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  Franco blinks at me. Our eyes meet, and something wild and deep and thrumming and intense sears between us, white-hot and unspoken, unspeakable, unmistakable.

  Chapter 5

  I tackle him, and not at all gently. Our bodies connect with a smack and a thud of bone and flesh and muscle colliding, and then I pin him to the bed and straddle him.

  There are no thoughts in my head except to take.

  No thoughts in me at all, beyond Franco.

  Need.

  Rapacious, ravaging need.

  He’s stunned by my sudden ferocity. I claw my fingers into his chest, raking them downward as I writhe on top of him, seeking him, desperate for anything physical to take my mind off my emotions. He reaches for me, but I capture his hands, tangle our fingers. He tries to wrestle my hands away, trying to stop me or restrain me or I don’t know what, but he underestimates my raw strength, especially that borne of desperation. I battle his grip, keep his hands away from me; our eyes meet, briefly, and I see that if anything, I’m only turning him on all the more, but even that knowledge is a faint, distant understanding. All there is within me is need.

  I move, sliding my slick core against him. I feel him. I feel that hot thick hard ridge, and I need it. God, I need it. I shift angles, still wrestling with his attempts to get his hands on me. Then—god yes—I find the perfect angle. The head of him catches against my opening and it’s only a matter of sinking my hips forward, thrusting, and he’s inside me, and I feel him spearing into me, a sudden hard impalement, my entire being spasming with ecstasy—not from an orgasm but from sheer relief at the feel of Franco, of him, this man who has some strange power over me.

  “Audra—holy—holy shit, Audra…” His voice is ragged, gasping, the breath and sense stunned right out of him.

  So thick inside me, so hot, so hard. So much. So perfect.

  “Franco—” I gasp.

  “Wait—wait. Audra, hold on—”

  I pin his hands to the mattress, and he lets me, writhing with me. Against me. Thrashing and thrusting under me, giving over to the violent ecstasy of this, a passion so intense neither of us can deny it or control it or stop it.

  “AUDRA!” he shouts.

  “Franco—Jesus, Franco!” I’m screaming, the climax of our union slamming into me harder and more intensely than ever, than even the climax from the wand and vibrator—this is beyond that. More than that.

  I bury my face into his chest and feel his heartbeat, taste it through his skin, my sweat commingles with his and we’re moving in perfect unison, his breath mine, and mine his, lips touching, matching breathless gaps and guttural groans—who’s making which sound? I can’t tell our sounds apart and that too is beautiful.

  This is beautiful.

  I come, squeezing, pulsing around his slick wet thrusts, and that’s more beautiful yet.

  “Audra!” This time, there’s an urgency to his cry. “Wait—you have to stop.”

  “Can’t—I can’t!”

  “Fuck! You have to!” He’s desperate, his voice tense and strained.

  With a sudden burst of strength, Franco levers me off of him and twists so I’m on my back and he’s above me. He’s no longer inside me and I’m desperate to get him back, to get more of him. He’s gasping, groaning through clenched teeth, hovering over me, pinning me to the bed, every muscle in his body tensed and straining with primal, animal power.

  My eyes rake greedily over every inch of him, over every plane and bulge of sculpted perfection, finally landing on his erection, swaying and gleaming above my belly, huge and rock hard and wet.

  And bare.

  No condom.

  “Fuck,” I whisper, realizing.

  “Yeah…” he snarls.

  “You—you—did you—?”

  His eyes meet mine. “I didn’t come, no.”

  “Holy shit.”

  Never, ever, ever in my life, since the first time I had sex, have I ever forgotten to make sure my sexual partner was wrapped up. Drunk as a skunk and I still remember.

  He’s still growling under his breath, every muscle tensed, and I realize he’s still holding back.

  Oh no, no. That just won’t do.

  “Franco, let me go.” I twist my wrists, trying to break his grip—he’s far too strong, even with the gentle grip as he has on me.

  He doesn’t hear me, too focused on the effort to back away from his edge.

  “Franco, let go.” I put some snap into my voice, and this time he hears me, responding immediately by releasing my wrists.

