I’ve been around the world with my mother, to the mountains of Tibet and the ashrams of India. I’ve packed up my bags and snuck out of apartments in the middle of the night with nothing more than what we could pack in the car, lived out of suitcases for days and weeks as we surfed from one of her friends’ couches to another.
From the moment I became an adult, I promised myself I’d never willingly go down another path like that. That I’d make sure I was safe and secure and that I’d never have to sneak out of another apartment in the middle of the night again.
And yet here I am, giving myself over to this man who is a bundle of contradictions. This man who creates this beautiful home, but who plays fast and loose with everything from his career to his very life. I’m smart enough to know there is no cushy landing at the end of this, that there’s no place for this to go but bad if I give myself to him.
And yet I still don’t pull away. Despite all the doubts, all the fear burning inside me, I pull him closer with the hands I meant to use to push him away. I open my mouth to him, let him delve deeper, then wrap my legs and arms around him so tightly that I can feel the thud of his heart against my own. Just this once I want to say to hell with the consequences. Just this once, I want to take whatever I can, feel whatever I can, and let tomorrow take care of itself.
“You’re so beautiful,” he murmurs against my lips. “So goddamn beautiful.”
“So are you,” I whisper back. “And I want you so much.” This time it’s my turn to suck his lower lip between my teeth. My turn to bite down. My turn to take his groan into my mouth and swallow it down.
And just that easily the kiss that had already been hard and hot turns ravenous.
His fingers tangle in my hair and yank my head back. I moan a little, arch against him, and give myself up as he invades me. As he devours me.
Lips and tongue and teeth, he uses them all to stoke the flames inside me, to bring me to a frenzied state where nothing matters but the feel of him against me, around me, inside me. Where nothing matters but taking as much as I can get and giving him back even more.
“Sage.” He grinds out my name—dark and deep and so harsh it batters its way through me. Has heat sliding over my skin and flames sizzling along my every nerve ending.
I whimper in response. Half-cry, half-scream, all desperate, burning desire, it’s the only sound I can make, the only thing I can do as I open myself to him. As I give him everything I have inside me, everything I’ve always kept hidden and sworn to keep for myself.
But here, now, as he takes me down, down, down into the abyss, there is no me. There is no future. And there is no fear. There is only him, only Shawn, and the fire he stokes so effortlessly inside of me.
I cling to him at the thought, burrow closer as I call out his name. He takes instant advantage, his tongue once again slipping between my parted lips. It tangles with my own before licking along the roof of my mouth, the inside of my cheek. Somehow my hands are on his shoulders, twisting in the soft cotton fabric of his T-shirt, digging in to the hard, resilient muscles that cover every inch of his beautiful warrior’s body in an effort to pull him even closer.
In an effort to pull him all the way inside of me.
On his lips, my name is half-groan, half-prayer as he presses harder, delves deeper. As he demands everything I never knew I had to give. And takes even more.
He’s biting at my lips now, sharp little nips that make fire gather low in my belly as his hands slide down to cup my ass. He pulls me against him, his cock long and hard as he settles between my thighs, thrusts against my sex.
I cry out and arch against him, lips and hands turning frenzied even before he sucks my tongue deep into his mouth and strokes it. Strokes me. Again and again and again, until all I can feel, want, need is him.
Until security is just a meaningless word, and my fears don’t seem to matter anymore.
Until nothing matters. Nothing but Shawn. Nothing but this.
He slides his tongue along my lower lip, then my upper one, flutters it over my frenulum, and I light up like a wildfire as heat pours through me. Envelops me. Stokes the flames inside me until I fear losing myself—and him—to the conflagration that grows more all-consuming with every second that passes. With every second that he’s touching and holding and kissing me.
“Shawn.” I rip my mouth from his, suck huge gasps of air into my starving lungs as I try to gain some kind of control over my very out-of-control body. But I’m too far gone, every cell and nerve ending I have crying out for everything—for anything—he can give me.
It scares me a little, how wild this man makes me. So wild that I’ll fuck him in the back of a crowded bar. So wild that I’ll drop everything to be with him, even when I know I should be heading out the door. So wild that I can never get enough of him or the feelings he brings out in me.
“I need you,” I tell him as my hands tighten in his hair. “Please. I need—”
I break off as he groans, reveling in the sound even as I tug harder, hold tighter, press closer, closer, closer.
“I’ve got you, sweetheart,” he says without ever lifting his mouth from mine. Seconds later I’m on the table in the corner of the workout room, his body straining against mine, over mine, holding me in place as he slides his hands around to cup my ass. He’s everywhere—everywhere—his body hot and hard and huge as he pushes between my legs. As he lifts and lowers me so that his cock presses deep against my sex.
“Wrap your legs around me,” he snarls. I do as he asks, and suddenly he’s so close that I can feel the outline of his cock through his shorts and the thin fabric of my yoga pants.
“Fuck, Sage!” He squeezes my ass, continuing to lift and lower me in time to the blood roaring in my ears. Then his other hand is somehow in my hair, forcing my head back so that I’m completely open to him, the long, slender column of my neck on display before him.
It’s what he’s waiting for, I decide, as his mouth skims over my cheek and down my jaw to the tender skin of my throat. He pauses there, licking and kissing and sucking at my throat until I can all but feel the bruises bloom. Then he moves lower, sucking another bruise into my collarbone and another into the tender flesh at the top of my breast.
I’m gasping now, my legs tight around his hips even as my fingers clutch at his hair, his shoulders, his back. He’s just as frantic as he tears at my tank top, flinging it across the room before doing the same to my sports bra.
Then his mouth is on my nipple, licking, sucking, biting at me until my entire body is trembling and my eyes are all but rolling back in my head at the pleasure. He rolls my nipple between his lips, between his teeth, before tensing his tongue and flicking it over the tip so fast and hard that my entire body seizes up in a paroxysm of pleasure.