“Ah, Nova, I love the way you beg,” he growled, his hand gripping my throat and jaw. “Look at you, all perfectly bright and shiny, like the stars your parents must have named you for, coming to play in my darkness.” He tilted my face to his so he could roughly take my mouth again. My mother used to say that still waters ran deep, and fuck, there was so much pent-up passion in Devan, I wasn’t sure that I could take it all. “Are you going to be mine, Little Star? Are you going to burn hot just for me?”

I wasn’t above begging. “Please, Devan.” If he didn’t touch me, didn’t relieve some of this pressure, I was going to lose my mind.

He curled back up into a kneeling position, and his body loomed over me. He was so fucking beautiful. Sleek lines and golden skin, those dark eyes that were normally so impenetrable now broadcasting his desire like a beacon. “You say stop, we stop. I don’t even care if you don’t mean it. The word passes your lips, it all ends, okay?”

A part of me that wasn’t consumed by lust right at that moment melted at his words. I nodded. “Yes.”

Devan climbed off the couch, slipping his now crushed dress pants down his legs. I tried not to be embarrassed by the wet patch now darkening the gray fabric. Actually, I didn’t get much time to be embarrassed by anything, because soon Devan was on his knees between my thighs.

Dragging my ass toward the edge of the huge sofa, he hooked his fingers around my underwear and tugged them off, dropping them on the floor somewhere. “Fuck,” he breathed, and there was something about his tone that chased away the nerves of the moment. It might have been the reverence, or the way he ran his tongue over his full bottom lip, like he was imagining how I would taste.

He didn’t have to imagine for long. Gripping my thighs, he spread me wider, supporting himself with my thighs as he leaned forward and licked along my seam with one long stroke. His tongue flicked across my clit, and I hissed.

Then he started again, stroking through my folds in long, languorous strokes until I was riding his face. Letting go of one thigh, a rough “Keep this here,” passing his shiny lips, he thrust two fingers inside of me, curling them up, my body bowing with him as pleasure made me gasp. Then he scraped his teeth over my clit, and I came on a scream.

When I opened my eyes, I realized he was watching me come like it was the most fascinating thing on the planet. My cheeks flushed even redder, but he made no effort to move. “I need you inside me.”