Neither moved. Neither spoke. The hard glimmer of his eyes told her to proceed at her own risk.

  Madison didn’t care about the hazard to her heart anymore. She lurched at him, grabbing the front panels of his shirt and ripped them apart before shoving the garment over his massive shoulders and down his bulging arms. The barbed wire tattoo circling his biceps rippled with his every move.

  The garment stuck at his wrists. When she reached for the cuffs, Matt jerked on the sleeves ferociously, sending buttons pinging across the hardwoods. Then he chucked the shirt away and kicked off his shoes, eyeing her from the top of her bare shoulders to her naked toes with hot, silver eyes.

  Teeth gritted, he reached for his fly. “Spread your legs.”

  Madison lay back, each breath an audible struggle. “They are.”

  Shaking his head, he released the button at his fly. “More. I want a good look at the pussy I’m going to violate.”

  Her head told her everything between them was moving too fast, that she should want tender words, that he was being too rough and too demanding. Her body didn’t care about anything except him filling her with every one of the hard inches bulging behind his zipper and relieving this ache sweltering inside her.

  Swallowing down nerves, Madison did exactly what he demanded, parting her knees wider so Matt could look his fill.

  He did more than stare. He grabbed her thighs and dragged her closer, settling her feet on the edge of the bed. Then he stepped between her spread knees like he owned her and stared at her pussy, slowly dragging his knuckles along the swollen pad, heart-stoppingly close to where she needed his touch…but not close enough.

  Her breath caught. Sensations skittered through her body. He drank in her every reaction, his eyes burning like liquid silver. A wolfish smirk crossed his face. He was loving his power over her. That should alarm her. Instead, she loved the surrender he was wringing from her body so much it almost scared her.

  “You’re burning for me, honey.” He didn’t ask; he knew.

  “Yes.” Like she’d never burned before.

  “You want me to touch you?”

  “Yes.” So badly.

  “You want me inside you?”

  “Yes,” she whined.

  His grin turned dirtier.

  “I almost believe you.”

  “Almost?” What else did he want? How much more did he need her to beg? “I don’t—”

  He stopped all lucid conversation by settling his thumb over her distended clit and rubbing slow circles. Unless he could interpret whimpers and moans, she had no way to communicate. In a frenzied attempt, she spread herself even wider for him and melted under his blistering stare. He dissected her reaction to his every touch.

  “You don’t…what?” he prompted. “Want me to stop?”

  “Yes.” Was that the right answer? “No. Don’t stop.” He dragged his thumb directly over her clit again, making the ache swell and her womb clench. “Never stop.”

  She would die if he did, because Matt wasn’t merely sharing the sheets with her. He was owning her, body and soul.

  “Tonight, this is mine.” He petted her pussy like a cherished possession before he slid his thick fingers between her folds and manipulated her again. “You’re mine. Say it.”

  She shouldn’t. She’d never had a lover demand so much from her. The power she was giving him staggered her. But it was as if he’d reached into her darkest fantasies and plucked out her most seductive thoughts. “I’m yours.”

  “Good. Let’s see how close to orgasm I can get you, and how long I can keep you on the edge.”

  That sounded both wonderful and awful. “Why?”

  His dirty, dirty smile appeared again. “I need to watch you burn and writhe and ache for me.”

  That answer shouldn’t arouse her more. Shamefully, it did.

  Matt kept delivering slow, teasing circles exactly where she needed it. Holding back from him was impossible. And all too soon, she was mindless, clutching the comforter and begging him with her eyes because she couldn’t form words anymore.

  The air conditioning kicked on and blew across her erect nipples. He pinched one with his free hand, sending another jolt through her body before he dragged those fingers down the valley between her breasts, drinking her in as if he loved her straining response to his every touch.

  He toyed with her. He controlled her. He had her in his palm. The word no ceased to exist as her head filled with all the filthy, intimate things she ached for him to do to her. “Matt!”

