not cruel. I just want to protect myself, and if Levi doesn’t want to do the same . . . he’s stronger than I am.

“Maybe,” I say, noncommital, and watch Schrödinger gracefully steal to where Levi is standing. “So, what’s the plan for tonight?”

“What do you want to do?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. What do you want to do?”

He smiles at me mischievously. “I thought maybe we could go for a jog.”

• • •

I’D EXPECTED HIM to be reserved about sex.

Not that I’d thought about it very much, but if someone had held a gun to my head and forced me to guess, I’d have probably told them, “I bet Levi Ward is quiet in bed. Boring. Because he’s such a guarded person out of bed.

A few low grunts, maybe. A handful of words, all directives. Faster. Slower.

Actually, this other angle is better.” I’d have been wrong. Because there’s nothing reserved in the way he takes his pleasure out of my body. Nothing at all.

I’m not sure how I find myself spread out on my stomach in the middle of his bed, trying to breathe steadily as he traces the line of small tattoos down my spine.

“The UK,” he says, hoarse and a little shaky. “And—I don’t know this one.

Or the next. But Italy. Japan.”

“Italy’s—ah—a boot. Easy.” I push my forehead into the pillow, biting my lower lip. This would be easier if he weren’t inside me. If he hadn’t pushed to the side the green panties I’d bought to celebrate BLINK—the ones that I regretted the second Levi was announced as my co-lead, the ones I didn’t think I’d use anytime soon, the ones Levi stared at speechless for a whole minute—and slowly, inexorably slid in to the hilt.

“They’re pretty. The outlines.” He lowers himself to kiss the skin of my neck. It makes his cock shift inside me, and we both groan. It’s just embarrassing, the way my back arches, the way my ass bucks back into his abdomen like my body isn’t mine anymore. “You might be too tight this way.

It might be too good.”

Sex isn’t like this. I’m not like this. I’m not the type to come quickly, or uncontrollably, or loudly. I’m not the type to come very often. But there’s a place inside me that he hits. He found it last night, too, but now, in this

position, or maybe just because it’s slower . . . I don’t know what it is, but it’s even better.

He thrusts inside me a couple times, shallow, experimental, and I have to fist my hands into his sheets. They are shaking.

“They’re—” I have to stop. Collect myself. Clear my throat. Tense.

Release. “They’re my homes. All the places I’ve lived.”

“Beautiful.” He presses a soft kiss to the ball of my shoulder. “So damn beautiful,” he repeats, almost to himself, like it’s not about my tattoos anymore. Then the mattress shifts, I hear a frustrated groan, and all of a sudden I feel cold. He’s not touching me anymore. He has pulled back. Pulled out.

“What are you . . . ?” I try to turn around, but his hand splays between my shoulder blades to hold me down gently.

“Just trying to pace myself.” His voice is all strained, self-effacing amusement. I can’t see his smile, but I picture it in my head, faint, warm, beautiful. I take a deep, shuddering breath, trying to relax into the sheets, feeling his eyes roam my body. His fingers trail down my back and then he begins to arrange me ever so slightly, tilting my hips at a different angle.

Levi exhales. “All those years ago. And then later. There were lots of things that I imagined doing to you, but I always went back to . . .” He trails off. For a few seconds I hear very little, but it’s okay. I’m unwinding from the trembling, needy, overheated mess he makes of me, and it’s good to have a moment to calm down. It’ll be nice to keep some dignity in this bed—

The palms of his hands move between my legs and spread them apart.

My panties are yanked all the way to the side. I gasp, feeling cold air on my core, feeling so open, exposed, it’s almost obscene. “You look . . .” His voice is quiet, and then he half explodes in a low, “Fuck.” I’m a fraction of a second from asking him what’s wrong with me when I feel him pull my hips higher.

“Levi?”

His tongue, his lips, his nose press into me from behind, and I inhale sharply. First it’s careful, delicate licks, flicking my clit and nudging my opening; then it’s deep kisses, mapping me thoroughly.

“Oh my God,” I moan.

His only response is a low, satisfied growl against my folds, and I don’t know if it’s the vibrations, or the enthusiastic way he’s working on me, or the fact that he’s holding me wide open like I am a feast made for him to consume, but my belly tenses, and my limbs are shaking, and keeping my pleading noises in is a losing game. It can’t last, not like this. It takes him less than a minute to push me tumbling over the edge.

This is not my body. Or maybe it is, but Levi’s in charge, and I don’t mind.

The pleasure takes over, crashes over me like a tidal wave, and before it even dries out I feel him rearranging me once more, pressing my stomach into the mattress again until I’m at his mercy.

His fingers are on me, parting me open. Then there is a stretch, a split-second burn, and he’s pushing deep inside. He was there before and it was heaven, but I’m wetter now, and the friction is even more delicious. I feel myself tighten, quick, fluttering contractions around his length.

This is. So. Unbelievably. Good.

“Jesus,” Levi grunts. Tests a deep, shaky thrust. “You’re still coming, aren’t you?”

Yes. No. I don’t know. I twist my neck and turn back. He’s looking down at me. At my flushed skin and my trembling flesh. He’s not going to stop anytime soon, I know it. I’m going to come disastrously quickly, again, or maybe I’ll never stop, and he’s going to stare at me for every last second of it. Caging me, propped up on his huge, shaking arms, with that hungry, spellbound gleam in his eyes. “You’re some kind of fantasy. Built to do this.

Built for me. Fuck, Bee.” His rhythm picks up. Uneven and choppy, but it picks up.

And I can’t bear it.

“You can’t,” I moan.

He immediately pauses.

“No,” I whine. “Don’t stop.”

“You said—?”

“Just . . . Please, don’t look at me.”

He seems to finally get it. “Hush.” He lowers himself and presses a kiss to my cheekbones. It’s getting—it’s impossible, but it’s getting even better.

He’s figured it out, the inside of me. How to angle his thrusts. They’re more shallow, more purposeful, and I’m . . .

Babbling. Things like Oh my god and More and Please and Please harder and he somehow knows what I mean. He makes sense of me, and bends down to run his tongue down the skin of my throat, to bite my shoulder, to grunt his pleasure against my nape.

“I’m not sure,” he murmurs gutturally, breath harsh against my ear,

“how I haven’t come yet.”

Me neither, I think. I say his name, muffled in the pillow, and just let go.