A whimper spills from my lips and heat rushes out through every limb. I feel like I could turn to putty for him and his filthy words. Crass words that are reverent at the same time. So full of admiration. Possession.

“Stop fucking around and show me how pretty you look with your fingers shoved inside, baby.” His voice sounds strangled as he moves his eyes to mine. There’s something on his face I can’t quite place. A vulnerability that pops up only now and then.

A look that says he needs me as badly as I need him. In one smooth movement, I slide one finger in, then two. But he doesn’t watch between my legs, his eyes stay on my face. A blush rushes over my cheeks.

This should feel dirty, a bit playful, but it feels like worship and he’s not even touching me.

“Has anybody ever told you how incredible you are, Willa?” I swallow. “How fun? How smart? How goddamn witty?”

Fuck. His words are like a baseball bat to the chest. Totally out of left field.

My lips pop open, and only a small squeaking sound comes out. I try to cover by saying, “What about pretty? I get that a lot.” Because I’m not sure incredible has ever really happened.

He shakes his head before stepping into the hot tub, still wearing those lounge pants that skim his body so deliciously.

He drops into the water, toned arms gliding him across to me in one smooth movement. “You’re still weari—”

“No. Pretty girls don’t make me feel like this.” His hand wraps around my calf while the other comes to hold my hand between my legs. He takes control of that hand, making me pump in and out of myself a couple of times.

“Like what?” I breathe, head tilted down, eyes fixed on the man submerged between my legs.

“Totally out of control.”

And then he drops his mouth to me. My head tips back, and he makes me feel totally out of control too.

He sucks at my clit. Licks at my lips. Hums like he loves the taste. All while still working my hand with his.

“Keep going, baby,” is all he says when he draws his hand away to grip my thigh.

My legs end up wrapped around his neck, one hand propped on the deck while Cade Eaton lays me out and makes a meal of me.

It’s the corded muscles in his back, the sight of wet fabric beneath the water—proof that he couldn’t hold himself back even a second longer—that has me barreling quickly toward that cliff.

The same one he’s been pushing me off for about the last twenty-four hours.

The one he’s always at the bottom of to catch me when I fall.

And fall I do.