Because wanting... Wanting like this, it was almost a curse. But he couldn’t turn away from it. Not now. Not when it was like this. So desperate. Her hands went to his belt buckle, undid it slowly, then to his jeans.

And he let himself feel what he hadn’t that first time. The all of it. That she had never let anyone else inside of her, except for him. And he had done what with that?

Why had he taken it if he had known that he couldn’t honor it? Why had he taken her if he had known he couldn’t give her what she deserved?

Maybe because he wasn’t as strong as he liked to think. He was weak. For her. It had always been that way. From moment one.

And right now he just needed her. He hadn’t needed sex in two years. It wasn’t just about that. Wasn’t just about a simple dry spell, because if so, he would have done something about it. If so, he would have found someone else. That was just sex. For him, it was about her.

And he wanted to show that to her.

He laid her down slowly on the thick rug in front of the fireplace, kissed her mouth, kissed her breasts.

Her body was a brilliant gift, something rich and lovely in the firelight. Something that nothing and no one would ever be able to overshadow.

She was his summer. And now she was his winter too.

Or maybe he’d made his own winter these past two years, but she was the reason why. The reason why it felt so dark. The reason why everything in him had changed.

Because it had been an eclipse on anything good when he let her walk out of his life.

He wanted to show her that.

He wanted to give her everything.

He kissed his way down the softness of her body, kissed her inner thigh, then licked a line to her center. She gasped. And he fed off of her. Off of her pleasure. Off of her arousal. Her need.

He let himself disappear into the moment. Into the glory of pleasuring her. The responsibility of it. The honor of it.

To be allowed to taste her like this. To be allowed to touch her like this. Who was he? He was just some dumbass. And she had always been special. Always been singular. And the men in her life, him included, had made her feel like she was second. Had made her feel like she wasn’t good enough. Made her feel like she was a burden. How dare they? And how dare he?

He didn’t deserve this moment. He didn’t deserve her.

But he was taking her. Because he needed it. Because he needed her to know.

He licked her, took her essence as an offering, a gift. Even as it fed his soul.

The taste of her. The sound of her cries. Her desperate arousal, the way that she clawed at his shoulders, the way that she cried out her need when he pushed two fingers inside of her and took her to the heights.

He waited for her to come down, and then he kissed her hip bone, her stomach, back up to her mouth, where he let her taste the evidence of her own desire on his lips.

“You,” he said, “are like no one else. You are like nothing else. You are air. And I hadn’t realized that I’d been suffocating all this time.”

“Flint...”

The way that she said his name, all sweet and tender and questioning, it did something to him.

The way that she looked at him, like he might be something amazing. Something great.

He wanted to be.

He wanted to be more than he’d been. He wanted to be something better. Something right for her.

He wanted that.

He kissed her, deep and long, lost himself in her.

But it was what she did next that he couldn’t handle. It was what she did next that broke him.

She pushed against his chest, reversing their positions, and once he was stripped naked, she knelt down before him, and took him into her mouth. She looked up at him, her beautiful green eyes piercing him through the soul while she racked his body with torturous pleasure.

Fuck.

He pushed his hands into her hair, held her there, bucking his hips, desperate for release and desperate for it to go on forever.

He could remember when a blowjob had been entertainment. When it had meant nothing to him. When it had touched nothing but his cock. And now... It was like it was all of him. He couldn’t take pleasure anymore unless it was her. He couldn’t take pleasure with her without involving everything. His whole body. All that he was. His soul.

She sucked him deep, and he growled. “No. I need to be in you.”

It was her turn to kiss him. Her turn to let him taste what she’d done to him.

And then she straddled his hips, angling herself so that the head of him was pressed against the slick entrance to her body. He gritted his teeth as she lowered herself onto him, allowing him in, inch by torturous inch.

She was so tight, so perfect.

And he had never done this before her. Taking a woman without a latex barrier. That was the kind of thing reserved for trust.

Trust.

She had trusted him so much back then and he had broken it.

He didn’t deserve it now. But he needed it.

Needed her.

Needed all these things that he had no call to want. Dammit all, he did.

With his whole soul.

His heart was raging, as she began to move. She began to ride him like she was made for it. And hell, she had to be. Had to be made for this, for him. Because God knew he thought he might be made for her.

In another life maybe. One where he hadn’t lost so much. One where he hadn’t hurt so damn much.

That realization almost stopped him, but then, he was overcome, seeing her body as she rose over him like that, feeling the clasp of her around him, watching the pleasure on her face as she began to chase her own climax.

He wasn’t a man who had the ability to do what she did. To take feelings and turn them into song lyrics. Hell, he couldn’t even take feelings and turn them into words.

He couldn’t take feelings and turn them into much of anything.