“So you thought I was hot, I thought you were gorgeous, and there was no one else between us save my dog. And that incident was the only reason why I chose to go to you instead of an off-site shrink. Because Chico saved you and I knew you’d get it. I knew you’d understand my loss.”

“Of course I did. It was like losing an arm for you, Jackson. He was a sidearm no different from your gun or your taser. You felt na**d without him. Vulnerable.”

“I’m na**d now. I’m vulnerable now,” he said softly, unable to help himself from touching her hair again in a soft, reverent stroke.

“Yeah. The way a tank is vulnerable,” she said dryly.

“I’m not talking physical, Marissa.”

She fell quiet, her hands like gentle butterflies as they settled on his shoulders.

“I know,” she said at last. “I know.”

And he knew she did. What thrilled him was that she was facing it. Accepting it. Now if only she would accept him on a whole other level. He knew it was asking a lot of her. He knew she was trying to protect herself at all costs. He didn’t know why exactly, and he hoped she would tell him one day. Perhaps it had to do with her having to raise her sister all alone, or just that she had a cruddy self esteem for god knew what reason. He just wanted to know so he could tell her she was wrong about herself. Tell her that she was incredibly beautiful and so much braver than she gave herself credit for.

He held her between his hands and bent to gently touch his mouth to hers. Just a touch, not a kiss, and there he waited for her, his breath quick and heated. It felt like a moment too long to him before she lifted that small increment into a kiss. He kissed her sweetly, a soft demure thing that was all she seemed to be asking for. But he wasn’t going to let her get away with half measures. He pulled back and looked into her liquid blue eyes.

“Now kiss me the way you really feel,” he said to her. “And know that it will decide whether you stay or I ask you once more to leave me, hummingbird.”

He watched her catch her breath, felt her leg move up a fragment against his thigh, a subconscious gesture he knew. If her mind had any doubts, he knew her body did not. But she was expecting seduction and he wouldn’t give it to her. He wouldn’t take her as wildly and dominantly as he knew how so she could blame him for it later. No. No, this she had to demand from him.

“I want to,” she said, a flush creeping over her cheeks. “You know that I want to s-stay.”

“Prove it,” he commanded of her. Her eyes widened as she licked her lips and let her gaze drop to his mouth. Then she lifted her head out of his hands and kissed him. Again, it was sweet. A pretty and shy kiss. But he didn’t believe she couldn’t find it in her to be more than that.

He broke off the kiss and moved to get off of her and send her packing. Disappointment lurched through him, a part of him crying out in frustration. He wouldn’t aggress with her, sweeping her up in the passion he knew she craved. He’d tried that already and it had blown up in his face. But just as he was about to leave her hands tightened on his shoulders, trying to hold him to her.

“W-what’s wrong? Why …?” she stammered.

“What’s wrong is I know exactly how passionate you are,” he said fiercely. “I know how hot you can be when I make you that way. Why won’t you admit to it? Why do you want to make me run roughshod over you with seduction just so you can hold yourself free of blame and heap it all on me? No, Marissa. I won’t let that happen this time.” He moved off of her but she tightened her grip even more, following him with a slide across and back beneath him.

“No! I don’t know what you want!”

“You’re already what I want,” he said with a sigh. “That’s the whole point. I want you, Marissa. You. Not just your body. Not just a vessel. But you. My Marissa. My sweet, delicious, passionate Marissa.”

“I think you expect more than I’m capable of,” she said softly, her cheeks so pink, like she was out in the freshest cold of winter.

“I think you underestimate yourself,” he said back to her.

She seemed to think on that for a moment, but he could see the frustration in her. “Isn’t it enough that I’m here? Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” She was getting snappish, her annoyance with him for not seducing her very apparent. He would have smiled if he didn’t think she’d deck him for it.

“I pulled you down. I put you under me. I’m here hard as a goddamn rock, Marissa. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” Damn. Now his frustration was showing. Well fine, he thought irritably. Better he fix the problem before it started. He swung himself away from her and got to his feet, pulling himself free of the grip of her hands, her nails trying to hold him until the very last second.

“Oh my god! Jackson get back here!” she burst out. “Don’t you dare make me beg! It’s a shameful, dirty ploy to make me feel … to make me feel …”

“I’m not going to make you feel anything,” he bit out. “You either feel it for yourself or you don’t. And honestly, I’m not in the mood for any uncertainties. Not after—” He broke off, too sickened with disappointment to say it aloud. Not after I’ve bared my soul to you completely. Why oh why won’t you do as much for me?

Marissa was completely flustered. Just minutes ago he was so warm and sweet. So obviously wanting her. What did he want from her? She had kissed him, hadn’t she? She was there, in his bed, in spite of her original resolve when she’d entered the room. Did he want her to leave? Was … was she making a fool of herself?

“There,” he said suddenly, pointing into her face. “That right there is what I’m talking about. I can read that expression clear as crystal. You don’t trust me and you sure as hell don’t trust yourself. I have more faith in you than you do, Marissa. I just don’t get it. I know you’re stronger than this!”

Marissa opened her mouth to retort, but he just moved away from the bed completely and was standing there na**d and proud. He hadn’t been lying to her when he’d said he was hard for her; his erection, just a couple of inches beneath that wicked tattoo, was an amazing, powerful thing to behold. And Marissa felt her mouth go dry and other places get completely wet. Places that were aching, begging her to do something. Anything.

