It’s not about fucking her now. I just need her on a primal level. I need to be against her.

I move over her, drinking her with my lips, and then I turn my head and drink her with my cheek, letting my beard rasp across her skin.

She grabs my hair and pulls up my head now, looking me in the eyes. “Do I need to change your name to Captain Seriouspants? Captain Von Heartfelt-Dramapants?”

I growl and rise up out of her grip. I get off the table and I pull off my pants.

She reaches out and touches me. “Rex,” she whispers. “If every cock looked like that, I might actually enjoy getting dick pics. I might frame them and hang them up on the wall.”

I frown at the idea of other guys sending her dick pics. My fingers move to my shirt buttons, undoing them one after another.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking off my shirt.”

“I thought you always fuck with your clothes on,” she says.

“I usually do,” I say, moving to another button. I need my skin to be against her skin. It’s all I know.

“Then why are you unbuttoning it?” she asks. “How will you retain your crown as the world’s ultimate control freak if you don’t keep the shirt on?”

She’s going for a light tone, but there’s urgency in her voice, like maybe she wants me to wake up out of this trance I’ve gotten into, to get back to my shallow player’s moves, back to the safety of life’s bright surface where everything is just a bubble from a pink wand.

“I want my shirt off, that’s why,” I say.

“Umm…serious much?” She sits up on the edge of the table, now, legs dangling over the side. She tries for one of her funny expressions, head cocked to the side. Slightly accusatory.

She’s accusing me of breaking our rules by taking my shirt off. She wants me to bring the moves that I bring to my faceless lovers.

No fucking way.

I start on my cuffs. “It’s different with us. Don’t you feel it?” I say. My voice sounds rough, as though it’s coming from somewhere new. It’s unlike me to ask a question I don’t know the answer to.Don’t you feel it?

Does she?

“Earth to world-domination control freak,” she tries.

“I need to feel you,” I say.

She blinks, taking in my words. She glides a finger along my forearm. “Control freak, you’re breaking up.”

I muscle off the rest of my shirt, weary of the fucking buttons. Plastic pings on marble tile. “I don’t care if I’m breaking up.”

“Fuck,” she gusts out, gazing at my chest. Her hands press a path over my heart, my muscles. Exploring me, hungrily, as if she can’t stop herself.

I like that she can’t stop herself from touching me.

“What are you doing, Rex?” she demands, angry.

She’s angry at me for dragging her away from the jokes and the brightness, even as she responds to the pull of us.

“I want to feel you,” I say. And then I fist her hair and take her mouth in a rough kiss.

“Mmm!” she hums, holding me off with humor even as she gives into the kiss.

I give everything to the kiss. No more games.

I can feel it when she changes.