It barely moved—his ass was too big and round and strong for a casual slipping off of pants. A chuckle from his nose before he broke the kiss, his hand moving to my face, then my collarbone, then my breast in passing. He knelt between my legs, his eyes roaming my body as his hands did their work. And I watched those hands, hands that tilled earth, harnessing it to grow what he wished. Strong, square hands with long fingers and rough palms that rid him of his jeans, but not before he pulled a condom out of his wallet.

And there he was, every naked inch of Kash Bennet. Corded thighs dusted with dark hair. Narrow hips with hard ridges. Those hands tore open the packet, gripped his base, rolling the condom down with a swift stroke and an answering pump. My pulse fluttered, breasts rising and falling rapidly, heavy and aching. An echoing ache deep in the very core of me, a drawing of muscles that knew how he would feel in their grip and who needed to feel it.

Needed him.

But not before he descended, pressing the full length of his body against the full length of mine, lips on a track for mine, undeterred. This kiss was different—deeper but not by force. By weight of emotion, of desire. It was reverent anticipation, quiet demand. It was a reckoning, a calculation of map points—mine and his—and the determination to close that space by the quickest means: a line.

And that line between us would be breached, or so help us both.

That kiss was a meeting, a linking of self, a connection of body and of hearts. It was chemistry, alive and deep, the programming unbreakable. And I should have been afraid of it.

Stupidly, I wasn’t.

The thought faded with the slip of his tongue and the feel of his fingers in my hair. The weight of his body, the pleasurable helplessness of mine. His immense thigh nudging mine wider, the shift of his hips. The slick press of his crown against the hot center of me. The break of the kiss, the brush of our noses, our foreheads. The sound of our breath, thick with anticipation.

A flex of his hips, and he sank into me.

A gasp from my lips. A trembling breath from his.

Our bodies locked, frozen in a long moment of fullness and completeness.

His body rolled in a knowing, willful wave, pulling out only to fill me up again with a jolt. Another wave, a flex and release, and he pressed the place I needed him so desperately with a slam and a grind. I shifted beneath him, wanting to meet him, match him, but I found immediately that he knew better than I did. That he could do exactly what I needed without my help. And that he didn’t want my help. Kash fucked me like he had something to prove—not to himself and not to me. For me. That this was what it should be, that I should settle for nothing less.