She didn’t know what happened next exactly. One minute she was on the bed, the next she was launching herself at him, her entire weight tackling into him so hard he almost fell over. And before he could say a word, she grabbed hold of him and crushed her mouth against his. She kissed him with everything she had. She begged him with her aching body and her craving heart. She reached down with one hand and yanked up that annoying skirt so she could wrap her leg around him and pull him in even closer. She felt him against her lower belly, his erection pressing against her uterus in all the wrong ways, she thought with frustration. He ought to be inside her, pressing against her that way. He ought to be holding her. He ought to be ravishing the hell out of her.

But he wasn’t. So goddamn him she was going to make him do it. She opened her mouth beneath his, and slowly, provocatively ran her tongue over his lips.

“Let me in,” she breathed against him.

Well hell. She didn’t have to ask him twice, Jackson thought fiercely as he swept her mouth up against his, chasing after that silky, sexy tongue of hers. God, her natural seductiveness was treacherous and overpowering. This, he thought, was what he had seen every day walking past his desk in those CFM heels of hers. He’d probably had at least a hundred fantasies of bending her over her damn desk and f**king her to within an inch of her life, but this was so much better. He wanted her to make fierce love with him to within an inch of his life.

He lurched forward, tossing her back down on the bed, following roughly after her. He climbed right up between her thighs, helping her pull up that tight, ridiculous skirt of hers. God, the thing hugged her body the way he wanted to hug her body. But for now he settled for the feel of himself pressing against the warm, soft heat of her. He groaned as he rubbed himself against the fabric of her panties, listening to her gasp and feeling her grip him. She lifted her h*ps and moved against him in return, a seductive wriggle that just about made him lose his mind.

Take her. Take her!

He didn’t need that voice in his head to motivate him. He was already on it. He reached down between their bodies and grabbed for her underwear, pulling it down her long thighs then pushing them away from her. She still had all her clothes on. She still had her shoes on, and it was exactly how he wanted to take her. No prelude. No more foreplay. They’d spend years toying with each other. Now it was over. He put himself back between her legs, his c**k hard and eager, so eager for its mate.

“Fuck. Oh fuck,” he hissed when he felt her heat and the purest wetness in the whole damn universe. His whole body tightened up and he wanted to … oh god, was this even right? Shouldn’t he be—?

He disregarded all doubt and just gave in to Menes’s forceful taunt to take her. He found her entrance and thrust into her all in the same movement. He gasped with the shock of how hot she felt around him. She was so freaking tight, so damn juicy wet.

He was honestly amazed he didn’t make an idiot of himself by coming on the spot. No, he thought, that is not the way this is going to be. Not after waiting and wanting for so long.

She was gasping for every breath, her nails digging into his shoulders. Oh yes. Oh, god yes, he thought.

“Yes!” she cried out. “Oh god, yes!”

He laughed. “I couldn’t have said it better myself.” Then his hand left her thigh and reached to grab her blouse, ripping it open in two sharp movements. Her bra matched her discarded panties. A pristine white lace cami bra, the demure fabric meant to hide her from the world. But she reached beneath herself and had it unhooked and shucked off about three times faster than he could have done himself. Then he was touching her, his hands all over her bountiful breasts, her concave belly, her pretty neck and elegant shoulders. Christ, he didn’t have enough adjectives to describe her or how it felt to be raw-fucking her. And that was what he was doing. Moving inside of her, thrusting hard and deep even as his teeth caught at one of her ni**les.

Marissa cried out, gasping as though in shock, and then moaning and gripping him even closer. Yes. This had been what he wanted. Her aggression. Her passion being the impetus of what was happening between them. She drove her fingers through his hair making a tight fist, pulling just enough to get his attention. He let her drag him up to her mouth and then they sealed to each other’s mouths with a heat and ferocity that couldn’t be measured. He pulled out of her just so he could have the satisfaction of ramming home into her. Again. And yet again. And, oh god … oh god.

“Hard and fast this time,” he gasped against her mouth. “This time.”

“Yes. Yes! Please,” she begged him savagely.

“As the lady demands,” he said, his voice rough with his arousal. He could feel the virulent need to come clawing up through him as he rushed into her again and again, his speed as violent as his need. She began to cry out, successively louder, and he used everything he had to hold himself in check, to wait for it … to wait for her. He watched as his hard impacts shimmered through her body, listened greedily as it hoarsened her voice.

“On my god!” she cried out. “Oh my—”

She drew in a hard, sudden breath and then … magic. It had to be magic. Nothing real could ever feel as glorious as it felt when she tightened up around him and came hard, screaming like a banshee. You could just tell from listening to her how much she had needed this. How much she had craved him. And she would hear the same thing ejecting from him seconds later, fire burning a path out of him and ejaculating into her.

“Christ … Marissa!” He groaned, that act of spilling himself inside of her nearly painful, that was just how good it felt. He gasped for his breath, his forehead pressed to the bed near her ear as he listened to her do the same. He felt the wetness of their bodies oozing around him and oh it was so damn satisfying. So was the naughtily content look in her eyes when he finally lifted his head.

He bent to her mouth then and kissed her the way she should be kissed. The way he would kiss her from that moment onward. As though she were the most exquisite of cognacs, meant to be warmed and swept against the tongue again and again in order for its true beauty to be seen … to be felt. And oh, the burn that followed.

“That was then. This is now,” he told her, “and always after. Whether I’m f**king you or making love to you, Marissa, you’re going to damn well know how much I need you. You understand? You. I need you.”