I move a little closer, and now I can touch him, but I don’t. Not yet. “After that, I did nothing but work. There’s been nothing and no one. Barely even myself, if you want the truth. It was easier to just bury my sexuality than to try to relieve myself, because I only ever ended up feeling more lonely and pathetic.”

  He nods heavily. “Believe me, I know.”

  I sigh. “I’m tired of it, James.” I watch his broad back heave with his conflicted breath. “I was always careful. Responsible. Even experimenting was a calculated thing. I kind of…I don’t know how to put it. I kind of watched myself go through that experimental, promiscuous phase with a mental and emotional detachment. It was never spontaneous. I never let it get beyond my control. It was never passionate, or wild.”

  He’s still—very, very still. “What are you saying, Nova?”

  I take another shuffled step closer to him, and now our bodies are so close to touching I can almost feel him—a spark of electricity crackling between us even though we’re not actually in contact.

  “I can’t hold back, James. I don’t have any more control. I want more than to be smart and responsible and careful and rational.”

  I give in. Lean up against him, press my body all along his, lying against his spine. My breasts rest against his back, and I press my core against his buttocks. Resting my cheek on his shoulder blade. I let my arms wrap around him. It’s a hug at first, just wrapping him up, holding him. Then I stop trying to hold in my neediness. I let my hands do what they want, go where they want. They dance and trace over his chest, down his abs. Lower and lower.

  “Nova…”

  I kiss his spine, his shoulder blades. Press up hard against him. Crush my boobs against him. Rub my core against him. “I don’t care if it’s stupid or irrational, or impetuous. I just want you, James. Right now. However it happens, however I can get you.”

  I carve my palm down his belly and take him in my hand, stroke his length greedily. He groans, a long low pained sound. He arches his back, head hanging. Moans raggedly, as if my touch is more than he can handle. I palm his buttocks with my other hand, loving the feel of it, caressing and tracing. Then, finally, I use both hands on his erection, slowly exploring his length with twisting plunging strokes of my fists.

  “Fuck, Nova,” he breathes. “What are you doing to me?”

  I kiss his spine again. “I don’t even know, James. I just know I can’t help it, and don’t want to. All I want is us…just us. That’s all that matters.”

  He groans again, hips pushing forward into my touch. “I…oh god, Nova. I’m not gonna last long at this rate.”

  “I don’t care, James. Come—come right now. Come all over my hands. Make a mess, I don’t fucking care. I just want us. I don’t care if you need time to get hard again. I don’t care what happens, I just need you. I need to touch you. I’m done waiting.”

  He groans, thrusts into my hand.

  And then, with shocking suddenness, he wrenches out of my grip, twists in place, and I’m airborne. Lifted, and his mouth is on mine, his lips slamming roughly against mine, and I wrap my legs around his waist and feel his hands clutching my ass. He kisses me, and none of the kisses we’ve shared can hold a candle to this one.

  It’s absolutely feral, ravenous. Demanding. His tongue slashes into my mouth and his lips claim mine—it’s a kiss that says I’ve crossed the line—there’s no going back from this. Whatever restraint he may have had is gone, and now he’s taking what’s his—

  Me.

  My soul soars, my heart flips; my stomach drops out, my voice rises in a long whimper of relief.

  He has me, utterly—I’m held up by him, all of me depending on his strength. He has me utterly—whatever he does, next, I want. If he only kisses me, I want that. If he takes me, here and now, I want that. Anything in between, I want.

  He pivots and slams my back up against my door, and I cling to him, fusing my mouth to his. I’m wrapped around him like a koala around a tree: he lifts me higher. I pull my hips back, away from him. Cling to him with one arm and both legs, reaching a hand between us. His hands are on my thighs, lifting me, spreading me open. God, yes. I grasp his cock and nestle the fat, bulbous head to my opening, and he gasps and I groan.

  “James,” I whisper, my voice ragged and lost.

  He flexes his hips, and I whimper as he nudges into me. “Nova. I fucking—I need you. I can’t— I need you.”

  I’m clinging to him, arms around his neck now, holding myself up, his hands on my buttocks clawed tight. I bite his lower lip, and he grunts.

