And again, when her body tenses to orgasm, I stop cold.

  “Damn you!” she screams.

  I smile even through my own deep pain. We both need to come. We’re getting closer. I reposition her again, back to how we started, and I nail her again. Only this time I use my hands to massage her folds, to spread them open so I can see that pretty little clit. My mouth waters, but I don’t touch her there.

  “Touch me,” she demands.

  I don’t.

  Those flutters in her body threaten to drag me down with her, but instead I slow. Because I know we’re finally both where I want us for this.

  I curl over her and take her lips in a long, hard kiss.

  God, she tastes like honey and strawberries, or maybe that’s just the scent of her shampoo messing with me. No matter what it is, she’s so fucking sweet. I drive my tongue into her mouth, mimicking what I’m doing with my dick in long, slow, leisurely strokes.

  And I’m waiting. For her to recognize me.

  14

  RYSSA

  My body is throbbing so hard from his taking me to the edge and leaving me stranded so many times that it takes me a minute to realize that he’s violated the no-kissing rule. And I don’t even care because the way he’s kissing me… It’s like he can’t get enough. Like he wants to devour me, and fuck me, and claim me, and protect me, and care for me all at the same time. Like he…

  Familiarity starts to penetrate the haze as my brain kicks in. I know this man.

  His taste. His lips.

  I gasp as realization slams into me. “Zach?”

  He rips off my blindfold, and those amazing, intense blue eyes pin me to the bed.

  “I am more than fucking interested,” he growls, that deep voice of his sending shivers racing all over my body.

  He thrusts into me, hard, and I whimper. I can’t process all these sensations. Is this real? Or have I jumped off the deep end of my fantasies and can’t find my way back? Do I even want to come back?

  He traces my lips with his tongue. “This isn’t how I wanted this to go. I wanted to talk to you first, tell you how I feel. How you make me feel.” He thrusts again, and my eyes roll back in my head. “That’s why I stopped this morning. I wanted to win you first. Look at me, Ryssa.”

  I’m so close, still dangling over that precipice he’s kept me at for way too long, but I obey.

  Those blue eyes blaze into mine, and he stills. “I want to be more to you than just a fuck.”

  The words nearly push me over the edge, and my mouth falls opens on a moan. I clutch at his arms, his chest. He’s real; this is real. I wasn’t just imagining Zach Kayle blowing my mind and obliterating my body—he was actually doing it. Still is. And he wants more.

  My fantasy man could be my…reality?

  My heart takes off at a sprint.

  Zach thrusts into me again, almost like he can’t help it, and groans. “I’ve dreamed about doing all these things to you for a year,” he says.

  Shock ricochets through me. “A year?”

  Another hard thrust of his hips. “My list of dirty things I want to do to you, and have you do to me, puts yours to shame.”

  “Why—” I lick my lips and try again. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  He starts pumping a steady rhythm, and I’m right there with him, angling up into his thrusts. He times his words to the beat of our bodies. “You’re so smart, and sweet, and I’m not good enough for you. Too rough. Too damaged. But dammit, your body was made for mine. Made for me to fuck you.”

  He fucks me harder when he says the word.

  “I want to be what you need. Anything you need.” Again with another hard pump, his balls slapping my ass. “I’m not letting you go without a fight.” Harder again, and I shudder under the heat from his words, his body. I close my eyes, reveling in what he’s doing to me.

  “No. Look at me.”

  I can’t not obey his command.

  “Do you want me to fuck you?”

  I nod.

  “Say it.” He doesn’t stop his motion, though. “Tell me with those lips that have been wrapped around my cock that you want me…me, Zach Kayle…to fuck you until you scream my name.”

  I swallow. Emotions pour through me. This strong, kind, hot man wants me. He has no idea how badly I want him. Have wanted him for months. How could I not say it? I bite my lip and he groans, then smooths his thumb over my lower lip.

  “Take off the condom,” I say.

  He freezes. “What?”

  “I want to feel you. Skin to skin. I’m on birth control, and I trust you. Take it off.”

