“Rafe!” I rasped. “I need to come. Let me come.” I repeated the plea until it became a continuous prayer. I didn’t know how he did it, but he was skilled at keeping me on edge. His tongue and fingers brought me higher, and my cries tore through the loft. Nothing on Earth felt as good as him between my thighs, licking and sucking, entering a finger and curling it just the right way.

Holy fuck.

He entered another finger, moved his mouth to my inner thigh, and bit down. His fingers worked me as I arched above the bed with a shriek. His teeth sank in deeper and that bite spread through me until I was out of control and lost in helplessness. He brought a hand up and twisted my nipple, eliciting a full-on scream.

Don’t let go of the bars…whatever you do, don’t let go.

“Please…please…give it to me.”

He pulled away and sat on his haunches, and I cussed at him, out of my mind as blood pumped to my core and begged for release. My foul-mouthed rant seemed to amuse him. “You’re an instrument I like to play. I can strum you for hours. I like you this way—wild, desperate, and fucking insane with lust.”

“Will you ever forgive me?” I squirmed as salty frustration drenched my cheeks. “I’ll do anything. Please, I need you.”

“Forgiving you won’t erase the last eight years. I can’t just wipe that shit from my head.”

I flushed with shame, acutely aware of how I was spread before him, wet between my thighs while his mind dwelled in past horrors. “I’d do anything to go back, Rafe.”

His brows furrowed over contemplative eyes. “What am I to you? Some fantasy you held on to all these years? What do I mean to you?”

I groaned. “You’re my beginning, my end. You’re my everything.”

Slowly, his face relaxing in something close to tenderness, he slid up my body and folded me in his arms. “You sure know how to twist the knife, sweetheart.” With a heavy sigh, he pushed into me again. His strokes were just right. His hand on my nape, holding me in place as he nibbled at my neck, was just right. His body enveloped mine, like a cherished present he was carefully unwrapping.

He gripped my neck, sank his teeth in, and I screamed when the tsunami began. I pulsed and clenched around him, ached long and deep, and I couldn’t stem the howl erupting from my being. I clutched his hair, no longer able to hold on to metal when I could hold on to him, not with the way I was coming. And just as the tide ebbed, another wave crested. He never stopped thrusting, didn’t slow or quicken his pace. He worked my body as if I were made for him.