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  And just that easily the kiss that had been warm and tender and sweet turns hard and hungry.

  His fingers tangle in my hair and yank my head back. I moan a little, arch against him, and give myself up as he invades me. As he devours me.

  Lips and tongue and teeth, he uses them all to stoke the flames inside me, to bring me to a frenzied state where nothing matters but the feel of him against me, around me, inside me. Until everything I want, everything I need, everything I have to have is him.

  “Tori.” He growls my name—low and deep and so harsh it batters its way through me. Has heat sizzling along my nerve endings and every hair on my body standing on end. I whimper in response, the only sound I can make, and do the only thing I can do. I open myself to him. Give him everything I have, everything he needs. Then take what I so desperately need in return.

  Once again, his tongue slips between my parted lips. It tangles with my own before licking along the roof of my mouth, the inside of my cheek. Somehow my hands are in his hair, my fingers twisting in the cool, silken locks in an effort to pull him even closer.

  In an effort to pull him all the way inside me.

  He groans again, his mouth growing hotter and harder against my own as he demands everything I have to give and more.

  He bites at my lips now, sharp little nips that make fire gather low in my belly. Then he sucks my tongue deep into his mouth and strokes it. Strokes me. Again and again and again, until all I can feel, want, need is him.

  Until all my fears don’t seem to matter anymore.

  Until nothing matters. Nothing but Miles.

  He slides his tongue between my lips, flutters it, and I light up like a bonfire as heat pours through me. Envelops me. Stokes the flames inside me until I fear losing myself—and him—to the conflagration.

  “Miles.” I rip my mouth from his, suck huge gasps of air into my starving lungs as I try to gain some kind of control over my very out-of-control body. But I’m too far gone, every cell and nerve ending I have crying out for everything—for anything—he can give me. And more. Always, always more.

  My hands tighten in his hair and he groans again. I revel in the sound even as I twist tighter, tug harder, pull him closer, closer, closer.

  “I need you,” I tell him. “I need you inside me. Please.”

  I’m on the worktable in a heartbeat, his body straining against mine, over mine, holding me in place as he slides his hands around to cup my ass. He’s everywhere—everywhere—his body hot and hard and huge as he pushes between my legs. As he lifts and lowers me so that his cock presses deep against my sex.

  “Wrap your legs around me,” he snarls. I do as he asks and suddenly he’s so close that I can feel the outline of his cock through his jeans and the thin fabric of my yoga pants.

  “Fuck, Tori!” He squeezes my ass, continuing to lift and lower me in time to the blood roaring in my ears. Then his other hand is somehow in my hair, forcing my head back so that I’m completely open to him, the long, slender column of my neck on display before him.

  It’s what he’s waiting for, I decide, as his mouth skims over my cheek and down my jaw to the tender skin of my throat. He pauses there, licking and kissing and sucking at my throat until I can all but feel the bruises bloom. Then he moves lower, sucking another bruise into my collarbone and another into the tender flesh of my breast.

  I’m gasping now, my legs tight around his hips even as my fingers clutch at his hair, his shoulders, his back. He’s just as frantic as he tears at my tank top, flinging it across the room before doing the same to my bra.

  Then his mouth is on my nipple, licking, sucking, biting at me until my entire body is trembling and my eyes are all but rolling back in my head at the pleasure. He rolls my nipple between his lips, between his teeth, before tensing his tongue and flicking it over the tip so fast and hard that my entire body seizes up in a paroxysm of pleasure.

  He does it again and again, until I’m shivering, shaking, until I’m crying out his name as tears of need roll down my face. I’m all but sobbing now, my whole body shuddering beneath him, and he lifts his head for a second to look at my face. To check in and make sure I’m still with him.

  I’m not sure what he sees there, but it must be what he was looking for because he ducks his head and starts the same torture on my second breast even as he pinches my first, overworked nipple between his thumb and forefinger.