  A wild light enters his eyes. He pulls out, rips the condom off, and slides back inside me in a matter of seconds, and holy hell he feels fucking amazing.

  But he doesn’t start thrusting. Instead he clenches his jaw. “You still haven’t said it.”

  I know what he wants. And I want to give it to him, because it’s absolutely true. “I want you, Zach. I want you more than just for tonight. You were who I was picturing all along.”

  I barely get the words out before he’s slamming into me. Driving into me like a man possessed. “Fuck, baby. You are so hot, so wet. For me. Every time you bite those lips I want them wrapped around my cock. And when you talk all science-y, I want to bend you over the couch and just lay into you.”

  For a man who had to keep silent until now—hell, who’s pretty damn stoic most of the time in general—he’s definitely talking now. And it’s so deliciously dirty. He did in the elevator, too. And then in his apartment. It’s like he can’t keep it all in when we’re like this.

  I kind of love that.

  “You feel so good. Like our bodies were built to fit together. Do you feel it?”

  His grip on my hips is almost bruising. The bed slams into the wall again and again as his cock pistons into me. My neighbors are going to file a complaint, but I don’t give a shit. I’m too far gone.

  “Do you feel it, Ryssa?”

  “I feel it,” I whisper.

  “What do you feel?”

  I smile. My dirty-talking cop likes it when I reciprocate. “I feel your thick, hard cock fucking me like I’m yours.”

  He groans. “Fuck, baby. That’s right. Only my cock inside you.”

  “Only yours,” I pant, my back arching from the bed. “Only you.”

  He shudders above me, and my eyes drift shut. I’m so close. So fucking close. The tension is coiled inside me so tightly I might explode for real. Devastating tingles course from my core and burn through my body.

  His mouth is all over me, claiming my lips, branding me as his. “Look at me.”

  I open my eyes, smiling again, even as my body coils tighter. With all his intense staring, I shouldn’t be surprised he likes eye contact. I’m going to enjoy learning how to make Officer Kayle lose control.

  “I’m going to fill you up with my come,” he growls. “You’re going to be so full, it’ll be dripping down your legs.”

  Holy shit.

  “You want that, don’t you? My come inside you?”

  “Yes,” I moan, ready to come on the mental image alone.

  He cants his hips, hitting that spot inside me. My body responds, the tingling pulling inward in a rush before blasting outward.

  “Zach!” I scream as my orgasm rips through me. “Oh, fuck, Zach!”

  My orgasm pulls him over into the abyss with me.

  His body tenses, his face tightening. He grinds into me, spilling into me in hot spurts I can feel, shuddering and groaning with each thrust.

  Wave after wave of ecstasy buffets me. The feel of his come drives my orgasm even higher, tossing me around like the ocean in a storm. But Zach is my anchor.

  We ride it out together, sensations ripping through me before gradually slowing, easing. Leaving me fulfilled in the most wonderful, decadent way.

  His thrusts turn into slow, lazy slides, his seed leaking out between us. He matches the pace of our bodies, our breathing, until, finally, he stops. Still buried deep inside me.

  We stare at each other. The logical voice in the back of my head tells me that I should be pissed. I should be furious. Kristen was supposed to find me a total stranger, and Zach is definitely not that. She knew how I felt about him, even if I refused to admit it.

  But knowing how much he wants me, how much he’s wanted me for a while, cancels all that out, because maybe she knew how he felt, too? All I know is that I’m utterly satisfied. The kind of satisfied that comes from eating the richest fudge cake and falling asleep in the arms of a lover.

  Zach’s arms.

  He smooths my hair from my face and gives me a sweet, lingering kiss. “Please say something?”

  It strikes me then that his stoic facade hides something deeper. Something I’d guessed the day I met Jonas and realized there’s more to Officer Kayle than meets the eye, but couldn’t confirm until this moment.

  He’s vulnerable. Unsure of himself. So much so, he’s afraid I’m going to reject him.

  What’s happened to this strong, kindhearted man?