  I want to say a billion things, but I have no words. The only response left to me is a physical one: I let go of his neck, let my weight sag. I let go, and he fills me. He growls, a primal sound ripping from his throat, and I cry out, a shrill wail as I am split open and filled in a way I never knew was possible.

  “Oh fuck, Nova,” he breathes.

  “James—” I whimper. “James. James.”

  He slides an arm under my ass to support me, and with the other he cups my cheek—our eyes meet, mine shaky and tear hazed, his wild and tender at once. Deep inside me, he kisses me.

  A gentle kiss, at odds with the fact that I’m pinned to the door by his throbbing cock.

  A loving kiss, slow and tender and searching.

  I have to hold on to him, clutching his neck with my arms and his waist with my legs.

  Then, he can’t kiss me any longer, because he’s out of breath and beyond control. He moves—pushes, thrusts. His thrust is powerful, slow, measured. He drives into me, and I realize that as full of him as I am, I didn’t have all of him inside me. He thrusts, and I take more and more and more of him, so much it’s impossible, and with each inch I take, the more breathless I become.

  So…fucking…much.

  I don’t need to breathe—I clash my mouth against his and sip his breath, a ragged whimper escaping once I have enough oxygen in my lungs.

  His hands cup my ass, lift me, pull the cheeks apart as he lifts—and I help, tightening my thighs around him and pushing up with arms and legs, driving him out of me. As if I am weightless, he lifts me, his hips pulling down and back to draw himself out of me, and now our eyes meet, gazes locking in the moment of hesitation, right before the next movement.

  “Nova…” He nips at my lip, holding the moment, keeping me up, waiting to push in. “I—I can’t be gentle.”

  I shake my head, dragging words out of my belly. “Please—James. Oh god, please…” I dig my fingers into the ropy cords of muscle along the ridge of his shoulders. I claw at him. “Don’t be.”

  “I don’t want to—to hurt you, or scare you.” He’s speaking through gritted teeth. “I just…I can’t—”

  I grasp his jaw in fingers shaking with need, gripping hard. “Do I seem delicate to you, James?” I breathe, writhing against him.

  “No,” he gasps, the word a short sharp sound. “No.”

  “I’m not.”

  He rolls his hips in a shallow movement, and I whimper at the teasing glide, the too-little thrust of him inside me. “You make me fuckin’ crazy, Nova.”

  “Then give me the crazy,” I say. “Stop talking and show me.”

  He keeps his eyes on mine, hesitating another half second more, and then he drives into me. His hips crash against mine and his cock slams into me, thrusting fully into me.

  I can’t help but scream, and it’s a scream of pleasure like I’ve never known—pleasure isn’t even close to the right word, but there are no other words to encapsulate how I feel in this moment.

  He’s bare inside me, and I can feel every massive inch of him, splitting me open and pushed so deep. I have no idea how I’m taking all of him, but I am, and it’s absolute bliss, pure heaven. Almost painful, but not quite. A burn, an ache as I stretch around him, pulsing and hot. I reach down between us and trace where we’re joined, gasping and whimpering at the hugeness of him inside me. He’s plunged so deep inside me there’s no further he can go, but there’s still more of him. I can almost wrap my hand around his cock at the base, and he’s fully inside me.

  I almost laugh at the absurdity of it, but then he starts moving, and I can’t breathe all over again. All I can do is take him, cling to him, hold on as he draws back and thrusts in. The movement makes me shudder, shake. He groans, head hanging now.

  “Nova,” he snarls. “Fucking hell, Nova.”

  I bury my face against him, my lips at his throat. I nibble, and then bite. “Ohhhh god. Oh god—James.” That’s all the coherency I can muster.

  “Is it okay? Are you okay?” So much concern. As if he doesn’t realize I need more. So much more.

  I nod jerkily, and writhe on him as best I can—but he has me in his control, his hands on my buttocks holding me up. “Yes!” I gasp. “More. More.”

  He lifts, pulls out of me, and thrusts in while lowering me—he does it slowly, carefully. Gently. “Like that?”

