His thumb started skimming my cheek light and sweet as he prompted gently, “It’s just what?”

“I don’t know what,” I whispered.

He held my eyes and didn’t say anything.

Then I found my mouth telling him, “I lost control.”

He did a slow blink.

Then he asked, “Is this a bad thing?”

“I don’t know,” I began, watching him closely, then whispered, “Is it?”

He stared at me, eyes widening in unconcealed disbelief. Then, quick as a flash, both of his arms were super tight around me even as he pressed his head back into the pillows and roared with laughter.

About two seconds into his hilarity, he rolled us both, losing our connection as he did but settling with his weight on me, his hips between my legs, and his laughter sounding against the skin of my neck where he shoved his face.

“Brock,” I wheezed. “I… can’t…” He lifted his head and looked down at me, smiling huge as he planted one forearm in the bed, taking his weight off me, and curled his other hand around my neck right under my jaw. “Breathe,” I finished.

His thumb stroked my jaw as he kept smiling down at me but he didn’t say a word.

“Um… I think I should get up and—”

“Yeah, babe, you can get up in a second,” he interrupted me. “But first, let’s get somethin’ straight, all right?”

I held his eyes and bit my lip.

He looked at my mouth and pressed his lips together as his eyes danced.

Then he unpressed them to say, “I intend to spend a lot of time doin’ just what we did, adding variations, positions, different locations, and I’m gonna be creative.”

Oh my.

I felt the walls of my womb contract.

He went on. “You ever”—he dipped his face close, mouth and eyes still smiling—“ever lock onto your control while we’re enjoyin’ each other, I’ll know one thing. And that is, I’m not doin’ it right.”

Oh my.

“Brock—” I whispered, but stopped when his face dipped even closer.

“Baby, that was fuckin’ phenomenal. Nothin’ you did, not one thing, I didn’t like and most of it I fuckin’ loved. Mark this, sweetness, I like it wild and you… were… wild and I loved every fuckin’ minute of it. I do not know what the other men you took to your bed taught you but whatever it was, it was fucked. Lose that ghost in your eyes, Tess, because, baby, you’re a goddamned natural.”