  I decide in that moment I’ll find out and fix it. But first, I’m going to make him sweat a little. He did lie to me, even if his intentions were good.

  When I don’t speak, he frowns. With a deep sigh, he grabs a small key ring off my nightstand and reaches up to fiddle with the handcuffs.

  My arms are suddenly free. I pluck the cuffs out of his hands and turn them side to side, inspecting them. “I never expected to have a handcuff fetish.”

  Zach stays quiet. Watchful.

  I smile up at him then, knowing there’s no way I can make him wait. I’m not cruel. “Maybe it’s because I’ve developed a fetish for a certain cop.”

  A slow smile spreads across his face, lighting those eyes with a happy intensity that trips my heart up. Then he mock-frowns. “Better be the cop between your legs right now.”

  I grin at his teasing, floating within my own kind of beautiful happiness. “Definitely. And I’m having thoughts that make me a bad, bad girl.”

  His cock twitches inside me, swelling a little. “What kind of thoughts?”

  I lean up to trace his lips with my tongue, like he did to me earlier, and he groans. “Dirty thoughts. Filthy thoughts,” I whisper. “We haven’t hit everything on my list, and I’ve got lots more to add. I’m pretty sure most of my ideas are not legal.”

  Another groan and he buries his face in my neck, breathing hard. “I only want you doing those things with me, Ryssa.” He lifts his head and pins me with a look that both commands me to obey and begs me to never let him go. “Only me.”

  I laugh and hold out the cuffs. “Then I guess you’d better lock me up and throw away the key, Officer.”

  EPILOGUE

  RYSSA

  SIX MONTHS LATER...

  “Only one more box, baby.” Zach drops the one he’s carrying in the kitchen and tugs me into his arms, kissing me in that intense need-to-devour-me kind of way I love so much.

  I glance around the two-bedroom apartment we’re moving into together. After half a year of constantly being in one or the other of our places, spending every night in one of our beds, we decided it’d be a hell of a lot cheaper to live in the same place. So Zach contacted the super and asked to rent the newly vacant unit down the hall.

  Money wasn’t the main motivation, though.

  I’m so in love with this man I ache with it.

  Kristen makes a gagging noise as she walks in with the last box. “Ugh, get a room, you two.”

  “You know what you need?” I ask.

  She narrows her eyes. “Do I want to know?”

  I grin. “You need to be fucked, good and hard. Have you tried the anonymous lover thing? Because that really worked for me.”

  Zach’s arms tighten around me as he grins.

  I continue teasing Kristen. “I know this guy—”

  Kristen drops her box and holds up both hands, backing out the door. “No way. I don’t want to fall in love and become some kind of smoochy asshole like you guys. I’m out.”

  She practically runs across the hall to her place. We both laugh when her door slams.

  Zach closes our door and flips the locks. Grinning, he tugs me back into his arms and gives me one of the sweet kisses I love so much. “She doesn’t know what she’s missing.”

  I smile. I feel like I do that a lot these days. “No. Because loving you is the best thing to ever happen to me.”

  He nuzzles my neck. “Me, too, baby.”

  With a contented, albeit exhausted, sigh, we fall onto the couch. Boxes might be everywhere, but that’s okay. We’ll unpack later. For now, I just want to cuddle with my fantasy guy in our new apartment.

  He reaches for the hem of my ratty old T-shirt, and I playfully slap his hand away.

  “I just want to see what you’ve been hiding under there,” he says. I love his reactions to my lingerie almost as much as he loves peeling me out of it.

  “I hate to disappoint you, babe, but it’s just plain cotton. We’ve been moving all day, and I didn’t want to ruin anything special.”

  Zach gives up, pulling me up against him. I snuggle into him, hiding a secret smile at what he’ll really find under my clothes. Later. I sigh as he tucks my head into the crook of his neck, running his hand over my hair. This is nice.

  “Are you hungry?” he asks.

  “Not if it’s your turn to cook,” I tease.

  Zach pinches my hip, and I giggle.