  The second I’m free of his grip, I wriggle downward, scooting underneath him until his erection is at face level. He’s still breathing hard, eyes closed, on his hands and knees. Not paying any attention to anything except his struggle to hold back.

  I take him into my mouth, and he grunts in shock. I taste…us. Him, me, our mingled essence.

  I give him no chance to fight back, to tell me to stop, to be chivalrous or some bullshit. I clasp him in my hands and pump his length with both fists, and wrap my lips around him and suck, tonguing him. There’s no teasing or technique or buildup, just a sudden and all-out assault on him with hands and mouth.

  “Fuck, fuck, ohhhhh god, Audra, what are you—” he cuts off with a grunt, his hips helplessly thrusting. “Just give me a second to—”

  “Mm-mm.” I go faster, harder, hungrier—there was something unbearably erotic about what Franco just did, and I’m giving over totally to my instinctual urges. All I care about is him, his pleasure—taking it from him. Feeling him let go, tasting his need.

  I hear my mouth on him, my fists—wet slurps and suckling and squishing sounds, and I feel his body clenching, feel him holding back thrusts, hear him grunting, gasping. Instead of faster, now, I use more mouth, one fist around his base pumping rhythmically as I pulse my mouth down around him in deep, fast, wet slides of lips and tongue and throat.

  “Audra—” His voice, drowning in desperation. “I can’t—I can’t hold it—”

  “Mmmmhhhmmmm,” I moan, urging him to let go. I cup his heavy sac and press a finger just behind it, to his taint, and stroke his thick, throbbing erection all the harder.

  “Ohhhh god, Audra, Audra…”

  Stop saying my name like that, dammit, with such desperate, vulnerable need.

  I just moan, humming around him as I work him with mouth and hands. His next sound is a ragged cry, his hips flexing as he finally gives in to a full thrust—I wasn’t expecting it, but I take it and hum in surprise, a sound that morphs into erotic need as he finally finally lets go, lets himself move. I feel him throbbing against my lips, feel his balls tensing and clenching, and he thrusts into my throat, moving raggedly.

  Lost to it.

  I am—he is—we both are.

  This wasn’t supposed to work like this—I could have just put a condom on him and let him finish any other way. This was supposed to be less personal, less intimate. But somehow it’s the complete opposite.

  I’m not supposed to feel every pulse of his heartbeat, not supposed to crave his pleasure, not supposed to need his climax, his taste, his desperation, his fury.

  “Ohhh—ohhhh fuck, Audra—Audra—”

  God, his voice is raw with tormented need. He gives a final growling gasp, his fists knotting in the blankets, his back arching, his whole being taut as a piano wire—and then, he thrusts, once, pushing into my mouth. I swallowed around him and then backed away so my lips were suctioned around the groove beneath the head; pressing my middle finger just behind his taint, I stroke him furiously with my other hand.

  I taste him, heat and musk and salt. Swallowing madly, I take all of him as he comes and comes, spurting thick streams into my mouth and down my throat. Swallowing, swallowing, I still can’t keep up and I feel a trickle down the corner of my mouth and over my lower lip.

  One last warm flood of his seed, and then, still growling and moaning, his arms shaking, he pulls free and flops limp to his back beside me, breathing as hard
as if he’d just done a hundred burpees.

  His eyes are open, following me as I roll to sit up.

  He reaches up, brushes the pad of his thumb over my lip, wiping away the droplets of his essence; instead of letting him wipe it somewhere or wash it away, I suck it off of his thumb. Just to prove a point, perhaps. I don’t even know, honestly.

  His eyes on mine are inscrutable. Mine, I suppose, are equally so.

  Neither of us says a word.

  Franco gets up off the bed and goes into my bathroom; I hear the water running as he washes up, and then I hear him pee, wash his hands again, and then he exits the bathroom. Still naked, and without a word to me, he heads for the kitchen. Curious, I wait. I hear him moving around, and while I’m waiting I use the bathroom and wash, then rinse my mouth. I get back in bed then, and just in time. He enters with two wineglasses full of red wine.

  No jokes about needing to wash anything down—the energy between us is solemn and heavy.

