Lost In Me (Here and Now 1)

I wake up to someone climbing into bed next to me, hot, hard muscle cozying up behind me.

I blink away sleep. Max is in my bed and I want to enjoy it, enjoy him, but sleep has such a tight hold on me I can hardly keep my eyes open. I snuggle as close to him as I can get, but sleep is already tugging me back down.

“Couldn’t stay away?” I murmur in the darkness.

“You know I can’t,” he whispers against my ear. His voice is different somehow. Deeper? Maybe sleepy? I don’t have time to think about it because I’m wrapped up in his heat, his bare chest against my back, one of his hands right between my breasts, and I can’t fight it when my dreams suck me back in. But somehow, with his heat against me and his arms around me, my fitful dreams fade away and I don’t just sleep. I rest.

When I wake again, the room is still dark, but Max’s mouth is doing delicious things to the side of my neck. I arch against him and am greeted by the hard length of his erection against my ass. I have to bite my lip at the thrill that rushes through me. Not only can I do that to him, but he wanted me enough that he had to come back tonight.

Under my shirt, his fingertips skim the underside of my breasts, and a soft moan slips from my lips. He cups my breast in his hot hand and grazes his callused palm against my nipple, toys and teases until it’s hard and tight under his hand and I am rocking back into him instinctively.

“Jesus, I missed you so much.” His voice sounds funny, but I hardly have time for the thought to register before he’s squeezing my nipples, sending electric jolts of pleasure from my breasts and right up through my center. His touch is harder than it was earlier. Rougher. But I like it. He’s so good at this. He knows exactly how to touch me, exactly how much pressure I like. I wouldn’t want him to ever stop touching my breasts if it weren’t for this nearly painful ache that’s been pulsing between my legs since we were interrupted in my living room—the ache my own touch couldn’t quite ease.

I circle my hips and rub my backside against his erection. Thick and wild arousal buzzes through me, electric and sharp with its intensity. He wants me as much as I want him.

“Touch me,” I whisper into the darkness. “I need you to touch me.”

He groans against my neck and then his fingers are dipping into the waistband of my sleep pants.

I turn in his arms just as his hand meets the hot and needy place between my thighs. Our mouths touch in the darkness, and something niggles at the back of my mind. Something’s changed between last night and now. Does he smell different or—

The thought disintegrates as he slides a finger inside me. I can’t believe how slick and wet I am. Except that this is Max and I need his touch.

I rock against him, letting him touch me the way I touched myself in the bath. Only this is hott

er. Sweeter. More intense. Not just because it’s him. It’s almost as if he knows what I like better than I do. His finger moves inside me and his teeth nip at my neck almost painfully. But I like it. I want more of this unbridled lust, more of his expert touch.

He withdraws his finger and replaces it with two, stretching me in a way that has my body pulsing around him in response.

“Yes,” I whisper. I want this. Need it.

His thumb finds my clit and his fingers curl.

“Oh God…” Am I a screamer? I bite my lip, but holy shit, I can’t—

“Let me hear you scream,” he growls in my ear, his stubble scraping at the tender skin of my neck. “Let me feel you pulse around my fingers as you come.”

I curl my nails into his forearm, not to stop him, but because this pleasure inside me is so intense I have to do something, put this energy somewhere.

His other hand slides up my side and squeezes right at the bruise on my ribs. Pain vibrates through me, and I cry out.

“Hanna?” He pulls away and clicks on the light.

I’m still wincing at the pain from my manhandled bruise when I look at him through squinted eyes.

And then I scream.

I shove the man off me as hard as I can. My mind gropes for the lessons I learned in the personal defense class I took in college. I bring up my knee, aiming for his balls.

He lets out an airy oomph, and I flail, backing as far away from him as I can get. I fall off the bed, and the impact of my already-battered body slamming into the floor has me crying out.

“Jesus, Hanna!” the man—who is definitely not Max—says from the bed. “What the fuck was that for?”

Oh God. He knows my name.

I’m trembling.

My phone is on the bedside table, and I scramble to get to it before he can take it away.