When I suggested doing precisely that a few minutes ago, I was joking. Or at least that was what I told him. In my heart of hearts, it's the furthest thing from a joke imaginable.

He'll never leave, though. He's made that clear. I don't understand his reasons, but I know that they're important to him. And as it stands, we can't be together for real here.

So we're left with this. Stolen moments and secret encounters, and it's nowhere close to enough. But it's what I can have.

So I take it.

Threading my fingers through his thick, dark hair, I clutch him closer to me. He responds in kind. He can't know all the thoughts rampaging through my head, but he seems to feel the same desperation, somehow. The kiss is all teeth and tongues. His muscular chest presses to mine, the heat of him making my nipples go tight and needy. I arch into him and run a hand down his side. I shove the hem of his shirt up and squeeze my legs around him harder at the smooth, hot muscle I find beneath.

"Need you," I gasp. "Please--"

"Anything," he growls, and we both know that that's not true, but we pretend.

He reaches behind his neck, and we break our kiss just long enough for him to pull his shirt off over his head. I scramble at my own ruined top, tossing it on the floor.

He pauses. I follow his gaze to the ugly cut running down the center of my chest.

But I refuse to let him get derailed by that. Jasmine's done way worse to me before. The girls' locker room was a nightmare for me for years.

I tug him back in, kissing him hard and letting my teeth scrape against his tongue. Feeling his bare chest against mine makes the flames inside me flare hotter. Wetness floods my pussy. I grind against him, moaning at the pressure against my swollen clit, but the emptiness within howls.

"Baby," he says, voice rumbling and low.

He tugs off my bra and flings it aside with the rest. My achy breasts fall free. They're not huge or anything, but they feel ripe and full--and even better when he cups them in his hot, strong hands.

"Yes," I groan as he twists my nipples, sending sparks of desire shooting down my spine.

"So sexy." He kisses me again, needy and sharp. "Love seeing you like this. Love how you feel..."

What he doesn't say, what he'll never say, is that he loves me.

I bite his lip and reach between us for the waist band of his shorts. I manage to get them untied and push them down over his hips.

I gasp when his thick cock springs free. It's hard and huge, already leaking at the tip. I wrap my hand around it the best I can, drinking in his sounds of pleasure with the first, long stroke.

From there, it's a mad scramble. He shoves his shorts the rest of the way down. Getting my jeans and underwear off is a hassle, but we manage, and then I'm there. Naked on a grubby workbench, probably getting splinters in my ass, but I don't care. I pull him in, and he rubs the fat head of his cock all up and down the length of my cunt before he lines himself up.

"Please," I beg him. "I need it--need you--"

Need him to block out all the pain. The longing and the petty cruelties. The knowledge that I'll never fit in and I'll never be loved and I'll never be whole.

He shoves inside in one hard thrust.

I howl, tipping my head back. Sometimes, we meet in riskier locations where I have to keep the noises he rips from my body inside, but not here. Here, I can let them all out.

And it's a good thing, too. I'm so slick with need that he glides in easily. He still growls as he bottoms out. "Fuck, Ember. So tight. Feel so good."

Not as good as he feels to me. I'm torn apart by the size of him, filling me up. I tilt my hips, grinding my clit into his pubic bone and crying out again at the waves of pleasure building inside me.

It's always like this. Too much and not enough, a desperate rush to try to get as much of each other as we can before we're torn apart again.

Just once, what I wouldn't give to be able to go slow. To make love over and over, and to sleep in his bed all night long.

As he starts to move, I feel insatiable. Like I could take him half a dozen times and still be hungry for more. I squeeze him, and he thrusts in faster. He hits that delicious spot inside of me, and I rake my hands down his back, probably leaving marks.

Orgasm crashes over me out of nowhere. He fucks me through it, moaning as I squeeze him, but he doesn't stop. The workbench I'm perched on slams into the wall with the force of his pounding, and I never want it to end. My first peak crests, and another one begins to gather.

"So good," he groans, "fuck, can't believe how it feels when you come on my cock."