He didn’t know how she was doing it, how she was managing to get in under his skin, his bones, all the way down to a heart that knew better. He should have been looking at her as Nico the pop star. He should have been reminding himself that she was going to move on after tonight and forget about him amidst her world of flashbulbs and adoring fans.

She didn’t need him. Not past this one night, in any case.

Marcus would never forgive himself if he ended the night needing her.

More than a little angry with himself for an ending that was starting to seem more inevitable by the second, he abruptly moved away from the bed to step out of his pants. He needed a few seconds of not touching her to get his brain to start functioning properly again.

Her eyes widened. “You’re beautiful, Marcus.”

He knew he had a good physique and plenty of women had looked at him like this before, but it had never affected him so strongly. Maybe because no one had ever looked up at him with such wonder.

Or such trust.

* * *

Nicola couldn’t do anything but stare.

His body, his muscles—his incredibly beautiful face—made a mockery of any sculpture Rodin had ever made.

And even though she’d known he was big, without his clothes on he was huge, his muscles rippling as if he did manual labor for a living.

Somewhere in there, she realized he’d slid a condom on and was saying, “Just because I’ve put this on doesn’t mean we have to do anything that you’re not ready for.”

She’d loved following his lead tonight, but not if it meant he was going to leave out of some strange sense of honor because she “wasn’t ready” to be with a man like him. She didn’t like how he was still standing beside the bed, his hands in fists as if he was trying his best not to touch her again.

Nicola didn’t wait another second—couldn’t risk waiting for him to change his mind—before moving off the bed to jump into his arms, her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist. Loosening her arms a little bit, she let gravity help her sink down onto him.

“No, Nicola, not like this. Not yet.”

But his body was saying the exact opposite of his words as his hands came around to cup her bottom and his hips started moving in a slow motion guaranteed to ease more of her inside of him. She gasped and her head fell back as she locked her ankles tighter together behind his hips to try and pull him in closer, deeper.

“Am I hurting you?” His raw, rough words reverberated against her neck, his teeth scraping against her pulse point before she could answer.

She wanted to tell him no, he wasn’t hurting her, because she knew that was what he wanted to hear. But she’d promised to tell him the truth tonight. She lifted her head to look into his eyes.

“A little. But it’s a good pain. I want more of it. More of you.”

Before he could tell her they needed to stop, she pressed her mouth to his and kissed him, her tongue wild against his, the little bit of pain rebounding back into shocking pleasure.

Soon, she was lying on the bed beneath him again, sweat dripping down from his chest onto hers as he worked to keep himself still above her. Their mouths came apart and she looked up at him, marveling yet again at how gorgeous he was, his muscular, tanned chest impossibly beautiful, his arms strong, his hips narrow.

“Slower,” he rasped out. “We need to go slower.”

She wanted the exact opposite. She was beyond ready for fast and crazy. She wanted to know what it would be like for Marcus to lose control with her...and to know that she was the one who had done that to him. She wanted to make him forget everything—everything except how much he needed her, wanted her, had to have her.

Because that was how she felt about him.

And she didn’t want to be the only one who needed, wanted, craved like that.

“I don’t want slow,” she told him. “I just want you. All of you.”

She bucked her hips up hard into his, forcing him to give her more, and she couldn’t hold in her gasp at the shocking fullness of his body entering hers. Or the fact that with every inch he moved deeper, she felt like he was owning not just her body, but a piece of her soul that she’d never known was available to anyone.

“There’s no going back now.”

“I don’t want to go back,” she whispered. How could she, when Marcus was her every fantasy come to life?

But that didn’t mean she wasn’t scared knowing just how thoroughly he was going to possess her. A possession that wouldn’t just be physical, despite the rules they’d set up for their one night together.

She reached for him, put her arms around his neck. “I like you, Marcus. I like you so much.”

He bent his head, kissed her softly before saying. “I like you, too.”

And then he was rearing up over her, her hands sliding from around his neck to the front of his chest as he braced his weight on his knees and gripped her hips to position himself between her thighs. She gasped as he pulled out and then filled her in one smooth stroke.

His eyes were dangerously dark. “You like that, too, don’t you?”

“Mmm.” She couldn’t answer, couldn’t get her lips to form the words for how much she liked it, but her body was doing a fine job of answering him, rocking beneath his long, hard thrusts.

She could feel another climax building, growing, taking her over cell by cell and the oncoming orgasm hit her so hard it knocked all of the remaining breath from her lungs.

“Oh God, Marcus. Please. I need you here.”

Her frantic words, her unplanned plea, must have been magic, because in an instant, all of the control that he’d work so hard to hold onto was gone.

He pounded into her with no regard for hurting her, without a thought to whether she could withstand the force of his lovemaking.

And, oh, how she loved it.

How she loved to be in the middle of the hurricane with him as he spun them both higher and tighter. Sounds echoed through the large bedroom, his praise for how beautiful she was, how perfect, along with her moans, gasps, yes, even screams of pleasure. And even when she expected the pleasure to end—it couldn’t go on forever like this, could it?—Marcus continued to rock with her, his hand moving between her legs.

“Give me one more,” he urged her, and she was wondering how he knew there was a little bit left inside of her still, when she felt it wash over her, another wave of pleasure, less intense this time, but still so good, she had to reach for him and pull him down over her so that she could kiss him.