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My arousal glosses his wide lips, chin, and down the column of his neck. Slowly, he swipes out his tongue, collecting it like a poor man tasting a delicacy for the first time.

He hums, pleased by the taste of me. My stomach tightens in response to the near-crazed look in his eyes.

Molding his warm body against me, I shudder from the feel of his skin pressed into mine. I could never deny how good Zade feels, even when I was desperate to.

“Wrap your legs around me,” he orders roughly, his tone hushed. He removes his arms from beneath my thighs and I circle them tightly around his waist.

One hand glides up the outside of my thigh, while he anchors the other on the tree beside my head, supporting our weight. His head is bent down, nose gliding along the column of my neck.

“I’m too addicted to you to ever let you go,” he murmurs. My eyes flutter closed, another dose of relief hitting me straight in the heart.

“But I don’t know how to make you stay,” he continues, his tone darkening. My brows pinch, feeling a sense of looming danger on the horizon.

“I will—”

His chin tips up until his mouth is right by my ear. “I don’t believe you,” he whispers, cutting me off.

He said the same thing to me only a couple of weeks ago, and I had asked him to carve a rose into my chest to prove my love. But then I tried to take it away, and I don’t know how I’m going to prove myself again.

My heart pounds, and I scramble for a way to convince him. I don’t exactly have a great track record—I know that. Pushing Zade away and running from him has always come so easy to me.

Too easy, if I’m being honest. But letting him slip

through my fingers—that’s something I’ve never been able to accomplish.

“I knew you were going to do this to me, little mouse. I’ve always known it was going to come to this,” he says softly.

I’m a mass of confusion and heart-pounding dread.

“What are you—”

Before I can finish, he tilts my hips up just enough to slam me down on his cock, driving himself inside me at the same moment. Despite how turned on I am, it’s never enough to prepare for his size.

My back bows, the leather belt holding my throat hostage just as a strangled cry releases, quickly carried away with the wind.

Zade tips his head back, a deep growl building in his chest. He presses me deep into the tree, grasping my hip in a bruising hold, steadily sinking his cock deeper and deeper until I’m unable to take any more of him.

I let out another choked cry, sensations unfurling from where we connect and throughout my entire being. The rough bark digs into my skin, but I hardly notice when he’s invading my body so thoroughly.

The hand holding my hip slides up to my stomach, his fingers digging into my skin.

“Would this being swollen with my child make you stay?” he asks darkly, then groaning as if overcome with bliss from the thought.

My mouth parts, my attention split between his almost threatening words and the way he’s moving inside of me.

“Uhh.” Somewhat of a response but it sounded more like a moan. “Maybe one day?” I squeak out, almost coughing when the belt constricts against my windpipe.

He withdraws to the tip, then seats himself completely inside me, his pelvis grinding into mine. I choke, and my eyes nearly roll from how full I am.

Hot breath fans across my ear, and it feels like a warning. “I wasn’t asking permission, baby. Would you stay, or would you run off with my child?”

I’m so disoriented by his line of questioning; it takes me a moment to catch up. My heart drops, and I gasp both from his implication and from him grinding against me again, his pelvis stimulating my clit just the right way.

“You… I have the IUD,” I say. It would be difficult to tamper with that. Not unless he physically pulled it from my body.

“Do you?” he murmurs, his deep voice low and challenging. He poses the question in a way that suggests he knows the answer to that question better than I do.

My nails dig into his shoulders, and when realization begins to set in, I push at him. Of course, he resists against me, a steel fortress that even a nuclear bomb couldn’t crumble.