They were locked tight, their bodies connected and he wanted to stay there. He pushed at her heavy fall of hair. She didn’t look at him. She kept her face turned away and her eyes closed tight. He felt the little hitch in her breath. She was going to cry, and this wasn’t about pleasure or need, this was something altogether different. This was about shame.

“Don’t.” He ordered it. Meant it.

Her hands curled at his shoulders. She exerted pressure. He didn’t move. He decided on honesty.

“I’m trying to think of something to say that will help you understand what’s going on, baby, but all I can think about is how much I love being inside of you. You’re scorching hot and fucking tight, wrapped around me and I feel like I’m in paradise. I don’t want that to end. Tell me how it feels to you.”

Little aftershocks were still going off and he felt every one of them. Her muscles squeezed down with hot greed, still trying to milk him.

“This isn’t me.”

“It’s you, Cat. This is you. You don’t just like sex—you love it. You have more passion in your little finger than most people do in their entire bodies.”

“I’m naked on the kitchen floor.”

“That’s right, baby, and it was heaven. I want to do you in every fucking room I have. Outside. Inside. Hell, on the roof.”

“This isn’t me,” she denied, biting her lower lip.

He leaned down and licked along her lip to soothe the sting. The action set off another series of aftershocks and she gasped.

“This is you, Catarina. It was you wanting to please me when I told you to get on your knees. You didn’t have to, but you wanted to.”

He saw the truth on her face. She had wanted to. He leaned closer and brushed his mouth over hers. “I bet my taste is still in your mouth. You wanted all of it, didn’t you? You didn’t want to stop.”

A single sound slipped from her throat. Her lashes fluttered.

“It wasn’t about what you could get from me. You knelt in front of me and you were wet, dripping wet with your mouth around my cock. That was you. All you. There’s nothing wrong with being that person. In fact, you should be rejoicing. People go their entire lives without ever having what we just had.”

“I don’t want this to be me. I want to have love in my life. I want to be loved. I don’t want to be the kind of person who uses a man for sex and has him use me.”