“Yes. Yes to everything.”

That’s all he needed to hear. I unchained him, I freed the animal inside, but this time I’m ready for it.

With a savage rip, Reese tears open the back of my bra and pulls it roughly down my arms to bare my br**sts to him. When he bends me back over his arm and clamps his lips down over one nipple, I squeeze my thighs together to keep myself from coming apart on the spot.

I thread my fingers into his hair, fisting them in my own frenetic need. When he straightens me, I immediately reach for the front of his shirt, yanking open the buttons in one try.

Reese’s hard chest, with its dusting of dark hair, is gleaming with a fine sheen of sweat that makes my mouth water to taste it. So I do. I lean forward and drag my tongue up the dent between his pecs, detouring to take one flat, masculine nipple into my mouth.

He cups my head and hisses when I bite down. “Damn you,” he spits in what almost seems like anger. “I didn’t want it to be this way, but you’re driving me crazy.”

My eyes lock on his as I shake free of his grasp. In this moment, I realize that I want to drive him crazy. I want him to feel as desperate, as wanton as I feel.

Dropping to my knees in front of him. My fingers work nimbly at the button and zipper of his pants. I part them, pushing them half way down his thighs.

He’s not wearing any underwear and my breath sticks in my throat when I come face to face with his enormous cock. I’d forgotten how big it is. That hasn’t changed. But one thing has. There, going through the smooth, round head of his penis, is a gold-stud barbell.

I’m fascinated as I look at it. I raise my hand to stroke it with one fingertip. He jerks in response.

“Do you like that?” he asks softly. “It’s called a Prince Albert piercing.” He exhales, the end of his breath rising in a hiss. “I can’t wait to show you what it feels like when I rub you from the inside with it. I want you screaming my name when you come.” Reese’s voice is like rough velvet rasping along my skin, touching me in all the right places.

I lean forward to swirl my tongue around the studs. His answering groan and the way his fingers curl into my hair send moisture pouring into my panties.

When I close my lips around the head, Reese twitches, reaching to pull me to my feet and up into his arms. His lips crush mine in a kiss that I fear might set me on fire if it weren’t for the puddle of water I’m standing in.

Reese kicks off his pants the rest of the way and swings my legs off the floor to lay me down on the wet stage. The cool water at my back has my ni**les puckering into painfully tight nubs, which Reese attacks with his lips and his tongue and his teeth. He lifts his chest off me and I feel his hands pulling at my skirt, shoving it and my panties down my legs. He even drags the warmers from my calves.

As soon as I’m practically bare beneath him, his mouth is on the move. He kisses and caresses a hot path down my stomach to the triangle between my legs. My whole world seems centered on that one spot and how much I need to feel his touch there. He nuzzles me with his face, but the touch is light and brief, giving me no relief.

Just before I give in and beg him to put an end to my misery, Reese rolls me onto my stomach. The cold water hits every surface of my front and makes me gasp. The skin of my backside is still cool from lying on the wet stage, making the first touch of Reese’s hot mouth almost painful. His tongue at the base of my spine sends shivers through me and the feel of his scorching palms on the curves of my h*ps steals my breath.

Reese spreads his fingers around my hipbones, tugging them up off the floor, arching my lower body toward him. He drags his lips alongside the crease of my butt before nudging my legs apart. There is a pause where my heart completely stops inside my chest before I feel his lips at my entrance.

I’m helpless against the onslaught of his torture. Reese holds me spread before him, his lips and tongue working white-hot magic between my folds and over my cl*tas his thumb delves just into my entrance, only to back out again. All I can do is lie prone beneath him, rocking against his mouth as he brings me to the edge.

Just as my orgasm breaks, as though he could taste it hit, Reese rolls me over onto my back, throws my legs over his shoulders and buries his face against me, licking and sucking and fingering me through the waves of my release.

Before my body can completely recover, Reese rises and sits back on his haunches then slides between my legs. I look up at him, his eyes like aqua coals burning from the center of his ravenous face, and I know there is more to come. Much more.

“That piercing that you were so interested in,” he begins gruffly, “I want you to feel it rub you on the inside you while you look into my face. I want to see the flash of gold slide in and out of you. I want to see your come dripping off of it.”

I feel my muscles contract at his words, grasping at him where he sits at my entrance. My mind is fuzzy with passion, but one thing shines through, like the bright light of panic breaking through early-morning fog.

“I don’t have a condom,” I admit breathlessly.

“You don’t need one. I’ve had a vasectomy.”

I know I’ll feel differently about that later, but right now, I only feel relief. And a surge of desire at his next words. “God, how glad I am for that. I want to feel every inch of you, every drop. And I want you to feel every inch of me, stretching you tight, shooting come deep inside you.”

“Oh, god,” I moan, tightening my legs around Reese.

I watch him as he reaches down and spreads my folds, his fingers massaging my cl*tas he teases my entrance with his thick head. I glance down and see the light glinting off the golden stud and I feel more heat gush into my core.

“Now, Reese,” I plead.

“I need to go slow. I don’t want to hurt you,” he says, his voice strained as he guides his tip into me, still toying with my most sensitive part.

My mouth falls open as I watch the gold stud disappear into me. He eases it ever so slightly in and out in short, choppy strokes. I can feel the gold balls moving against me, the kind of friction that makes my belly tighten and brings me one step closer to absolute annihilation. I rock my h*ps toward Reese, trying to take in more of him, but I meet resistance. He’s just so big.

“Easy. After you adjust to me, I’ll give you what you want. I’ll give it to you until you beg me to stop.”

I’m panting. I’m dizzy with what he’s doing to me, with the bright spotlight shining into my eyes, with the voracious look on Reese’s face.

