“Fuck!” I grabbed his head.

He slid his tongue up my folds like a big cat, right up and over my clit, then circled my entrance and pushed his tongue slowly inside, thrusting his tongue slowly like a cock breaching me.

The sensation shocked me, and I froze for a second, my hands clawing at the sheets, and then I arched upwards with a gasping moan as he fucked me with his tongue.

“W-warrick!” I cried out.

With his lips sealed over me, he growled, the vibrations sending another sensation right through me as his hands gripped my thighs, holding them apart. I could feel him sucking and licking at the same time.

The wet heat of his mouth overwhelmed me as he lapped up my arousal, his tongue pushing and fluttering at the sensitive nerves as his mouth fastened on my clit.

My thighs were spreading wider of their own accord, the muscles in them trembling. My back arched as I clawed at the bed and cried out senselessly, a never-ending stream of mindless whimpers and cries—and then he pushed two long fingers inside of me—and my world shattered.

The world dissolved around me as my climax bolted through me and I let out a strangled cry at the sheer intense pleasure of it. I felt like I was bobbing in the sea as his tongue slid once more over my throbbing flesh.

My back arched so deeply that it almost hurt as my nails scratched against his scalp, my other hand pressed against the door to brace myself. I screamed his name again as Warrick prolonged my climax higher, wringing every bit of pleasure he could from my shuddering body.

Fuck stars: pure galaxies burst to life behind my closed eyes, and the orgasm I’d just had combined with this one.

When I sagged back to the bed, I was a boneless, liquid puddle of sensation, my body vibrating with aftershocks, and I couldn’t catch my breath. I never knew it could feel like this, never imagined it—maybe it was because the boyfriends I’d had before were all shit.

As his fingers slipped free and he moved up my body, I felt his hard cock pressed hotly against my hip, but he made no move to fuck me. Instead, he cradled me against his body as he brushed my hair away from my eyes.

“You all right, Zara?” he asked gently as he gathered me into his arms.

“Define all right,” I laughed softly.

His hand stroked up my leg as I shuddered and moaned with the last aftershocks of my climax. “You came so hard for me. That was so good, feeling you come on my tongue like that.”

“I want to repay the favor, but you’re putting me to sleep right now—” I held back a yawn.

A smile played over his face. “We’ve got time. Go to sleep, and I’ll wake you when I have the steaks ready.”

“Are you sure?” I asked. “I feel shitty letting you go like that.”

“I’ll be fine,” he grinned. “You’ll make it up to me.”

Before he went off, I kissed him, and he licked into my mouth with tempered hunger, then slipped from the bed and descended the ladder. More satisfied and sated than I had been in months, I slipped off to sleep almost immediately—and then the dream came.

“These are serious accusations, Zoe.” Elise Munroe, my editor, dropped the stack of papers I’d given her and whipped her glasses off her nose.

I knew what she was looking at: the piles of notes I’d made over seven months, how the “legal” health clinic was nowhere near legal, how the monies coming in and the monies going out were not adding up, not to mention the list of clients they had shown people who were nowhere to be found.

“I am one hundred and twenty percent sure that they are ripping off the government and funding the mob, maybe the local drug cartel leader, Donatelli Santori,” I’d said.

“It’s a money laundering scheme. And I am damn sure that if I dig deeper, I’ll find some politicians backing it, too. Most likely that scumbag Senator Rosenberg, who cut funding to public schools by fifty percent,” I added, seething.

“If this gets out, they will have no problem denouncing this as fiction.”

“You mean facts. All my findings over the last six months' deep dive have been backed up by several different sources. The funding from the government to cure or treat these people’s various diseases. None of these people have IDs, and some are long dead. The money comes in, is ‘spent’ on people, but no drugs are bought, no surgeries happen because these people are not alive. It’s all credible and verifiable.”

Elise looked strained. “I can't run this.”

The hairs on my arms stood up. "What? What—why would you say that? There is clear corruption and a cover-up by at least one member of the government. Our job is to report the truth, and I have the facts to back this up.”

Her face went stony. “You're playing with fire and need to drop this, Zoe. You’ll get into a lot of shit if you keep going down this road—” Elise scooped up the pile and dumped it into the trash. “—and go back to writing those puff pieces. What types of coffee exec women drink or why pop stars keep those tiny little dogs in their purses. Not this.”

I couldn’t believe what she was saying. “The people of New York have a right to know. Hell, the Department of Health needs to know. They’re being milked for millions."