  I nod, and kiss his throat, nip at his shoulder, and then bury my fingers in his beard and try to kiss him with a shuddery mouth as he repeats—lift and pull back, lower and push in. I can’t sustain the kiss, because I’m too shaken by what he’s doing to me. Keeping my lungs working takes all I have.

  I cling to him and whimper.

  I try to work with him, move with him. He does his lift and lower routine again, and I find a rhythm in it, move my hips to the rhythm, clinging to his neck with desperate strength, burying my face in his chest, and gasping and nipping until I’m sure he’s going to have hickeys and bruises, but I have to find a way to show him that I want more when I can’t speak.

  I’m too full of him to speak. I ache with such delicious fullness. Throb with it. My clit pulsates, and each time he thrusts in his shaft stutters against it, and I shake with it, shudder with it, toppling toward the edge of a world-ending orgasm.

  “Kiss me,” James orders, a grunted command.

  I kiss him. God, do I kiss him.

  Until I can’t function or breathe or do anything but shudder as he glides in, slowly, slowly. And then, once I’ve come down momentarily from the dizziness of accommodating his size inside me, I kiss him again, sipping and nipping at his mouth, nibbling his lower lip, tasting his tongue. When he pushes in once more, I dissolve into shuddering whimpers, writhing helplessly around him.

  He pulls his head back to look into my eyes, assessing me. Still so worried—worried he’s hurting me. “Say something dammit,” he snarls. “I need you to say something.”

  I writhe on him, locking eyes, and claw my fingers into his shoulders and clamp my thighs around him with all my strength. Showing him how strong I am.

  I have one word for him. “More,” I breathe.

  He laughs, disbelieving. A thrust, this time his hands just hold me in place, spreading me open for him as he drives in, not slowly but still with a measured pace. “Like that?”

  I shake my head. “No, god—James…please.” I find an angle, find leverage, hold on and lift up and sink down around him, whimpering through clenched teeth as I take him and move harder and faster, slamming my hips down hard to take him and take him and take him, showing him how I want him. “Like that.”

  He snarls, and we’re animals together, lost in this primal connection. He matches me, meets me and now I feel him letting go. Feel the wild abandon in the way he claws at my ass to lift me and lets go so I crash down with a slap of meeting bodies.

  He staggers in a circle, finds the bed. Drops forward. I’m on my back now and I don’t let go with any part of me. He buries his face in my breasts, and I press my elbows together so my breasts mound up around his face. His hips move in gentle circles, and then he pulls his face out of my cleavage and his mouth finds mine and his tongue slashes and our lips tangle, and we find each other in mutual groaning ragged cries of delirious perfection.

  “Nova?” he breathes. “I—ohh god, oh god, fuck—Nova, I can’t stop.”

  I nip at his earlobe. “Why the hell would you stop?”

  “We’re bare.”

  I groan. “Fuck!”

  “Yeah.”

  He’s still moving, and I’m still caught in the rapture of need. But awareness filters through—I stopped taking any kind of birth control a long time ago—when I knew I wasn’t going to be having sex with anyone, I saw no reason to take it.

  We have to stop.

  I whimper. “James. God, how do we stop? How do we stop?”

  “I’m not taking that risk,” he murmurs. “We’re not covered, are we?”

  I shake my head. “No. I’m not on anything.”

  “Fuck,” he growls, the word a growled curse under his breath.

  Then, with a violent wrench, he rolls off me, off the bed, and staggers away from me. Struggle is etched in every line of his body. I’m shaky—I was seconds from coming.

  So was he.

  I can’t let it end like this. I get off the bed, my legs not working properly. All I know is I need him, I can’t let it be over like that, unsatisfied, in agony, doing the right thing for both of us when I can’t even remember my own name.

  I push at his shoulder, and he turns, his expression fraught.

  “If I so much as look at you, Nova…” he threatens. “You so much as look at me the wrong way, I’ll explode.”

  I have no idea what to do, how to fix this. “James, I…”

  He shakes his head. “It’s fine. I’m fine. Just…just give me a second.”

  He’s aching, straining. Taut and glistening with my essence. Heavy and thick and leaking.

  I drop to my knees, and he shakes his head. “No, Nova. No.”