  Something very serious just happened.

  I accept the glass from him as he sits on the bed; we both cover our laps with the flat sheet, but otherwise make no pretense of covering up— no need, and, honestly, no desire to.

  I take a long drink, and we sit in silence for a while.

  “Audra, what almost just happened—”

  “I’m sorry,” I blurt, ducking my head to stare at the sheet. “I just—I lost it, I guess. I went a little haywire.”

  “Are you—if I hadn’t stopped, are you on birth control or anything?”

  “Yeah, of course. I’ve been getting a shot since they invented it. But still.”

  “Exactly—but still.”

  I sigh. “Nothing like that has ever happened before. I’ve never forgotten, not ever.” I swirl the ruby liquid in my glass, watching it instead of him. “I don’t know how to explain it, Franco. You just…you made me crazy.”

  A long pause.

  “I’m not blaming you, Franco. It was me. I just—I don’t know.” I finally meet his gaze, and what I see in his eyes and on his face is a mirror for what I’m feeling—overwhelmed, confused…too much to even process or comprehend.

  “Audra…” He sighs, swirls his wine. “That was a hell of a lot more than us not using a condom, and you know it.”

  No, no, no. I can’t do this. Yes, dammit, I feel it. There’s a lot more to it than that. That was supposed to be a quick fuck; it wasn’t supposed to get…intimate. It was raw and carnal and not at all romantic, but it still felt way too personal. Too real. And I don’t want to feel that.

  I have no answer for him. I just drink my wine and try not to think about anything at all.

  His eyes are on mine, probing, piercing. “Not gonna say anything?”

  “We both know how this goes, Franco.” I toss back the last of my wine. “Three for me, four for you—that’s our rules, right? We both play the game, Franco. Keep it neat, clean, mess-free, and simple. And…this thing, whatever it is between us, it’s starting to get messy and complicated. And, like you said, it’s a lot more than you almost coming inside me without a condom on, and we both know it. So…why risk letting it get any messier or more complicated? Neither of us want that, do we?”

  He’s quiet for a long moment. “No…” he murmurs, “I guess not.”

  There’s a hell of a lot to dissect in that response—the quietness of his voice, the hesitation, the word “guess”, the way he didn’t look at me as he said it.

  I don’t dissect it. I don’t allow myself.

  Franco finishes his wine, then glances at me, a long, slow, burning stare. His blond hair is loose, tangled, falling around his broad shoulders. His eyes flicker inscrutable blue flames, like ice made into fire. I see a quick barrage of things cross his features, and then he shuts down again, closed off, unreadable. I feel myself retreating behind my own walls.

  Yet, despite those walls, I feel him.

  I feel us.

  Chemistry.

  I’ve never really grasped the import of that phrase—to have chemistry with someone.

  Until now.

  Now, I get it.

  Certain people just react to each other explosively.

  A little bit here or there, and you get some sparks, some smoke, some bubbling. Add too much, and you get a fireball. Franco and I mix to create a fireball—that’s our chemistry. Even now, with all this boiling between us, I feel that combustion sizzling.

  As hot as what just happened between us was, it hadn’t really satisfied a certain deep down craving. That need for him won’t go away. I still want him. Need him. I want his hands, his mouth. Dammit, I want him above me, beneath me, behind me. All over me.

  I feel my nipples harden—a glance to the side reveals an unsuccessfully hidden tent in the sheet; he feels it too.

  His eyes meet mine, then go to my breasts, the pink tips hardening into points. My empty glass, spinning idly between my fingers. He sets his glass aside, takes mine, and puts it next to his.

  Silence.

  I can’t take my eyes off that tent in the sheet.

  Dammit, dammit, dammit, I want him.

  I shift; tug the sheet away to reveal his erection.

  “Audra.”

  I look at him, bold, daring him to deny he wants it too. “I know.”

  He heaves a breath, holding utterly still other than the sound of his sigh. “We just agreed we don’t need to complicate this any further.”

  Yet he’s moving to face me, and then he’s above me, and my hands are roaming his shoulders and spine and butt, and then I’m gripping his hardness and he’s burying his face between my breasts and I’m biting his shoulder as I caress everywhere I can reach.

