“No, I don’t.”
 
 “Liar.”
 
 He pulled her into a recess, shoved her down onto her knees so that the scree scored ladders in her tights and tore her flesh. He pushed her head down into the dirt. Her arse remained upthrust, being simultaneously chilled by the cold air and heated by his hand.
 
 “Are you pleased with yourself? Pleased with what you’ve got? This is what you wanted, remember, Alle? Me. Unfiltered. No masks.” His fingers ground back into her, the full length of all three of them. Her wetness made the grind embarrassingly easy.
 
 Fuck! Her man truly was a monster. Strong. Lethal. Exacting. But he was her monster, and goddammit, he was beautiful in his viciousness, even if he was threatening to come inside of her.
 
 “Your monster might just plant a baby in you,” he whispered.
 
 He wouldn’t. It’d be okay. She had a hormone implant. But she’d never had sex without a condom. Not once. Ever.
 
 Now he was stripping away the choice of making that decision. Making it for her. For them both.
 
 Shit! She didn’t want to think about babies or parenthood.
 
 She could stop this. With two words she could end this.
 
 Probably.
 
 Her tongue ached with the need to spit out the words that would confirm he was the man she thought, but she didn’t speak them.
 
 It would be the end of the dream if she did. There wouldn’t be a do over. He’d let his guard down tonight. If she stopped this, he’d shut himself away again. If she spat out their safe words, she’d effectively end their whole relationship. She had to trust him, no matter how dumb that might seem, because if she couldn’t give him that, then how could she expect him to ever trust her?
 
 It didn’t lessen the panic as she heard his zip slide. Felt him. Hard. Ready. Rubbing up against her pussy lips. Hot. Bare.
 
 Oh, fuck!
 
 Spook slammed into her to the root.
 
 It felt different. Smoother, slicker. Wetter. A lot wetter. A different sort of friction entirely.
 
 He withdrew, only to slam them together again.
 
 Spook’s hair streamed over his shoulders and tickled her skin. His hips slapped her arse with the impact of their collisions. His fingers nipped and pinched. She’d known he could be savage. This was a step beyond anything he’d shown her before.
 
 Single-minded.
 
 Targeted.
 
 She was possessed.
 
 He possessed her.
 
 “Your cunt’s sopping,” he said.
 
 The noise of them joining provided irrefutable proof of that.
 
 “Guess it’s eager for the flood.”
 
 -24-
 
 Spook
 
 It’d been years since Spook had felt remotely this sane, this in control, and alive. With every minute that passed, his heart opened wider, and Alle rushed in to fill that empty space. She was taking everything he was giving her, and he was testing her. Fuck it, he was deliberately targeting her anxieties. And she was holding steady, trusting him.
 
 Her muscles squeezed tight around him, slicing desperate sounds from both of them. Dammit, he was gone. Ready to worship this woman, give himself to her. Dedicate himself to her pleasure for the rest of eternity.