“Wet,” I answered, looking up at him. “Hard.”

His gaze burned and he stared down at my fingers on him. When he smiled, he looked dangerous, and it made my heart slam into my chest.

“I know,” he said. He took in my tangled hair, picked up one of my dirty feet, and slid my ankle up his hip. “You’re a mess, you greedy f**king girl.”

He slowed, pulling almost all the way out until I panicked and wrapped my legs around his waist. It felt like a match had been lit inside my belly and it burned, spreading like wildfire down between my legs, serving only to increase the impatient need I felt.

As if sensing how close I was, Bennett pushed back into me, focused now on getting me there. He was sweaty, his hair damp from exertion, and a drop fell from his forehead onto my chest, and then another.

“Tell me how good it is,” he said, his voice low and commanding.

“I . . . I . . .”

With a sharp jab of his hips, he thrust harder into me. “Tell me, Chloe, how good the f**king is.”

I couldn’t answer, already starting to dissolve. He was wild: rough touches and punishing thrusts, flipping me on the bed and taking, taking, taking. My eyes closed, my cheek resting against the cool blankets when his hands fisted in my hair, forcing my head back as his mouth found my neck, each labored exhale sending waves of warm breath across my dampened skin. He kissed along my shoulders, his tongue reaching out to taste me, his teeth nipping and dragging along my skin. I arched my back, angling my hips to meet each push of his hips. My arms reached out, hands twisting in the sheets, my entire body shaking with the need to let go.

But he didn’t give me what I needed. Instead, he teased and took, and took some more, and then finally, with a determined set to his jaw, and more desperate need in his eyes than I’d seen in days, leaned in close, circling over me and giving—giving, giving—me an orgasm so intense it left me shaking and near tears in his arms. What had built in my belly to a low, heavy ache exploded up my spine and spilled like liquid heat into my limbs until my toes were curling. Fuck, it had been so long since I’d felt that: my body coming around him, trying to draw him in, greedy for every commanding inch. I worried my heart might smash through my ribs with how hard it was beating.

The relief in the epiphany—he wouldn’t change, he could only ever be this greedy, demanding Bastard—was such intense relief that I finally did give in to my emotions, shaking in his arms, clutching him until I caught my breath. But when I asked him what he wanted, and he groaned, “I want you to take over. I want you to wreck me,” I smiled, slowly climbing on top of him.

He was sweaty, hair dripping onto the pillow beneath him, and muscles bunched and coiled beneath smooth, tan skin. His eyes saw nothing in the room but me, flaring hotly at the anticipation of what I’d do. I looked him over: freshly f**ked hair, blazing hazel eyes, lips so wrecked from my mouth and skin they were red and chafed. His pulse hammered in his neck, and I dragged one finger down the sweaty center of his chest, over the vulnerability of his solar plexus, down to his belly button, and then followed the trail of hair leading to his cock, still wet from me, still hard and perfect and practically pulsing for my touch.

“No,” I said, running my hands back up his torso, reveling in the feel of him. It really wasn’t fair. In a perfect world, Bennett Ryan would be a manwhore so that more women would get to appreciate this body.

But let’s be honest: Fuck that.

“‘No’?” He repeated, eyes narrowing.

“You wore me out,” I said, shrugging. “I’m tired.”

“Chloe. Put the f**king dick in your mouth.”

“You’d like that?”

His nostrils flared, hips arching up into me seeming without intention on his part. “Now, Chloe.”

“Say please.”

Sitting up beneath me abruptly, he growled, “Chloe, please choke on my dick.”

I burst out laughing, curling into him and sliding my hands into that mess of sweaty, amazing hair. Leaning forward, I covered his mouth with mine, sucking and wet, hungry for the taste of him, the feel of his sounds. I kissed him for making me laugh, for making me scream. I kissed him for being the only person who truly understood me, for being so impossibly like me in some ways it was a wonder we ever agreed on anything. I kissed him for being Bennett Ryan, my Beautiful Bastard.

Against my lips, I felt him smiling, heard the quiet vibration of his laugh, muffled by my mouth. “I love you,” he said.

Pulling back, I nodded, whispering, “Me, too. I love you a scary amount.”