  It’s so much—too much, even, and I push him away as the tension, the need, continues to build inside me. “Stop,” I gasp, even as my fingers tangle in his T-shirt, keeping him from moving back too far.

  “What do you need, baby?” he murmurs, one hand coming up to stroke my cheek as the other continues to play with my nipple.

  “God, Miles, stop!” I shove him more forcefully this time and his head snaps back, his eyes meeting mine. There’s a question in them now, and genuine concern as he searches my face. When he takes a few deep, shuddering breaths, it occurs to me that he’s trying to get himself under control. That he thinks I want him to stop for good.

  I’m balanced precariously on the edge of his worktable, but I trust him to hold me as I shift against him and start pulling at his T-shirt. It takes a couple of seconds to get it untucked, but once I do I strip it over his head in one fluid movement.

  His chest is smooth, sculpted, and so hard it makes my mouth water with the need to taste him again. To run my tongue over the long, lean muscles of his sides and shoulders. To kiss my way across the heavy thickness of his pecs before taking his nipples in my mouth.

  He groans at the first touch of my lips on his skin, his hand moving to cup the back of my neck again and hold me in place. It’s such a proprietary hold that it should freak me out, should have me breaking away, but instead I just give myself up to it. To him.

  But just because I let him guide me doesn’t mean I don’t have some tricks of my own, and as he presses my mouth to his skin, I sink my teeth into his pec. He stiffens, curses, but his cock twitches against my sex and he doesn’t pull away. It’s all the encouragement I need, so I swirl my tongue over the small hurt before biting him again. And again.

  His reaction is explosive, immediate, and desperate—so desperate. Almost as desperate as I am to feel his mouth on me. To feel him inside me. He thrusts his hand into my hair, then yanks none too gently until my face is on the same level as his.

  My first glimpse of his eyes has me gasping, growing wetter. His gaze has turned to midnight blue—dark and dangerous and oh-so-tempting. I can see his need for me flickering in the depths of his eyes, as well as the razor-thin edge of control that he’s walking. One look tells me how close he is to the edge, warns me that he’s hanging on by his fingertips.

  There’s a part of me that wants to back off, that wants to see what happens if I let him stay on that edge of his control for a little longer. But seeing him like this, pushed so close to the edge because of me—because he wants me, needs me, the same way I need him—is everything I want and more than I thought to ask for.

  Fucking men is easy, but getting inside them—letting them inside me—is hard. It’s also something I don’t do. At least not until now.

  But there’s something in knowing I’m not alone, in knowing—really knowing—that he’s right here with me, that makes okay even the desperate maelstrom of need roiling inside me.

  I lick my lips, watching as his eyes follow my every movement like I’m his salvation. I do it again and revel in the groan he doesn’t even try to hold back. Then I do it once more, this time allowing my tongue to linger on my lower lip as I use my eyes to make all kinds of promises that I have every intention of keeping.

  He reaches for me then, slides his hands down my neck before resting his palm against my collarbone and his fingers against the pulse points at the base of my throat. It’s an intimate hold, and a dominant one, and I’ve never let anyone touch me like that before in my life. Then again, I’ve never let anyone hold me by the nape of the neck, either, an
d I gave that to him just as easily. More, I took it for myself, because no matter how nerve-racking it is to have him hold me this way, I don’t want him to back off. And I sure as hell don’t want him to stop.

  I’m not sure what that says about me, about us, and right now I don’t actually care. Not when the heat we’re generating has lightning crackling between us, ripping through my body. Through my veins and muscles. Through my mind and heart and soul. Through every part of me until Miles is all I can think of, all I desire.

  His other hand is still on my breast, and the tug of his fingers on my nipple is only making me crazier. I lean forward, press my lips to his with a desperation I never thought myself capable of feeling. I’ve never felt like this before, not even when we were in bed this morning, never imagined that I could feel so vulnerable and so powerful and so wanted all at the same time.