  “I want to.” I gaze up at him, my hands on his quads. “I’m going to, because I want to.”

  He shakes his head. “Nova…” I take him in my hands, and he grunts, tensing. “I’m fuckin’ serious, Nova. Don’t. I’m fine.”

  “I’m not fine,” I say, and I stroke him. “It’s not about that. I know you’d be fine. That’s not the point.”

  He grunts again as I flick my tongue against the tip of him. “Then what’s—ohhh fuck—then what is the point?”

  I grin up at him. “That I want you.”

  “I want you too. I just want to come with you.”

  I laugh, teasing him with another flick of my tongue up the underside of him. “You will.”

  “Nova…” he breathes. “Oh god. You don’t have to do this.”

  “I know.” I lick him again. I love the taste of him. It’s been so, so long since I’ve done this, and I’m glad, because it feels kind of like the first time all over again. New and daring and nerve-racking and exciting. “I want to.”

  “Why?”

  I take him in my mouth and suck around him and he whimpers, a surprisingly small, gentle sound for such a huge, primal man. I don’t need to answer that with words. All I need to do is show him. So I do.

  He buries his hands in my hair, which is wet and heavy. He holds it in his fists and stares down at me, watching as I wrap my lips around him and slide my mouth down around his cock, lower and lower until I can’t take any more and then back away. He grunts, holding utterly still. I let him fall out of my mouth and lick the tip again, and James flinches.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck, Nova.” His hips flex, and I know he’s close. He was close before, but now he’s holding back. Good—let him try.

  I clutch his cock with one hand around the base and cup the other around his heavy sac and massage them, and taste him on my tongue and lick and suck until he’s gasping and moving helplessly.

  He sighs, tenses, thrusts into my mouth, and I taste him first, and then he floods my mouth with a loud growl and grunt. I stroke him hard and fast and suck and swallow as he spurts and gasps and comes and whimpers, each thrust more helpless than the last.

  Finally, he’s done, and I’m grinning at the way he staggers backward, catching heavily up against the wall.

  “Jesus, Nova.”

  I stay there, staring up at him, loving how absolutely floored he is, how utterly wrecked. “Hi.”

  He shakes his head. “Good fucking god, woman.”

  I grin, pleased with myself and anticipating his response. “You okay?”

  He shakes his head. “Not by a long shot, baby.” His eyes flare. “I can barely fucking stand up.”

  He moves for me, and I let him lift me to my feet, let him press me backward to my bed. He tosses me onto my back and levers over me.

  I expect him to move down my body, but he doesn’t. Instead, he just hovers over me, staring at me hard. “I want to just eat you out until you scream.”

  I lick my lips, tasting him. “I’d be okay with that.”

  “Not good enough.”

  I frown. “No?”

  “Nope.”

  I think he’s going to...I don’t know. Kiss me. Tease me. Hold me.

  Instead, James slides off the bed.

  I panic a little. “Where are you going?”

  I barely remember doing it, but apparently I washed and dried his jeans, so they’re in a laundry basket on my bedroom floor. Shoves his feet into them and buttons them. Stomps into his boots without socks. His T-shirt is on the floor. He snags it and shrugs into it. Now, dressed, he smirks at me.

  “There’s a little drugstore about half a mile from here, right?” he asks.

  I nod, somewhat confused. “Yeah—yes.”

  “Your truck keys are where?”

  “My purse,” I say. “But where are you going?”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  “You’re leaving?”

  He comes to the side of the bed, leans over me, kisses me. “Yep.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m getting condoms.” He backs away.

  “How long will you be gone?”

  “Five minutes, maybe?”

  “What am I supposed to do while you’re gone?”

  He shrugs. “Five minutes, babe.”

  The amount of panic I feel is kind of ridiculous. But this is just not how I expected this to go. “James, I…” I shake my head; try to clear away the panic. “Don’t go.”

  He perches on the edge of the bed next to me, pulls me onto his lap. Wraps his arms around me. “I need you more than I can say.” He holds my face in his hands. “Messing around with you, kissing you...it’s not enough. What you just did—Nova, that shit fuckin’…” He growls. “It wrecked me.”