Page 86 of Dirty Game

He backs me against the safety door, the metal cold against my exposed back.

His mouth moves to my neck, teeth scraping against the sensitive skin, and I gasp at the sensation.

"Do you know what it did to me," he says between kisses, his voice rough with want, "seeing you in this dress? Knowing what's underneath? Knowing I've touched every inch of you but couldn't tonight? Watching other men look at you and knowing they were imagining what you'd look like out of it?"

"Then touch me now."

He spins me around, pressing me face-first against the door.

I hear his zipper, feel the silk of my dress being pushed up to my waist with desperate hands.

His fingers hook into my underwear, and I hear the fabric tear.

"Varrick!"

"I'll buy you more." His hand slides between my legs, finding me already wet, already ready, my body responding to him even through my anger and hurt. "So responsive. Even when you're furious with me."

"I always want you," I gasp as his fingers find that spot that makes me see stars, that he learned so well at the safe house.

"I need you," he says, and I hear something broken in his voice. "Need to be inside you. Need to claim you. Need to remind us both who you belong to."

"Then take me."

He enters me in one smooth thrust, and I cry out at the fullness, the perfection of it.

This is nothing like our first time.

No carefulness to this at all. This is desperate, claiming, two people trying to merge into one while the ghost of his past lingers forty stories below.

His hands grip my hips hard enough to bruise as he sets a punishing pace.

Each thrust pushes me against the door, the metal cold against my overheated skin.

One of his hands tangles in my hair, pulling my head back so he can kiss my neck, my jaw, any skin he can reach.

"Mine," he growls with each thrust. "Not hers. Not theirs. Mine."

"Yours," I agree, pushing back against him, meeting his desperation with my own. "Only yours. Always yours."

His hand comes around to find that sensitive bundle of nerves, and I shatter, his name a scream on my lips that the wind carries away.

He follows me over, my name a prayer and a curse as he empties himself inside me, his teeth sinking into my shoulder to muffle his own cry.

We stay there for a moment, breathing hard, still connected, his weight pressing me against the door.

His arms come around me, holding me like I might disappear if he lets go.

I can feel his heart racing against my back, matching the frantic rhythm of my own.

Then he turns me around, kisses me soft and sweet, such a contrast to the desperate coupling of moments before.

His hands are gentle as they smooth my dress back down, as they try to fix my destroyed hair.

"You're not a replacement," he says against my lips. "You're not a distraction. You're not a payment. You're everything. Do you understand?"

"She has your child."

"And I'll deal with that. I'll be a father. I'll figure out how to navigate this, but that doesn't change us. Doesn't change what you are to me."