  All of a sudden our clothes are too much of a barrier between us. I want his jeans gone, want my yoga pants on his workshop floor as he slides his cock deep inside me. My whole body clenches at the thought, my sex aching emptily even as my fingers fumble with the button on his jeans.

  “Take them off,” I tell him as I rip my mouth from his. “Take them off, take them off.” I’m desperate now, my body bucking and twisting against him as the need between us becomes painful desperation.

  “Soon, baby,” he murmurs, even as he sucks new bruises into my collarbone, my shoulder, my breast.

  “Now!” I all but scream, my fingers ripping at my own pants as the ache continues to swell deep inside me. “I need you now.”

  “Fuck. Okay.” He pulls away and I whine, my hands grabbing for him even as he yanks my pants down my legs and throws them behind him. Then he’s fumbling with his own pants as I watch him with hungry eyes.

  His eyes are wild and his hands are shaking as he rips open the zipper. He doesn’t bother to take his jeans all the way off. Instead he just shoves them down enough to free his cock, then quickly sheathes himself with a condom he pulls from his back pocket.

  Seconds later he pushes deep inside me with a thrust so hard and deep that it has me seeing stars, my whole body erupting at that first stroke. For long moments, everything around me goes black as the most amazing orgasm of my life sweeps through me. Pleasure ripples along my every nerve ending, robbing me of my ability to think, to move, to even breathe. And all I can do is take it—take him—as he thrusts into me again and again and again, ratcheting up my pleasure with each slam of his hips.

  Before my first climax comes to an end, I can feel a second one building, this one even sharper than the first. It’s such a steep rise that it almost hurts, but it’s a good hurt, one I wouldn’t trade for anything. He’s close now, too. I can feel it as he plunges wildly inside me. I dig my nails into his shoulders, hang on for dear life as he slams me into the table so hard the thing scrapes against the floor.

  And then Miles is calling my name as he comes, his whole body jerking and straining and shaking as he empties himself inside me. It goes on and on and the feel of him coming ratchets up my own pleasure, sends me careening up, up, up until I teeter on the edge of a second orgasm.

  “Don’t stop,” I tell him as I rock against him. “Please, don’t—”

  He doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t. Instead he reaches between us and rolls my clit between his thumb and forefinger. Heat slams through me and I whimper, lifting my hips in a desperate attempt to get more pressure. More pleasure.

  He’s still hard, still thrusting, as if his release had done nothing to dull his desire for me. The thought turns me on even more as he surges against me, each thrust a little more powerful than the one that came before it. He’s moving me up the table now and I can feel the cool metal against my back, my ass, can feel myself rising and falling as he tilts my hips forward so he can go deeper, deeper, deeper.

  It feels so good—he feels so good—that I can barely comprehend what’s happening to my body. To me. Desperate for release, I lock my ankles around his waist, let my head fall back against the table, as I sob his name over and over again. My whole body is wigging out and I’m spinning out of control—my mind, my body, everything that I am just opening up to him. Becoming his for the taking.

  It should frighten me—should terrify me, if I’m being honest—and maybe it would any other time, with any other man. But right here, right now, with Miles, all I can do is open myself up to him and let him take all that he wants.

  I want it to end, want to feel him empty himself totally and completely within me. I want it to go on forever, want his strong, hard body plunging into mine until I’ve had my fill. Until my body no longer clamors for his. Until I don’t know where he starts and I leave off.

  His fingers dig deep into my hips and I shudder with pleasure, admitting to myself that I can’t imagine a time when I don’t want Miles—inside my body and my life. It’s a scary thought, and an intimate one. It should scare me but I’m too busy meeting each powerful thrust of his body to worry about it. Too busy chasing my next orgasm to care about anything but the incredible connection stretching between us.

  “Tori, look at me.” His voice is deep, distorted, but so insistent that I know I don’t have a choice. Opening my eyes through sheer strength of will, I stare into his blue ones with their desperate light and blown-out irises.

  The connection between us grows deeper, stronger, and I want to look away. Want to break whatever this thing is that’s so powerful, so overwhelming. But he won’t let me, his gaze capturing mine, taking me prisoner, even as his body does the same thing.