  “Hmm. You’re so close.” His voice was ripe with something between sadistic satisfaction and smug pride. “You’re rosy everywhere. Your nipples are twice the size. You’re drenched and swollen. And your eyes are begging me.”

  As she nodded frantically in silent plea, he answered with a lewd smile. He was tormenting her to sensual agony—and she loved it.

  With a few more swipes of his intuitive thumb, she would tumble over the edge, into an orgasm that would forever change her definition of the word. But instead of granting her pleasure, he lifted his hand away to lick his fingers with a groan.

  Madison couldn’t take it. She lurched up from the bed with a whine and attacked his zipper, jerking it down before she shoved his pants and boxer briefs past his hips. As she reached for his cock, his girth had her eyes popping. Would she even be able to wrap her hand around it?

  She never got to answer that question. Matt stepped back and kicked the last of his clothes away, then seized her wrists, flattened her to the mattress under the weight of his body, and pinned her arms down with one massive hand. With the other, he skimmed her body, pinching her nipples unmercifully before pressing against her side and trailing his fingers through her wetness again, tsking at her. “Don’t be a bad girl.”

  “I just wanted—”

  “To rush this.” He shook his head and settled that talented, torturous thumb over her clit again. “I wasn’t done watching you suffer. Should I withhold your orgasm altogether tonight?”

  The way she felt? If he did, she would die. “No. Please, no. Touch me however you want.”

  Those words turned her inside out. She hated begging for anything. It made her feel too vulnerable. Yet knowing her satisfaction was completely in his hands aroused her like nothing and no man ever had. It was foolish and wrong…and she couldn’t help herself.

  “Promise me you’ll be patient.”

  “I will, I promise,” she gasped out. “As long as you need me to be.”

  “That’s what I wanted to hear.” He gave her another wicked grin.

  Matt drove her desire even higher. Entreaties fell from her lips, panting yelps and keening cries and words she wasn’t even aware of saying. She experienced Matt purely through sensation, through the racing of her blood and the pounding of her heart, in the way he pried her emotions open with a verbal crowbar, encouraging her to surrender all to him.

  She did…and he still didn’t allow her to climax.

  Twice more, he let her cool, drizzling kisses over her tense body like a warm glaze before he took her swollen lips and murmured words of praise across her overheated skin. Just as she could breathe and think again, he started toying with her once more, sucking her nipples, manipulating her clit, plunging his fingers inside her until she shook and whined and trembled at the edge of an orgasm she knew would shatter her world.

  “Matt,” she breathed, digging her nails into his shoulders. “Please. Please…”

  “Not yet. You may not believe me, but I’ve never made anyone plead for their pleasure. I like it way more than I should…”

  “I ache. I need. I-I can’t handle this anymore.”

  “You can. Focus on the way your desperation turns me on. Feel how much.” He rocked his stiff cock against her hip.

  She shuddered. “Inside me. That’s where I need you. Please…”

  He didn’t heed her, merely kept at her until flames licked her body, until her nipples felt stiffly sore, until most of her blood boiled between her legs, until her juices dripped down his fingers and onto the bed. Until she’d given up begging and simply accepted that she had become his to do with as he pleased.

  Finally, he reached into his pants and stood above her. She watched, shaking and wide-eyed as he rolled on a condom and climbed on top of her. He penetrated her mouth with his questing tongue and rubbed his hard length against her quaking pussy in a slow tease. Every time he touched her, in every way he touched her, Matt excited her even more.

  He dragged her hands high above her head, across the mattress, and clasped their fingers together. “Wrap your legs around me.”

  Madison understood full well that once she did, she would have no leverage. She’d be completely open and vulnerable to him. With that dangerous, thrilling realization pinging in her feverish head, she complied. Later, she would deal with the ramifications of giving this much of herself to a man she barely knew.

