It doesn’t hurt, but italmosthurts, the sensation building and building until I almost can’t stand it.

Then, suddenly, the head of his cock pops through the thick ring of muscle and Cash groans, all at once. My vision goes fuzzy around the edges as I take another deep breath, trying to process all the sensations zipping through my nerves.

“You’re so tight, Lark,” he groans, his hands on my hips, like he’s trying to control himself. “You like having a cock in your ass?”

“Yes,” I manage to whisper.

Cash doesn’t answer me. He slides himself deeper, moving slowly and rhythmically, millimeter by millimeter until his hips are flush with mine and he’s completely hilted inside me.

It feelsincredible, so dirty and wrong and yet right that I can’t even put it into words. I feel like my brain is short-circuiting, scraps of thoughts and images getting started but then exploding into nothing. I can’t do anything but moan; somehow, I’m still on my feet, the water swirling around me, but that’s more by default than anything else.

Cash starts moving. At first he’s slow, gentle, every inch a revelation. But the more I moan, the more I pant his name desperately, the harder and faster he goes until he’s fucking my ass as hard as he’s ever fucked my pussy, and I’m loving it.

Suddenly, he grabs my hips and lowers me. I’m lost to sensation, continually on the brink of coming, and the minute he takes me, my legs are jelly and he kneels, pulling my legs into the water until I’m right in front of a jet.

Still buried deep in my ass, Cash spreads my legs. I don’t know what he’s doing, but it feels so good that he can do anything he wants to me right now.

Then the water jet hits me, and I gasp. He’s positioned me right in front of it, still fucking me as the water massages my clit, bouncing me gently up and down.

“I want to feel you come with my cock up your ass,” he growls. “You like this, Lark?”

I try to answer but all that comes out of my mouth is a wild moan, because I’m right there, on the edge, and then he shifts me one more time and I’m coming so hard my vision goes white.

It’s too much. I lose control completely. I cry out, shouting, and I think I say his name over and over but I can’t even tell. All I know is that it’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before, coming this way, and Cash is still holding onto me, making me feel good and making sure I don’t drown.

I come again, the next orgasm lighting off the first one like sparklers at the Fourth of July, and I shake and tremble before I come again and then again.

I lose track of how many times I come. I only know that Cash is still there, still holding me and fucking me, the water jet on my clit and his cock hard in my ass, unrelenting. Finally, as the last one washes over me, I’m dimly aware that he’s coming too, his cock jerking as he unloads himself deep in my ass.

I fall back against Cash, exhausted. He holds me tight as he pulls out of me, taking me away from the water jet.

We sit in the jacuzzi like that for a long time. After a while, the jets shut off, and it’s just the two of us, cuddled together on one of the seats, the bubbles surrounding us slowly popping.

“You relaxed now?” he finally asks, his lips brushing my temple.

I laugh softly, still curled against his bare skin.

“I think that helped,” I tease. “Can we do that every time I’m stuck on a painting?”

He grins, kissing me on the cheek, his slight stubble scraping against my skin.

“Absolutely,” he says.

Chapter Nineteen

Larkin

“See?You’re getting the hang of it just fine,” Slate says, his low, musical voice wrapping itself around me like a warm scarf. “You ready to try the left hand at the same time?”

In answer, I put both hands on the keys at once, flexing my fingers and looking at the sheet music he printed for me earlier this week. I’m weirdly nervous, though I don’t know why — it’s just another of our piano lessons. He’s my teacher, it’s not like I’m performing for him.

I bite my lip and play the opening notes toTwinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. My left hand hits the chord too hard and it drowns out the melody that my right hand is playing, but it’s all technically correct.

I keep going, pausing every time the left-hand notes change. It sounds bad, it’s not in tempo, and it’s hesitant as all hell, but I get it all right. When I finish, Slate is grinning.

He’s not a man who usually grins, but it’s infectious. I grin back at him.

“Told you you’d get the hang of it in no time,” he says. “Try it again?”