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We kiss as Stella snags them, the jingle sounding distant and muddled. “Sure thing, Princess.” Her smirk is as audible as her giggle. “You have fun!”

The girl scurries out, and by the time the door shuts, the rest of my stomach and chest are exposed. Verity runs her hands over my torso, and I grab my shirt by the collar, taking it the rest of the way off.

She pushes me back, and I sprawl on the bed, watching her as she rises up to her knees to take off her panties. She’s a vision of wild red hair, pale skin, and swollen curves, and I rest a hand on her hip to help her stay balanced. The way her pussy peeks out from under the bump, teasing and almost out of reach, makes my cock stab painfully into my jeans. Impatiently, I unzip, giving myself some relief.

“I like this,” she says of my muscles, bending to press kisses across my pecs. Feeling the sharp points of her tits graze over my skin sends a tremor down my spine that only intensifies when her mouth latches on, her tongue laving over my nipple.

“Fuck,” I gasp, bucking up. Tired of the barriers between us, I squirm around to shuck off my jeans, kicking them away and drawing her down until my cock meets the hot, wet warmth of her pussy. Groaning, I admit, “Goddamn, I missed this.”

Pussy. Sex. Fucking.

It’s beenmonths.

“Are you okay doing it this way?” she asks, fingers toying with the hair below my belly button.

My stomach jumps, the tickle almost too much to bear. “What way?”

She gives a slow, heavy blink. “Looking at me.”

My breath lodges in my throat.

Misreading my pause, her eyes shutter. “Because it’s okay if you don’t want to.” She starts to climb off my lap. “I know it bothers you.”

I clutch her by the hips and haul her back. “It was easier not to look at you,” I admit, already close to panting. “To not… make you real. Not just you, but anyone. It kept you in the same place as I kept them; just a way to get off. To meet an urge. To pretend like it was my choice, like I had a tiny sliver of control, only giving them what I wanted and getting the same back.”

“I’m sorry.” Her eyes brim with tears, one sliding down her cheek.

I lunge up to kiss it away. “Don’t be.” Dragging a hand down her side, I graze my thumb over the side of her growing belly. “With you,” I continue, struggling to find the words, “it’s different. Itshouldbe different. I want to be completely at your mercy.” I kiss her jaw, dropping my hand to the place where our bodies meet. “You want that, right?” I press my fingers into the slick heat between her legs. “You won’t take more than I can give. I know you won’t.”

She shudders. “Never.”

So here’s a secret. I give it to her right in her ear. “I want to give you all of me,” my lips brush the shell of her ear, “and I want all of you in return.”

Her chest hitches with a gasp, pussy sliding over my cock. “Oh, god.”

“For the first time in my goddamn life, I don’t just want to get off, Red.” I trail my kiss to her warm cheek, watching her green eyes flutter. “I want you to be mine.”

The confession spurs her on, her hips rocking, letting my cock glide over her folds. My body reacts, remembering how good it was to feel her orgasm tremble over me last time, in this same bed. But I want more this time. I want to be inside her. To feel her warmth surround me as she tightens up and falls apart.

So I nudge her up, gripping the base of my cock to guide it to her entrance. She’s more slick than I ever remember her being, and I know it’s a product of her hormones, butfuck me.

That’s all I can think about as I push up, sliding my cock into her tight hole.Fuck mefor having this, but squandering it.Fuck mefor all those times I buried my cock into this perfect hole and let it be anything less than blissful.Fuck mefor taking her body, but never appreciating the flush of her cheeks, or the fan of her lashes, or the way her jaw goes slack when she takes me in.

She’s wet and warm, and the urge to thrust is overwhelming, but I want this to last. With my eyes open, I watch everything. The deep breath she takes as her body adjusts to my size. How her nose wrinkles at the sharp tug of her nipples. The way her tongue darts out when I reach behind her, grip her ass and push myself all the way in.

“Oh God,” she exhales, pressing her body against mine. “Fuck me, Wick, please. It’s been so long.”

Long for us, I wonder? Or long because she’s been in the dungeon? Doesn’t matter, because it’s been way too long for me, and my balls are about to explode. I push up so we’re not just looking at one another, but face to face, and thrust in.

Her cry is like music, fingers digging divots into my shoulders as she rocks against me. Immediately, I know I won’t regret doing it like this, seeing every hint of reaction on her face as I fuck up into her. I can’t get enough of her eyes like this—the way she looks at me, all transfixed and intense, even when the rock of her hips has an edge of frantic desperation.

Sex has always fallen into two categories: good for them, or good for me. The first is strictly a performance because I’m skilled at showing women what they want to see. The second is purely human necessity—all about me.

This is somehow both and neither.

Because when I kiss her, reaching between us to feel her swollen clit, I do it to feel the way she clenches around me. To taste the hitch of her breath. To watch the way her brow screws up in ecstasy. But I want to feel these things because it makes it that much sweeter to buck my hips, indulging in her slick heat.

How stupid that I once saw sex like this as a loss of power.