  Then he aligned his crest to her opening and seized her lips as he shoved into her clenching depths. The friction, coupled with the burn of his flesh ramming her to the hilt, had her pleasure coiling into a tight knot of hot euphoria before it burst like a cataclysm and sent her soaring into an ecstasy so consuming she had never imagined anything like it.

  As she screamed and her body jolted with a seemingly endless orgasm, Madison knew she had just irrevocably given this man some part of her forever.

  Chapter Four

  The next evening, Matt stood just outside the suite where he and Madison had been holed up all weekend, squared his hat on his head, and let out a shuddering breath. In one hand, he held bags from the drugstore and burgers from a nearby restaurant. In the other, he clutched the door key, trying to clear his head before he entered the suite. But he felt her inside, waiting for him. The answering pang in his chest alarmed him.

  This girl was ruining him, and he was letting it happen. Once he’d gotten his hands on her, his mental speed bumps had flattened. His emotional guardrails had melted away. He’d come at her full throttle—something he’d sworn he’d never do to any woman. He’d seen the devastating aftermath too many times.

  Breathe. Slow down. Get your head together. He’d been telling himself that for twenty-four hours. But that seemed beyond him now. Madison was like a fever. And once they’d fallen into bed, the two of them had been inseparable in every sense. Every time he saw her, smelled her, felt her…he lost his goddamn mind.

  After the first time they’d had sex, he had carried her to the tub, fully intending to let her soak…and to give himself some space to process the fact she had loved his insatiable demand as much as he’d enjoyed her pleading surrender. The thick satisfaction of knowing she had yielded every part of herself to him with barely any hesitation was perverse…and exciting as fuck.

  Was this how his father had started down his dark path?

  Instead of leaving Madison to the clawfoot, he’d hopped in with her, licked her swollen little pussy until she was on the quivering verge of coming again and begging for his mercy. Then he’d taken her, dripping and shuddering, on the bathroom floor.

  She’d barely found her breath when he’d flipped her over and started the process again, thumbing her until she scratched at the hardwoods and screamed his name. Watching her was a deviant high that both thrilled and terrified him. She might be the death of him, but her lure felt impossible to resist.

  After a long, slow screw in the shower, they finally emerged from the bathroom, exhausted and weak-kneed, and stumbled into bed still damp. Together, they had fallen asleep, wrapped in each other’s arms.

  Neither of them had moved until four that morning, when he’d awakened on fire for her. Compliantly, she’d spread her legs, and he’d driven her again to frenzied, entreating bliss, dangling her pleasure just out of reach for half a small eternity before settling her on top of him and slamming her down his aching cock for a hard, explosive ride.

  They’d napped through the inn’s reputedly amazing breakfast. When they’d awakened, they had flipped channels while imbibing a bottle of champagne he’d discovered in the minifridge. After polishing that off, he’d been lightheaded and loopy. His cares had slipped away, and he turned Madison inside out again, until she pleaded with sweet tears. He’d rewarded her by fucking her ruthlessly. Then they’d slept more before awakening to chat about nothing important.

  He was beyond hooked and halfway in love with this woman he had met yesterday. Worse, the thrill he got from bending her body to his will and unraveling her was even more sickly exciting than it had been the first time. He had to stop; Matt knew that. He had never wanted to be like his dad. But every time he thought of Madison naked, waiting, and aching for him, his concerns evaporated, and he took her like a man possessed until she yielded completely and beseeched him for another of the crushing climaxes slowly destroying them both.

  Matt was afraid and appalled. He had to do something.

  Suddenly, the door to the suite wrenched opened. Madison stood in the opening, all smiles, pink and naked and alluring as hell. “You’re back.”

  “How did you know I was here?” There was no peephole in the door.

  “I felt you.”

  As if they were hardwired together. He understood that. Knowing she felt it, too, broke down his good intentions. That explained why his trip to the store around the corner for more condoms and the diner down the street for their first meal in twenty-four hours had seemingly dragged on forever. The separation from her had been an actual physical ache.

