Was he serious? And did it really matter at this point if he was or not? Her senses were suddenly rioting at the feel of his cock head pressing against her, causing her to grow wetter, her flesh more sensitive.

She didn’t want this.

Crista shook her head as she felt Dawg’s lips at her cheek, rough velvet, sliding over her flesh as her breath hitched in her throat.

“Nothing matters to me but fucking you.” Self-disgust filled his voice. “Being so deep inside you that this hunger that’s eaten at my gut for eight years dissolves.” His head lifted as he glowered down at her from between sensually narrowed eyes. “Make no mistake, Crista, you will spread those pretty legs for me again, and you’ll give me what I want. Because it’s the only way I can keep your ass out of jail.

Walk away from me, and I won’t lift a finger to help you when they slap the cuffs on your wrists and you disappear. Because, baby, it will so be out of my hands then that I couldn’t help you if I wanted to.”

“But you can if I’m sleeping with you?” Disillusionment, disappointment, he heard it all in her voice.

Quite simply, as he said, unless he relented, she had no choice.

“Of course.” His smile was tight and hard. “I’ll know where you are. I’ll know if you’re playing dirty or playing nice, and then putting my neck on the line won’t feel like a fool’s fucking errand to me.

Now make your choice.”

Crista stared back at him, finally admitting that the man she had dreamed of for eight years was gone, in more ways than she had imagined.

“It’s the same as rape,” she whispered, then bit back a moan as his free hand reached down, pulling her panties aside and allowing the heavy crest of his cock to slide through the juices gathering there.

“Do you enjoy lying to yourself, Crista?”

Dawg was breathing harder now, and Crista found it nearly impossible to draw in enough oxygen herself. The air was ripe with steamy carnality, her body so sensitive now, her clit so swollen, she wondered if she could survive if he didn’t fuck her.

“Damn,” he suddenly groaned, his hand gripping her hip as he let his cock slide through the heavy moisture until the feel of it rasping over her clit had her jerking in his hold and whimpering in heat.

“Your pussy’s so hot I’ll burn to ash,” he muttered, lowering his head again, his lips brushing over hers, though he ignored the parting of her lips to move to her jaw. “Like hot silk, molten silk. Let me have you again, Crista. I’ll take you so easy this time.” His lips caressed the shell of her ear now. “I’ll slide inside you slow and sweet, darlin’. And I promise, I’ll make you scream again with pleasure.”

As he had the first time and again yesterday. But then, he had pounded inside her both times, rocked her. Impaled her. He had taken her with a force that had left her shaken, not just from his possession, but from her response to it.

As he spoke, his free hand slid beneath her T-shirt. Broad and calloused, it rasped over her sensitive flesh, sending brilliant spears of pleasure exploding through her system.

“Dawg, don’t you think—”

“I never think around you,” he muttered as his lips moved back along her jaw. “All I do is feel.”

His hips moved, dragging his erection down, the thick head sliding through saturated folds, then with wicked effectiveness, pressed into the clutching entrance of her vagina.

Crista stilled. She stared up at Dawg as his head lifted, his eyes nearly colorless, the green so light that the pupils of his eyes were stark in the center.

“Are you protected?” His voice was tortured.

“Fine time to ask that question.” Her fists clenched, her wrists straining against his hold.

Of course she was protected. She had learned her lesson. She stayed protected.

It was too much pleasure. She could feel it rising forcefully inside her, tearing at her senses, dissolving her objections. Just as he had the first time, he was ripping her from the moorings of her own common sense.

“Answer me!” His lips were tight, his body straining.

“Yes—” The cry that tore from her was a mixture of pleasurable agony and bitter realization.

The heavy, hard thrust that sent him tunneling through unused muscles and slick, heated flesh was almost as painful as it had been the first time. And it was definitely more pleasurable than it should have been.

Crista stared up at him in shock and surprise, uncertain, confused. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not like this. Not this fast. Not at all, if she hadn’t been so weak, so wet.

“Dawg.” She would wince at the beseeching tone of her voice later. For now, all she could do was lie there, feeling the muscles of her pussy ripple, clench, and struggle to accept the flesh impaling it.

Little darts of sensation were racing over her body, detonating with trembling force in erogenous zones that she didn’t know were erogenous zones.

“Do you know”––a heavy grimace contorted his expression as his hips flexed against her, causing the head of his cock to stroke the deepest part of her vagina in a way that had her breath catching violently––“know how tight and hot your pussy is? How you feel wrapped around me?”

She shook her head. She couldn’t do this again. Hear his voice, his words causing her to grow wetter, hotter. She couldn’t let him steal her mind or her heart again. But he was, stealing it all as the pleasure began to tear through her senses.

“Here. Come here, darlin’.”

She nearly wailed at the feeling of his cock shifting, stretching her farther as he lifted her enough, just enough, to pull her shirt free of her body, baring the lacy bra she wore beneath. A bra that did nothing to hide the straining nubs of her nipples.

“This is so—so not a good idea,” she panted as the front clip of the bra released, and her breasts spilled out to his waiting palms.

“Did I suck these pretty nipples that first time?” he asked then, his voice a hard, rough rasp. “I dreamed I did. I dreamed I dined on them. Fed from them.”

