Sensations flew too quickly to separate one from the other, but all were dark and keen and compelling. His hands were everywhere, tugging up her shirt, claiming her breasts, scraping those deliciously rough palms over her. She felt him quiver, gripped his shoulders to balance them both.

Then he was yanking at her shorts.

No! Part of her mind drew back in shock, all but screamed it. He couldn’t mean to take her, here, like this, only yards away from where people sat and children played. But another part of her simply moaned in shocked excitement and whispered yes.

Here. Now. Like this. Exactly like this.

When he drove into her, her scream would have carried some of both, but it was swallowed by his mouth, lost in his ragged breaths.

He thrust hard, fast, deep, his body surging into hers, his hands biting into her tight, round bottom as he plunged. His mind was wiped clean of everything but this one desperate need. When she came, exploding over him, around him, in him, his thrill was dark and primal and coated his skin with sweat.

His own climax had claws, hot-tipped, razor-sharp, that ripped through him brutally, so that his vision went red.

Even when it cleared he continued to shudder, to pant. Gradually he became aware of what was. He heard the wild drumming of a woodpecker deeper in the woods, the tinkle of laughter from beyond the trees. And Grace’s sobbing breaths.

He felt the breezing cooling his skin. And her trembles.

‘‘Oh, God. Goddamn it.’’ His curse was quiet, vicious.

‘‘Ethan?’’ She hadn’t known, would never have believed anyone could have such a need inside them. For her. ‘‘Ethan,’’ she said again and would have lifted her weak arms around him if he hadn’t stepped back.

‘‘I’m sorry. I—’’ There weren’t words. Nothing he could say would be right, would be enough. He bent, slipped her shorts back up, fastened them. With the same deliberate care, he straightened her shirt. ‘‘I can’t offer you an excuse for that. There isn’t any.’’

‘‘I don’t want an excuse. I don’t ever need one for what we do together, Ethan.’’

He stared at the ground while a sick pounding began in his head. ‘‘I didn’t give you a choice.’’ He knew what it was not to have a choice.

‘‘I’ve already made my choice. I love you.’’

He looked at her then, everything that lived inside of him swirling into his eyes. Her mouth was swollen where he’d ravished it. Her eyes were enormous. Her body would carry bruises from his hands. ‘‘You deserve better.’’