  Holy shit.

  “What do you want first?” He shouldered his way inside, holding up both bags.

  They both needed food, but every cell and nerve ending in his body prayed she chose sex. He required her again, like water. No, like air. Like he might die if he didn’t have her now.

  It made no sense.

  Madison locked the door behind him as she eyed the sacks. Her breathing turned choppy. Her nipples hardened. A glance down told him that her cunt was swollen and slick for him again.

  Fuck, she was already conditioned to respond to him. So naturally. So quickly. He loved it, even as he feared it.

  Where do you think that kind of obsession leads?

  She bit her lip. “If we don’t get down at least a few bites, the food will get cold. Then we’ll never eat. We might run out of energy.”

  All true…but his body buzzed with a desire that flared every part of him to throbbing life. “Are you actually hungry, honey?”

  Her eyes darkened. “Some, but…”

  Not as much as she was hungry for him. Another perverted thrill jolted his body. “Same.”

  Still, they had lived on water, coffee, and champagne for an entire day. His blood sugar was nil, and he was physically wiped out. He wouldn’t be able to truly merge with her again until he fueled up.

  “We should probably be responsible,” she murmured, sounding less than thrilled. “It will only take a few minutes. Then we’ll be set for the rest of the night.”

  “True.” But having a naked Madison so close made him burn to take off every stitch and feel her against his skin. He set the bags on the nearest surface and tugged off his shirt. “Since you said you love cheese fries, I got you some. We’ve burned so many calories, I figured the splurge wouldn’t hurt us.”

  “You remembered. That’s sweet. Thank you.” But instead of reaching for her favorite junk food, she pounced on his fly.

  He doffed his hat and toed off his shoes and sent her a warning stare. “Madison…”

  “I just want you naked with me. That’s all.”

  “If I drop these pants, we won’t eat,” he warned, but he couldn’t resist caressing her backside.

  She relented, backing away with a slump of her shoulders. Matt was far more disappointed in her common sense than he should be.

  Together, they climbed onto the bed and spread the food on top of the paper bags. He turned on an old comedy in the hopes he wouldn’t fixate on her naked body and forget to eat. Sure, he could retrieve the robe in the closet and cover her. But would it really help since the tie was still affixed to the headboard where he’d bound her last night? Or had that been this morning? Whatever. He didn’t want Madison covered. He refused to be deprived of the spectacular view.

  Matt grabbed a couple of sodas from the minifridge. Then they dove into burgers and the fried potatoes dripping with melted cheddar and bacon bits.

  Before long, they picked up the pace of their eating, as if realizing all the pleasure they wanted was mere bites away. She chomped on more of her sandwich, quickly washing the morsel down with caffeine. He inhaled his last nibble, then chased it with carbonated sugar—shit he never drank. The crazy part? He felt energized. Beyond alive. And despite the insane amount of sex they’d indulged in over the last twenty-four hours, he’d die if he didn’t get inside her in the next two minutes.

  He held up the last cheese fry. “Open for me.”

  Madison did automatically, without any reluctance or shyness. In fact, after their first time together, she hadn’t raised any barriers or tried to resist his control of her body in any way. Whenever and however he wanted her, she complied with sighs and screams before eventually giving him smiles. Having her in his palm was dizzying and dangerous and fucking addicting.

  He loved it so much. It scared him.

  Before Matt could feed her the fry, cheese dripped onto her breast. She hissed and watched it roll toward her nipple, then stared back up at him—a silent entreaty. Matt didn’t hesitate. He tossed the empty container to the ground and tumbled Madison to her back, dragging his tongue across her tits, lapping up the sauce, before he sucked her nipple into his mouth.

  The taut tip was swollen. She had to be sore. “If it’s too much, I can back off.”

  Somehow, he’d find the will. He hoped.

  She shook her head, her glazed stare making her look lost and dazed. Without being told, she arched up to him and spread her legs wide. “No. Never do that. More…”