She leaned in to kiss me again before whispering, “I mean, do you want to move to your bed?”

I closed my eyes, struggling against the way my brain wanted to pick up that question and consider it too carefully. Getting up and walking to my bedroom would ricochet us out of this place of lust and relief that felt so bloody good. I didn’t want to move an inch. I would think too much about what this meant, what I felt, that I’d never had sex in that bed, and that I’d only put a name to Ruby’s face just under four weeks ago.

My brain wanted to be sure about all of this.

Stop.

No.

No.

“No.” I bent, kissing her neck as my hands on her backside urged her closer, pressing her, slick and warm, against my shaft. “I don’t want to move.”

Her hips circled and she shifted up until I knew a simple arch of my hips would push me inside her.

“Christ,” I groaned. I’d forgotten—or maybe I’d never truly known—how desire could be clutching and mindless and wild. I wasn’t myself. I was a man who wanted pleasure, wanted to fuck, and was free to do it for the first time in my life.

“Shit. Protection,” I managed.

“I’m clean,” she said on a tight gasp. “I’m covered.”

Her eyes met mine, the question lingering there.

“Come over me, darling,” I whispered.

With a groan, I lifted up as she lowered herself and she choked out a small noise that sounded so much like pain and pleasure I nearly stabbed upward with how savage it made me.

“Wait,” she whispered, her voice coming out so small and tight I pulled back to assess her face. She stared at my mouth, her own lips wet and parted . . . and she looked fucking sublime.

“Let me . . . just . . . get used to . . .” Her eyes rolled closed and she let loose these delicious, hoarse cries every inch she lowered herself onto me.

I struggled to remain still, my thoughts obscured by the silken feel of her . . . her body tensing so tight around me . . . her splintered gasps . . . the way her hands urged my head down to her chest.

When I was fully inside her she began to shift in perfect, tiny, maddening circles. Her nails dug into the back of my neck and she squeezed me, breasts pressed to my face, whispering her broken thoughts right into my ear:

Niall

Oh, God

I won’t

It’s so

She was getting off, using my body, and began to rise more each time, push harder onto me in her return. Her fingers slid higher and gripped my hair, her hot mouth sucked and scraped at my neck. The smell and taste of her, the warmth of her thighs and her breasts as her skin brushed across mine, the decadent slide and suction of her along my length; it was like being submerged completely, not needing or wanting to come up for air.

And her sounds, oh. I’d never heard such honest expression of pleasure, tight and sharp right against my ear. The sound and feel of her—the fucking bliss she allowed herself—chipped away at my foggy notion of sex, my frankly laughable experience to date. This was for her pleasure just as much as mine and the reality of it—what sex should be: an intimacy to be shared rather than endured—made a fever tear through me, burning across my skin.

I’d also never been so hard, or greedy to grab and feel and consume. Just when I thought there couldn’t possibly be more, she moved forward or leaned back, taking me further, drawing me in. I pulled her nipple into my mouth, sucking and cupping the other breast in my hand, wild for her to ride me recklessly, but wanting her to continue to chase the euphoria I could see all over her face, to get there before I would lose it.

Because I knew, with Ruby, I would.

I could feel the tension building in my thighs, the need to shove up and fuck, and take, and let go. I could feel this raw beast, clawing out of me, wanting sex like I’d never had but always needed: uninhibited and sweaty and hard.

Ruby’s movements became irregular and she pulled my mouth to hers, lips parted and pressed to mine, simply rocking over me, feeding me her moans and gasps and jagged exhales as she fucked me. Her hips faltered, hands clutching at me, and I felt her tighten just before she arched away, crying out as she came. Her warmth, the slick feel of her stuttering on top of me, and finally—fucking finally—the way she rode me hard as her orgasm began to peak unleashed the last bit of my control. The pleasure for me was impossible and I bent, pressing my teeth into the firm swell of her breast, groaning into her skin.

She collapsed into my chest and in a breath I lifted her, lowered her back to the plush carpet, and pulled her hips off the floor, sliding into her with a long, rough stab of my hips.