Her head tossed on the mattress as her hands gripped his wrists. To hold on or to protest his fingers caressing the swollen mounds, his thumbs brushing over her tight nipples, she wasn’t certain.

“Dawg, think—” She needed to think.

“Don’t think.” He pulled the bra free before tossing it away. “You think too much, Crista.”

A second later her panties were ripped from her hips, the scraps tossed to the floor as she stared down her body. Straight to where they were joined.

Dark brown curls glistened with moisture and pressed against his pelvis. Her legs were spread wide to accommodate his powerful thighs, her knees bent and hugging the outside of his legs.

“See how good we look together.” His voice was an insidious murmur of heated lust and pleasure as he flexed inside her again. “Let me show you, sweetheart. Look at this.”

EIGHT

“Let me show you…”

Crista couldn’t help but watch. Dazed, mesmerized, even more than she had been yesterday. She watched as Dawg shifted his hips back slowly, his erection pulling free of her inner grip as a whimper of denial left her lips.

The thick, hard flesh was flushed a ruddy red, his cock head purpled and throbbing and wide enough to make her swallow tightly at the sight of it.

It glistened with her juices, shimmered in the afternoon sunlight spearing into the high, narrow windows over the bed.

It was powerful, iron hard, and hot, and within seconds easing inside her again. Crista watched that, too. She couldn’t help it. It was so sexy, erotic. Inch by inch, it disappeared inside her until once again his pubic hair was tangling with hers as a low groan fell from his lips.

“I’ve dreamed of this,” he rasped. “Watching my dick fill you slow and easy. Watching you take me.”

She was caught in a whirlwind, sensations piling atop each other, pleasure ripping through her as the stiff length of his cock stretched her, sending a burning ecstasy roiling through her system.

How was she supposed to deny him now? How the hell was she supposed to survive again once it was over and Dawg went on to the next conquest? Because this—oh Lord—this could become addictive.

Her gaze moved from where he was buried inside her, lifting over the flat, rippling planes of his abdomen to his fiercely set expression. Light green eyes glowed in the dark expanse of his face; long, sooty lashes were lowered to half-mast; and a flush of erotic pleasure stained his cheekbones.

He was a warrior, a conqueror, and he was stealing her soul.

“You like this.” He shifted, moved, drawing free of her body slowly before pushing heavily inside her once again.

Mercy. It was too good. Her back bowed as she arched to it, driving him inside her as she felt the muscles of her pussy stretch again. Burning, searing pleasure.

“Tell me you like this, Crista.” His voice was filled with wicked knowledge as he began a slow, heavy rhythm, fucking her as though he had all the time in the world when she knew that if she didn’t orgasm soon, she was going to die.

“Come on, honey,” he urged, his voice insistent, almost gentle. “Tell me you missed feeling me inside you, fucking you slow and easy, making you burn for me.”

Her head shook desperately. She couldn’t miss what she hadn’t had, could she? He had taken her hard, fast, in a variety of ways and positions, but he hadn’t taken her like this. Like the act mattered. Like she mattered.

“Look at me, Crista. Come on, open your eyes, honey.”

His voice was too gentle, too rough with passion. Her eyes opened, and she felt the first tear fall.

A stupid tear, because he was taking her too deep, stealing too much of her.

Dawg almost stopped at the sight of that single tear easing down her cheek. And he would have, if he hadn’t seen much more than that in her eyes. Shimmering damply, they were filled with such tormented need, a hunger that he recognized, one he knew went clear to the soul.

It was a hunger he recognized because it was the same hunger that had tormented him for too long. So many years dreaming of her, and she was better than the dream. Sweeter than passion, hotter than lust.

Silky wet with the juices gathering inside her, coating his dick with syrupy heat and lubricating each heavy thrust inside her.

Delicate muscles clamped on his cock, stroked over him with a tight-fisted grip, and nearly destroyed his determination to go slow. To take her easy. To relish every fucking minute inside her when he wanted nothing more than to pound into her pussy with greedy, harsh strokes.

He was a hard lover. He had always known that. Sometimes, he hated that part of his sensuality, because going slow and easy had always taken thought. He had to think his way through each thrust to keep his head. Until Crista. Taking her slow and easy was—damn, it was easy. He wasn’t thinking, he was relishing, enjoying, burning alive in her heat.

“I shouldn’t have taken you so hard yesterday,” he crooned, suddenly wondering if he had been too rough with her after all, if he had hurt her.

She was delicate, tender. Not like the other women he had been with, women who knew and anticipated that hardened side of his sexuality.

“Dawg.” She was panting. Those stiff little nipples were pushing closer to his face as her lips parted to drag in more air. “Please…” her head tossed on the pillow. “Not like this.”

Not like this?

He pushed inside her, deep, forcing himself to stop, to make her feel as his dick throbbed inside her.

“You’re wrapped around me like a fist,” he gritted out. “Feel it, Crista. I can. Your pussy is working over my dick like a hot little mouth starving for satisfaction. Deny you want this. Just like this.”

He flexed inside her again, feeling the head of his cock stroking her, the crown positioned just right to notch the flared, stiffened edge into her G-spot. He stroked her internally, watching her eyes darken, her face flush a delicate pink as the pleasure began to build higher, hotter.