  The man seriously can’t cook. Toast stretches his culinary skills to the limit, and even then, it’s usually burned. I honestly have no idea how he’s survived so long. But that’s okay. I’m teaching him some simple things, and I like to cook when I have time. More often than not, though, one of us picks up takeout because our combined schedules suck.

  “Maybe we can order pizza?” I offer.

  “Later,” he says.

  Fine by me. I’m not hungry for food right now anyway.

  “When should we invite the Morrows over?” I ask.

  I’ve learned that Zach’s childhood was rough, but the man who inspired him to be a cop also welcomed him into his family and made Zach an honorary Morrow. Their son, Jason, is more like Zach’s brother than a friend.

  I love the Morrows for that.

  Jason’s the soldier Zach mentioned coming home from Afghanistan. It was only for a few days and he’s been deployed ever since, but word has it he’ll be home on leave soon. I’ll get to meet him then, but Zach introduced me to Mr. and Mrs. Morrow shortly after we started dating. So cute, too, because I could tell he was nervous about scaring me off, but he also wanted the people who love him to know me. His nerves ended up calming my own fears. Now I couldn’t imagine life without them included.

  “Judy did say something about a housewarming, or apartment warming, as the case may be.” He lazily draws circles on my leg with one finger. So far, he’s keeping it PG, staying down around my knee, but I’m already feeling that touch in other places.

  “When?” Please not this weekend. I can’t stand the thought of showing this place to anyone in its current state.

  “She said to let her know once we felt moved in and settled.”

  I relax at that. “Good.”

  “Plenty of time to make it all perfect.”

  I nod against him happily. He knows me so well.

  “I have some news,” I murmur. I’m trying to play it casual, but this one is a big deal.

  “Oh?”

  Shortly after Zach and I got together, the laboratory position above mine opened up. I wasn’t going to apply for it—competition in my lab is stiff, and so many of the men have been there longer than me—but Zach encouraged me to go for it.

  “What do you have to lose?” he’d asked.

  My dignity, for one. I’d kept that bit to myself, because Zach gets pissed when I talk about some of the misogynistic bullshit that goes on in my world.

  The thing about glass ceilings is, you have to keep breaking them.

  “I got the promotion.”

  His hand stills on my thigh, and I peek at him from under my lashes to gauge his reaction. His smile starts slow, filling his eyes before forming on his lips. I love it when he looks at me like this. It’s like I’m the brightest star in the sky, and he wants to wish on me forever.

  He plants a kiss on my mouth. “That’s fantastic. You’ve earned this.”

  I linger over another kiss, then smile at him. “Thanks. And you know the best part?”

  He cocks his head, eyebrows raised.

  “I get to hire my own lab assistants to do the grunt work, and I finally get decent hours.”

  Zach drops his head against the couch with a gusty, “Thank God for that.”

  I won’t lie, in the last months, between my being at the lab constantly and his abnormal hours as an officer, we’ve had to get creative with spending time together. It’s been well worth the effort, but this will make things much, much easier.

  Zach lifts his head and pulls me back into snuggling. “I’m just glad that you can stop working yourself to death.”

  “Says the ultimate workaholic.” The man takes responsibility to a level that most people require guilt to get to. But I love that about him. He includes me in the short list of his responsibilities, making me feel safe, and cared for, and precious.

  He hums in response, which is his way of avoiding a topic. He resumes tracing patterns on my thigh. Another distraction. I wonder if he’ll keep going higher. My core is already fluttering at the idea.

  After all, he’d sort of promised to fulfill one of my fantasies tonight. It’s one of his, too, so I’m doubly excited. But after a long day moving, maybe we’re both too tired.

  “We should celebrate your promotion,” he says into my hair.

  “Hmm. I was sort of thinking we might break in the fire escape.”

  His hand pauses.

  He’s never said anything, but I figured out a long time ago that fulfilling that particular fantasy of mine was a big step for him. Zach’s a cop. Getting hit with indecent exposure could really hurt his career. The fact that he did it for me anyway secretly makes me smile whenever I see a fire escape. And there are a ton of those in New York City, so I smile a lot.

 

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