Maybe it was.
She moved, and the groan that escaped me was embarrassing in its rawness.
I grabbed her hands and held them with her wrists crossed together over her head.
Eva fought against my grip, halfheartedly, as if she wanted the resistance, not to get away. Each time she struggled, I held her tighter, and each time I held her tighter, she got wetter.
“You like that?” I growled in her ear. “Like being pinned down and made to take it?”
“No,” she gasped, but her hips shoved up against mine.
I bit down on her shoulder, hard enough to mark. “Liar. Be a good girl and tell me what you need.”
The moan that tore from her throat was pure surrender. “Please,” she begged. “I need you!”
“There we go,” I murmured against her skin. “Such a good girl for me.” Every time I praised her, she melted a little bit more. My teeth found the pulse in her throat, and she whimpered. Her heartbeat raced under my tongue, rabbit-fast with fear or desire. Maybe both. I wanted to mark her there, where everyone would see, where she’d have to explain.
I sucked hard on the skin of her neck, leaving a row of red spots that would be bruised by morning. With each one, Eva moaned, her cries becoming more frantic with each moment I delayed fucking her.
When I moved my hips again, she cried out, and I silenced her with my mouth, unable to stop kissing her, to stop swallowing her sounds, selfishly now, so they’d be mine and no one else’s.
Each gasp, each whimper, was a balm to my soul. I untangled one of my hands so I could reach between us and stroke her clit.
“Cole!”
Her eyes widened, as if she were surprised, and her pussy clenched around me as she came again, and I couldn’t do anything but explode inside her.
I collapsed, careful not to crush her but unwilling to pull out and put distance between us. Eva wrapped her arms around me, holding me in place, as if she, too, weren’t ready to let go.
Together, we lay there, stunned, until I rolled us onto our sides. The moonlight glimmered across her skin where my fingers had gripped too hard. She’d wear my marks for days, hidden under her clothes, a secret reminder of how completely she’d surrendered, how thoroughly I’d owned her.
“Look how pretty you mark up,” I murmured, pressing my thumb into one darkening bruise. She hissed, but her hips rocked against me. “Like your body was made for this. Made for me.”
I was already hardening again, and I couldn’t wait to spend the night showing her just how good it could be between us.
I woketo Eva’s soft whimpers, her body writhing against mine, trapped in a sensual dream. Even in sleep, she fought for control—her fingers clutching the sheets, her teeth catching her lower lip until it turned white. The scents of sex and sweat and her vanilla perfume filled my lungs. My marks darkened on her throat, her breasts, her thighs—proof of how thoroughly I’d claimed her.
She pressed back against me, her ass grinding into my cock, making desperate little sounds that shot straight to my groin. Sweat gleamed on her skin in the pre-dawn light, and when I ran my palm down her side, she shivered.
“Shhh,” I murmured, sliding my hand between her thighs. Still wet. Still swollen. Still ready. “I’ve got you.”
Her skin burned against mine. Need rippled through her body with each touch. Her pulse raced under my lips when I pressed them to her throat. Even asleep, she responded to me like she was made for this—made for me.
She came apart on a broken sob, her eyes flying open. For one moment, she looked at me with such raw need it stole my breath. Her pupils were blown wide, drowning the green of her irises in black. Her lips parted on a gasp.
Vulnerable.
Beautiful.
Mine.
Eva reached for me, and I covered her body with mine, aching for our skin to touch, as if I could crawl into her and possess her. I slid into her, sweet, slow, our hands clasped together by her ears as I promised the world to her, shattering together before falling back asleep, tangled in one another’s arms.
Later, she whispered, “Cole,” and then she was kissing me—not the desperate, hungry kisses from last night, but softer. Sweeter. More dangerous.
I should have flipped her over and fucked her hard enough to drive out this unfamiliar ache in my chest. Instead, I blindly searched the drawer by my bed for a condom, rolling it on before I gathered her closer, swallowing her quiet sighs as I slid inside her. Her legs wrapped around my waist as I moved, slow and deep. Her fingers traced patterns on my back instead of clawing. When she came, she kept her eyes locked on mine, letting me see everything she tried to hide.
It felt like falling. Like drowning. Like finding something I never knew I needed.