I was vaguely aware of Soren’s deep groan, the way his fingers were bruising into my hips, the way he was rocking up into me.

So when I came back down, I was surprised to find him still rock-hard inside me.

His gaze was still heated as his hands floated up my belly, over my breasts, then slid around me, pulling until I was lowering against him.

As soon as I was, he rolled me back under him.

His lips pressed into mine, kissing me for what felt like a lifetime—yet somehow not long enough.

But then he was—finally—moving.

His thrusts were slow and deep, forcing me to feel each thick inch of him.

I thought that, as his need grew, he would start to move faster, to ease the stranglehold of intimacy gripping my system.

But even when I tried to rock against him, he stayed stubbornly slow and sweet. If anything, he may have even gone slower, kissed me deeper.

It wasn’t long before the chest-tightening panic I was feeling at the way he unmoored me, the way he unexpectedly exposed vulnerabilities I hadn’t even known existed.

I was all raw, exposed yearning.

For… something.

Something I was sure might undo me completely if I got it.

And I was terrified that Soren was going to be the one to give it to me. Whether I wanted it or not.

But just as the knowledge of that begged me to run, Soren was pushing me right to that edge.

“There,” he murmured, lifting up to look down at me. “No,” he said as my eyelashes started to flutter closed. Close. I was so close. “I want to watch as you fall apart for me.”

Before I could even wrap my head around the truth of that phrasing, the orgasm was rolling through me—a deep, hard, pulsing pleasure that seemed to overtake my whole body as I shook, as I moaned, as I cried out his name.

I was helpless but to cling to him, to bury my face in his neck, like if I didn’t hold on, I might shatter apart.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he murmured as his hips kept surging into me, dragging it out. “So sweet for me,” he went on, making my heart clench. “So…” his voice was getting rough as his body tensed, “perfect,” he added, pressing deep, his body shuddering as he came with my name on his lips.

My own orgasm finally released its grip on me. And I realized with a horrified shaking sensation in my chest and stomach that there was wetness on my cheeks, clinging to my lashes.

Panic surged, a fluttery feeling moving through my muscles, a tightness in my chest.

“Don’t run,” Soren demanded, voice low.

How did he know that every nerve ending in my body was firing off, begging me to escape, to get away from all these sticky, complicated feelings?