  “I can’t…fucking…help it,” I groan, and then bite his shoulder again out of raw frustrated need. “I don’t want to need you like this, but I do.”

  He has a condom wrapper between his teeth, and rips it open, withdraws the ring and spits the wrapper aside, rolling the condom on in a smooth motion.

  “I know. Me either.”

  “We shouldn’t,” I gasp, grasping him, lining him up at my entrance.

  “No, we shouldn’t,” he agrees, surging into me.

  I lose the thread of my thoughts, then, as he fills me. I can only cry out, clinging to his broad hard shoulders, fingernails digging into his flesh and raking down as he thrusts into me. His face is buried between my breasts, his lips catching at my nipples, his teeth occasionally nipping the tender flesh. His hands curl under my thighs and lift them. I wrap my legs around his waist, hook tight, and I move in unison with him.

  I claw at him, helpless, as he fills me and overwhelms me—I can’t breathe except to breathe him, cannot move except to move with him, cannot speak except to cry his name.

  I reach climax as he finds his own ragged, gasping, madly thrusting release.

  We move together, cry out together. My name, his name, nothing else. Just gusting whimpers, ragged groans, guttural roars, hoarse cries.

  When it’s over, he goes limp on top of me. I welcome his weight, the crushing warmth of him, his lean bulk on me, his scent and his skin and his everything all over and inside me. I know my fingers are stroking his back, his spine, his shoulders, and I try to stop them, but I can’t.

  There’s a long moment of silence, except for our breathing.

  I feel a pressure inside—a hot, ballooning, suffocating thing in my chest and gut and throat, an upwelling of…god, I don’t know what.

  But it’s sharp and huge and focused utterly on the man on me and in me and all around me.

  And it makes my eyes sting.

  I push at him. “I need—I can’t breathe. I need to get up.”

  He rolls off immediately. “God, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to crush you.”

  I’m off the bed in an instant. “No, that was fine. More than fine.” I find my robe, shrug into it, and tie it. “And that’s why I can’t breathe.”

  I head to my balcony, rip the door open so hard it slams ope
n and halfway closes again, and lean against the railing, gasping, blinking.

  I feel him behind me; I don’t have to look to know he’s still naked.

  “Audra…”

  I shake my head. “Franco, don’t.”

  “That was—”

  “I said don’t, Franco!” I snap. “Just fucking don’t.”

  “I don’t want to acknowledge it any more than you do, goddammit, and probably a whole hell of a lot less.”

  “What? Are we gonna trade life stories, now, Franco? Are you gonna tell me why you’re a player? Why you have your four-fuck rule? Why you’re a forty-five-year-old bachelor?” I feel the defensive spikes shooting out and into my words, but I can’t stop them; he’s penetrated too far past all my walls and boundaries, and I have to stop him from getting any closer. “You really want to hear why I have my three strikes rule? Why I keep things kinky and casual? You really want to know why I never kiss?” Shit, I didn’t mean for that last one to come out.

  He doesn’t answer any of that.

  “No,” I say. “I didn’t think so.”

  “Audra—”

  “Thanks for dinner,” I say. “And the orgasms. They were, honestly…unforgettable. So, thank you.”

  “We’re ending it here, huh?” He sounds carefully neutral, but I don’t turn to gauge his expression. I don’t dare.

  “It’s best, don’t you think?”

  I can imagine him rubbing the back of his neck, or scraping his hands through his long loose hair, but again, I don’t dare look.

  “Yeah,” he agrees, eventually. “It probably is.”

  “Then I think you should go.” I sigh. “That sounded rude, and I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be rude. I just—”

  “No, you’re right. You’re absolutely right. This whole thing is going way past what either of us are comfortable with, and we should just…call it.”

  “Yeah. We should.”

  He turns away—I hear his steps on the balcony, and then hear him rustling around, putting on his clothes. I still don’t look.

  I hear him again, at the open doorway to the balcony. I feel him, more than hear him, if you want to be accurate.

  “You don’t kiss because you saw Pretty Woman,” he says.