I lift myself up onto my elbows, certain that I can’t take one more second. Reese grunts and I see his jaw clench. “Kennedy,” he warns, stilling himself with just a couple of inches inside me.

“Reese, I can’t wait. Please.”

I know I look desperate. I know I sound desperate. I can hear it in my voice, the needs of my body leeching out into my tone. But I feel like the world might explode around me if Reese doesn’t fill me. Completely fill me.

I can hear his heavy breathing. I can see the sheen of perspiration on his forehead where he’s holding back. His eyes search mine. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” I reply without hesitation.

After only a short pause, Reese leans forward, pulls my left leg over his shoulder and thrusts hard into me. For a moment, I feel faint the pleasure is so intense. His overwhelming presence inside me is pure ecstasy and with the friction of the studs as he pulls out and thrusts back in, even deeper if that’s possible, I tumble right back over the edge.

My gasp melts into a strangled moan and Reese pumps his hips, surging into me as my body clenches around him. “That’s it, baby. Come hard.” He’s unrelenting as he drives me through my second orgasm.

It’s as I lie limply beneath him that I feel him pull out in one slow stroke and I look down at him. Reese is rubbing the tip of his finger over the studs. His c**k is glistening with my want and, now, so is his finger.

His eyes flick up to mine. In them is passion like I’ve never seen before. Reese slips the tip of his wet finger into his mouth, his eyes drifting shut on a groan of pure pleasure. “God, that’s the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth.”

Despite my spent body, a spark flares between my legs as I watch him spread my folds and ease back into me. “Now let me fill you up,” he says before he begins his sweet torment all over again. True to his word, Reese fills me up when he reaches his own cl**ax. He doesn’t stop until I can feel it running down onto the floor beneath me.

In the end, it’s my third orgasm that does me in. I’m so overcome with intense pleasure that I don’t even realize I’m screaming Reese’s name until I see his smile.

I did it. Just like he said I would.

I was happy to prove him right.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE - Reese

Kennedy doesn’t object when I dress her, pick her up in my arms and carry her back to her room.

She also doesn’t object when I turn on the shower and take her with me into it, fully clothed, only to repeat my invasion of her body all over again. It’s when we are lying na**d in her bed, curled up beneath the warm covers, her body tucked into the curve of mine, that I begin to wonder why it is that I just can’t seem to get enough of her.

“What are you thinking about?” she asks softly from beside me. I had thought she was asleep.

Before I can think better of it, I tell her the truth. “Why it is that I can’t seem to get enough of you.”

I can almost hear her smile. “Is that a bad thing?”

I pull her in closer to me and kiss the silky skin behind her ear. “Hell no.”

“Then why so puzzled?”

“I don’t know. I just…I just feel like I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

I feel her stiffen slightly before she rolls onto her back and turns her head so she can look at me. “You mean because you’re with me?”

The sadness and disappointment in her eyes gives me a painful stab in my chest. “God, no! Why would you even think that?”

She shrugs casually, but I know she feels anything but nonchalant. “It’s not like I’m exactly ‘acceptable’ in your world.”

“Who gives a shit? I’ve spent my whole life trying to be someone I’m not. Now, all these years later, I’m just…angry.”

Kennedy reaches up and strokes my cheek, her eyes big, green pools of something sweet and safe and real. “You don’t have to be anybody but Reese with me.”

“But do you even know who I am?”

My question surprises her. She has no answer.

“Do you really want me to be the guy who could just leave you like I did? Because I don’t think I like him very much.”

“We all grow and change with time, Reese. You don’t have to be exactly like that guy anymore. You can be anyone you want to be.”

“One thing hasn’t changed in all these years.”

“What’s that?” she asks, her fingertips making lazy circles over my jawbone.

“I don’t think I’ve ever stopped feeling what that nineteen year old boy felt. Since the day I left you, all I can ever remember being is angry. Everything else was just a…a…façade. A mask. A pose for someone else’s benefit. To convince people that I’m something I’m not.”

“You mean your father?”

I nod. “And others. I’ve built an empire by showing people that I’m a shrewd, ruthless businessman who can’t be taken advantage of. Just like my father. Yet I’ve spent a lifetime trying to be anything but him. As it turns out, I’ve been walking in his footsteps all along.”

“It’s not too late to start over, Reese. It’s never too late.”

I stare into Kennedy’s eyes, into her beautiful face. “I wish it was that easy.”

“It can be.”

I smile and kiss her on the end of her nose, but I make no comment. She probably wouldn’t say that if she knew everything about me.

No, she wouldn’t say that at all.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO - Kennedy

I’ve never felt more like a princess than I do when I’m with Reese. Well, I’ve actually never felt like a princess at all until Reese. He had this way of making me feel special when we were younger. That’s something that hasn’t changed. He makes me feel like I’m the only girl in the world.

He’s hardly left my side for a minute since the night he found me in my room, sea sick. During the day, he’ll go for a few minutes here and there to take care of business with Karesh or make a few necessary phone calls, but it’s usually when I’m changing clothes for dinner. Otherwise, every morning he’s curled around me when I wake up, he’s putting his hands all over me in the gym as he works me out, he’s giving me the royal treatment as we lie by the pool and then he’s hiding away with me at night, making love to me in breathtaking ways. It’s been the most surreal experience of my life.

He hasn’t asked me to dance again either. He did manage to apologize the morning after my last dance, though. The morning after that crazy encounter on the stage.

I woke to the fine tickle of something along my side. I reached around to brush it away, only to find it was Reese’s hand.

“Your skin is like the finest silk in the world,” he’d purred by my ear. At that point, he’d abandoned the light tickling and started to stroke his palm up and down my side. “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you last night.”

“How did you embarrass me?” I asked, starting to squirm as his hand moved further and further toward my front, skimming the edge of my breast all the way down to the inside of my hipbone and back again.