I was going to die. Death by orgasm. This man was quite literally going to fuck me to death, and I couldn’t possibly think of a better way to go. I’d had a good life. I was ready.

“Breathe,” he coaxed when he saw I was holding my breath. I exhaled a large gust of air and refilled my lungs as the pressure deep inside me began to grow.

I grabbed onto his back, digging my nails in deep like I was holding on for dear life. I worried for all of one second that I could possibly be hurting him, but then he pressed my knee up so high my thigh was flush with my chest, and he began to pound into me like a man possessed. He liked that little bite of pain. He got off on that, and that gotmeoff.

“I feel you, Marin. You’re so close.” Grabbing one of my hands, he wove his fingers through mine and pressed it into the pillows above my head, holding me captive. He’d given me exactly what I’d asked for. I could feel himeverywhere. His chest hair abraded my sensitive nipples. His erection rubbed against a place deep inside me no man had ever reached before. He was all I could see, all I could smell. The only sounds in the room were our labored breathes and needy moans.

Once again, he’d overtaken everything, and I loved it.

“Stop holding back,” he gritted.

“I’m not,” I whimpered, biting my lower lip. I was lying, but I didn’t want this to end. I wanted to stay like this forever and ever, amen.

“I can feel you, baby. Stop fighting it and let go.”

I felt the sudden humiliating urge to cry. I didn’t understand why. All I could figure was I was just feeling too much of everything.

“I don’t want you to stop,” I admitted. “I never want you to stop, Pierce.”

“This is just the beginning,” he assured me. “We’ll do this again.” Thrust. “And again.” Snap. “And again.” Rotate. “I knew all it would take was one time for me to be addicted to your pussy.”

I lost the tenuous grip I had on my control. Something inside me snapped, and I went off. Every muscle in my body locked tight, my sex clamped down around Pierce like a vise, and I peppered his name among unintelligible ramblings until my throat began to burn.

I came until I saw stars dance behind my eyelids, and when I felt the hot spurts of his release shoot inside me, I spiraled down into the abyss again.

It was, hands down, the best orgasm I’d ever had. It was the best sex anyone in the history of time ever had. No one could have done better or would ever do better than Pierce just had. I was certain of it.

“Holy shit,” he panted, releasing my leg so he could collapse on top of me in a pile of sated, liquefied limbs. “I knew you’d feel amazing, but I never could have imagined it would be this good.”

His hand still held mine pinned to the bed. He was still everywhere, and I was feeling smug as hell. “I think you may have just killed me. I’m dead right now. I hope you’re okay with fucking a ghost from here on out.”

His whole body shook against me as he laughed, and while I would have loved to see it, it was just as nice to feel it against my skin as he buried his face in my neck.

“I’ll let you get some rest while I rehydrate, but just a heads-up, that was only the starter. There’s still so much I plan to do to you before the night’s over.”

That giddiness came back in full force as I lifted my free hand high above my head and squeaked, “Yay.”

That time, I got to see his laugh, and it was as gorgeous as always.

21

Pierce

The feeling in my chest wouldn’t go away. It was a tightness, a pressure that had formed the moment I slid into Marin’s hot, wet sheath, and it hadn’t disappeared or even lightened since then.

The clock on my bedside table read three in the morning. I’d had her two more times after our first, and still, I felt a clawing need deep in my gut for more. More of her taste, more of her smell, more of the feel of her soft skin against mine and the sound of her throaty, sexy voice.

More, more, more, more.

I couldn’t get enough ofanythingwhen it came to her. I couldn’t stop touching her. When she climbed out of the bed and moved into the bathroom to clean up, I found myself following after her simply so I could press my chest against her back and loop my arms around her from behind as she stood at the sink. I wanted to hold on to her and stare at the reflection of us in the mirror as she washed her hands. I wanted the visual confirmation that we really did fit together as perfectly as I expected.

When we were in bed together, I couldn’t stop my hands from roaming, my lips and tongue from tasting. Only one night and I’d managed to memorize every single inch of her. I knew now, without a shadow of a doubt, that everything about her was now burned into my brain for the rest of my life.

That first initial fix was all it took for me to become a junkie. But as I lay in my bed on my back, one arm propped behind my head while the other held her tightly against my side, the realization that scared me the most was that it wasn’t just the physical part that had sucked me into her orbit. It waseverythingabout her.

Yes, I’d been hoping I’d eventually be able to work this attraction from under my skin if I just gave in to my physical desire for her. But now I wasn’t so sure that would work. I feared that the more I had her, the deeper she’d burrow inside me.

She stirred against me, pulling me from the melancholy fog that had drifted over me. I twisted my neck just as her eyes fluttered open, that whiskey color warming me from the inside out like I’d just downed a shot.