  I can’t break away; more, I don’t want to. I’m completely, utterly in his thrall, and the only thing keeping me together is the knowledge that he is as vulnerable as I am. That he has no more control over his body—or his heart—at this moment than I do.

  “Miles.” I whisper his name, lift a hand to his stubble-rough cheek. He holds my gaze even while he turns his head and presses a kiss into my palm at the same time as he increases the pressure on my clit.

  I cry out as an answering wave of sensation rips through me, sending me over the edge for the second time tonight. I come with his body inside me and his name on my lips. And still he refuses to relinquish my gaze. Still he keeps me pinned with those magical, mystical eyes of his that seem to see all the way to my soul.

  And when he follows me seconds later—his own release crashing powerfully through him—his gaze demands more than I want to give. More than I can give.

  But as he collapses over me, his body seeking comfort from mine even as he presses me into the table, I refuse to think about that. Refuse to worry over the connection that, even now, I can feel snapped taut between us. Instead I wrap my arms around him and whisper soft, soothing nothings in his ear as we both come down slowly.

  Fuck it, I think as he reaches up and takes my mouth in one last kiss. What’s going to happen is going to happen whether I worry about it or not. I’d rather stay in this moment as long as I can, living it and loving him, for as long as I can. The world will crash down around our ears soon enough. For now, I’m going to let myself love him any way that I can.

  Chapter 20

  Miles

  “How do you know I like eggplant parmigiana?” Tori asks as she unpacks the dinner order I placed while she was in her second shower of the day—this one without me, as she insisted she actually wanted to get clean.

  “I have known you for a year,” I answer as I open a bottle of Chianti to go with the Italian food. “And during that time we’ve eaten together numerous times.”

  “But I only ordered eggplant once in all those times. I know, because I only eat it from Romero’s.”

  “I know.” I tap the delivery bag that the food came in, which is clearly marked with the name, ROMERO’S RISTORANTE.

  “You’re surprisingly observant for a tech geek,” she teases with a grin.

  “And you are surprisingly traditional for a girl with this many tats.” I run a hand across the ink on her shoulders.


  She arches, pressing back into my touch even as she shivers a little. I can’t help but grin as I trace the intricate lines of the dandelion tattoo she has over her left shoulder blade—and the windborne seeds caught tumbling in midflight just above it.

  “I think this is my favorite,” I tell her as I press soft kisses to the wandering seeds.

  “Oh yeah?” She tilts her head a little to the side to give me better access. “Earlier you said the stars were your favorites.”

  “They’re definitely in my favorite location,” I agree, tracing my fingers over her hip bone and down to the top of her thigh, following the pattern of the stars she has there by memory now. “But there’s something about this flower, about the freedom and the grace of it. I like it.”

  “Me, too.” She leans into me, rests the back of her head against my chest in a move so fleeting I might have thought I imagined it if my skin hadn’t sizzled with the contact—as it always does when she touches me.

  “So why a dandelion?” I ask, curving my other hand around her other hip so that I can hold her in place against me. “Why not a more traditional flower?”

  “I don’t know.” She shrugs.

  “Sure you do.”

  She turns, gives me an arch glance that I meet head-on. She doesn’t have to tell me if she doesn’t want to, but I’m not going to play dumb just to make her more comfortable. Not on this, something that I know has everything to do with who she is versus who she wants the world to think she is.

  “Fine,” she says, and it’s half laugh, half sigh as she turns away. “I guess I’ve always admired the resilience, the determination, of dandelions. They’re weeds that don’t just grow, but thrive where they’re not wanted. They put down roots and grow a beautiful yellow flower that’s impossible to ignore. And then, when they’re ready—and only when they’re ready—they move on, on their terms. The wind may eventually blow them apart, may scatter their seeds all to hell and back, but then they just start over in a new place. In several new places, which just gives that first dandelion more places to shine.”