hurt my confidence.”

  “Oh, your confidence should never waver again after what you just did to me,” I responded, kissing him softly.

  In response, his hand slid down my belly, and I arched into him when he pushed two fingers inside. “Still so wet,” he murmured. “So fucking ready for me.” His words made me shiver with their eroticism. For all Mark seemed to be a typical guy in every other area of life, he was apparently an expert in the finer points of dirty talk and cunnilingus.

  A very pleasant surprise.

  He was laid out next to me, completely naked, just as I was, his skin touching mine at every possible point, but still I wanted more. I wanted him over me, inside me, surrounding me. I wanted to wrap myself up in him.

  In all the ways I'd ever wanted a man, I'd never wanted one like this. I'd wanted a guy's cock pumping into me, or his mouth on my breast, or my lips wrapped around his dick, occasionally. But I had never wanted all of a man, all at once, like I did now.

  I was too lost in him to say any of that, though. Instead, I threaded my fingers in his hair, grabbed on, and pulled his head back an inch so I could look into his eyes. “Mark,” I said as firmly as I could. “Please.”

  He kissed me hard then, and arched his back, pulled his fingers from me to reach into his nightstand drawer. He pulled out a small box of condoms, not even opened, and my heart warmed. How long had it been since he'd done this?

  He was suddenly shy, his hands shaking just enough for me to notice as he ripped open the packet and positioned the condom at the head. I glanced down, and even in the dim light, I could tell he was impressively sized. Anticipation made a shiver run right to my belly. His fingers fumbled for a second, and I was suddenly overwhelmed at his sweetness, even as I wanted him buried deep inside me.

  “Let me,” I murmured before kissing him again, then rolled the condom on with careful fingers. There was a slight curve to him, right up at the end, almost like every vibrator I'd ever seen. This man had been blessed by some sex-god, with a cock the perfect combination of length, girth, and g-spot curve. He was almost good to be true. I licked my lips as he positioned himself over me again.

  “Please, Mark,” I repeated, and as I said his name, every trace of nervousness I'd seen in his face melted away into something determined. Hungry.

  I spread my legs for him and he threaded his arms under mine, gripping my shoulders, pulling my body flush with his, like I was something precious.

  Then he slid into me in one slow, strong thrust, and I saw stars. My legs wrapped around him like they were made to fit there, and I clung to him, something warm bursting through me with each rock of his pelvis against mine. He panted into my hair, gripped at my waist one moment, reached up to wrap his fingers around the nape of my neck in the next.

  We moved together like we were one person. When Mark pushed into me, I opened for him. When he pulled back my walls clenched, begging him to come back before he'd even really left. We were completely in sync without exchanging a word, our bodies doing all the talking.

  The buzz of orgasmic heat started to build again, but slowly, organically, ebbing and then intensifying with each thrust. Mark was inside me, invading every cell and tissue with care and passion, electrifying my skin with each passing second.

  He was moaning now, too, breathless and throatier and more desperate with each passing second, his movements growing harder and faster. His body never lifted away from mine. We were doing this together, not doing this to each other. We were taking care of one another, not just chasing our own orgasms.

  Mark gripped my hair with one thrust that was harder and deeper than any of the others, and let a deep, feral growl rumble out of his throat. God, that was the sexiest noise I'd ever heard, and like the frequency of it flipped a switch inside me, I clenched around him, letting the heady wave of an orgasm overtake me. Seconds later, Mark's thrusts became fast, frantic.

  He came, deep inside me, shouting his pleasure against my shoulder.

  Long moments later, when his breathing finally slowed, his body slumped over mine.

  “Sorry,” he murmured, rolling to the side, sending cool air gusting against my overheated skin. I wanted to tell him so many things—that I loved the way his body felt pressing mine into the mattress, that I didn't care that our skin was sticky with a fine layer of sweat, that in the past half an hour he'd given me the two best orgasms I'd experienced in my entire life.

  Happy, warm exhaustion flooded me, pinning me to the mattress, leaving me helpless to do anything but lie there panting and watch as Mark eventually swung his feet to the floor and ambled to the bathroom to dispose of the condom. When he came back, he leaned over me, brushing the hair off my face and leaning down to press a slow relaxed kiss to my mouth. “Here, let me...” He tugged the covers out from under me and cocooned me there, then joined me under the soft, cool sheet.

  When his body pressed flush against mine again, a sigh escaped me that felt like relief. Mark's arm looped around my waist and his legs tangled with mine.

  My memories, and everything I knew was true about myself, screamed that Toby Eisen did not get under the covers, she loathed snuggling, and she never, ever, ever wished she could stay the night.

  Apparently, multiple orgasms—the sexual unicorn I thought only existed in romance novels and much-embellished drunken stories from my college friends—were much more powerful than whatever had kept me from doing this before.

  Because this was heaven.

  My hands wandered over the muscles of his back sleepily, and he hummed with pleasure when I pressed a kiss to his throat.

  “Thank you,” I managed, my throat full and tense with an emotion I couldn't identify, before the last of my energy left my body, and I fell into a deep sleep.

  * * *

  The warm tones of the setting sun woke me, piercing through a gap in the cheap curtains Mark had hung in this room. My right eye slammed shut again at the invasion of the bright light, and I turned my face right into the warm flesh of Mark's neck. His arms were draped around me loosely, the top one laying heavy across my shoulder. He'd caged me in.

  This had happened to me a few times. I'd woken up bracketed by a guy's arms, bolted to the bed by a heavy thigh stretching over my hip, and felt my breath go short and my chest constrict. There was nothing that made me more panicked than being trapped, both literally and metaphorically, by another person.

  But this time, instead of feeling my lungs squeeze, cutting off my air supply, I sensed my heart expanding. The sensation pushed the corners of my mouth into a sleepy smile, allowed a slow breath out of my nose as I nuzzled my face deeper into the crook of Mark's neck.

  A low hum rumbled from him, making his throat vibrate against my nose, and the swell in my chest moved up, taking me by surprise.

  What the hell? Why in the world was there a lump in my throat? Why were tears gathering in the corners of my eyes, again? He wasn’t Beethoven. This was no choral drop from the ninth symphony's fourth movement.

  Mark Mahler was just a guy. Just like all the other guys I’d ever slept with.

  Oh, stop. You know he’s nothing of the sort.

  Every instinct told me to get out of bed, throw on some clothes, and get the hell out of there.

  But something different, something stronger than instinct, insisted that I couldn’t just leave Mark. He wasn’t like the other guys.

  I didn’t know how, exactly, yet, but I knew that he was different.

  And I knew I couldn’t stop thinking about the press of his skin, hot against mine, and the slide of his cock inside me. Couldn’t stop wanting more.