“Wait. Lilah, wait. Condom?”

“No need. Pills. My new pills. We’re good.” God, he was right there. At the threshold. If he could just…thrust.

Her desperation must have shown, because he widened his knees, bringing his body lower than hers, and wrapped one hand around himself. His other cupped her cheek so tenderly it had her blinking fast. Thick male eyelashes lifted, and dark eyes caught her up. “Go slow. Slow as you need. Take what you need. You’re in charge.”

Loving his generosity, trusting him completely, she lowered herself onto him degree by degree in careful, rocking motions. Every new depth sent a shockwave through her. Her legs trembled. Her breath came in pants. His eyes stayed on her face and the flush in his cheeks intensified in what she recognized as a symptom of the effort he expended to hold himself in check.

Just when she thought she had to surrender or burst, she was suddenly fully, exquisitely seated on him. His breath came out in a rush and his eyelids seemed to wage a war to stay open, then he clasped the back of her neck and drew her down for a long, slow kiss. “Use me,” he urged her again. “However you want.”

Feeling a very grown-up version of that same safety and security she saw whenever he held Shayla, she twined her arms around his neck, lifted, rocked, rode. The friction of him inside her…deeper, shallower, deeper again…was only half the story, she soon discovered. He did something with those tight, tireless low abdominal muscles that offered her clit a perfect grind. Perfect pressure. Perfect resistance. A stronger, wilder, far more devastating orgasm formed like a hurricane, right there, with him deep inside her, building it from the inside, and all around her, building it from the outside. The force of it was pulling her in. Pulling her under. And from somewhere in the middle of that pull, she realized that while she was with him, she was about to drown in this pleasure all alone. Rocking forward, holding fast, she whispered, “I’m going to come. Come with me. I want you to come with me.”

“God.” His eyelids closed. A muscle in his jaw flexed. “God, Lilah. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Then come inside me. With me.” She practically begged. “That’s what I want.”

His whole body went rigid. A tortured sound tore from deep in his chest. “You start,” he said and held her hips, forcibly grinding her against him.

Sensations surged up, spiked. Too intense to fight off, too immense to evade. “Oh, geez, Ford. It’s happening. I can’t stop it. I can’t…”

“One more second. Just one more.”

Pleasure crashed on her now, crashed over her, saturated her from every direction. Her body shook from the beautiful onslaught, but tears burned her eyes. He wasn’t going to move. “Ford…Ford…please.”

“God, help me, Lilah. Hold on.”

He moved. They moved. As her orgasm filled her, drenched her, flowed from every pore in her body and every fracture in her soul, he lifted her, turned her, put her on her knees with her upper body draped over the seat of the sofa, and sank into her from behind. The low, needy moan that flowed out of her sounded like nothing she’d ever heard before. With his hand between her legs, and his dick moving inside her still-quivering body, he rocked her face-first into another beautiful storm. She hugged a throw pillow like a life preserver, arched her back as the waves buffeted her, lifted her salt-blinded eyes to the sky visible through the big window behind the sofa, and bit the pillow to keep from crying out long and loud—sleeping baby—as the pleasure finally dragged her under.

Somehow, she washed up safely where he’d put her, with her forehead snuggled to the pillow and a smile on her face. The smile faded and an inelegant little sound of deprivation burst from her lips when he pulled out. Before she could turn, two strong hands stroked down her back. Lips kissed the nape of her neck. “Don’t move.”

“Huh?”

Those warm lips trailed down her spine, making her shiver, bringing the smile back to her lips. Her eyelids drooped as he kissed the small of her back, then flew open when teeth sank into her unprotected butt cheek.

“Ford!” She raised her head—sort of like a prairie dog—and looked back at his grinning face.

“Hey, you said something about me biting your butt.”

“Not my butt. I wanted to bite your butt.”

“Well, I like this idea better.” So saying, he leaned down and bit the other cheek. She gasped and tried to squirm away, but he held her in place with his superior strength and weight advantage. Then swirled his tongue over the small abuse, and all she could do was bury her face in the throw pillow and endure his unhurried torture. And then, because he apparently already knew how to play her like a violin, he danced his fingers between her parted thighs and strummed her overexcited clit.

“Oh!” He easily subdued her purely instinctive attempt to jerk her hips. Head raised, eyes blinking at the stars high above outside the window, she bit her lip and tried not to scream as he did it again. And again. In seconds, she couldn’t keep still, couldn’t keep quiet, couldn’t quite believe she was about to come again, bent over Ford’s sofa, while Shayla slept like an angel, and…

“Oh, shit.” This time she did bolt upright and turn… “Mia?”

A firm hand splayed between her shoulders and guided her back down. “Out ’til ten thirty. We’ve got time. Lots of time.”

“Thank God.” Relief left her limp. Until he slid into her again and introduced a new kind of relief. “Thank God,” she repeated.

“No one’s thanking him as much as me right now. I guarantee.”

“I-I think it’s a tie,” she panted as he started to move.

One corded forearm bracketed hers. His chest covered her back. His whiskered jaw brushed her shoulder. “It’s not a tie, Lilah. Not even close.”