“I do know you.” I shiver in his grasp. “I haven’t stopped thinking about you since the day we broke up. You’re generous and thoughtful. Not many people would sacrifice the way you have to help your family. You’re an amazing teacher. You can get people to do things they never thought they could do. You’re a skilled carpenter and a gifted fighter. I love those things about you. What more do you want?” I struggle against his grip, writhing between the fence and the hard press of his body.

“I want you to want me until you ache.” He groans, but still doesn’t release me. “I want you to need me with every breath in your body. I want to turn around and know I will always see you in my corner. I want you to want me the way I want you. Body, heart, and soul.”

He wants me.

He wants me.

Fuzzed with lust, my brain barely takes in more than those three words. My body aches with need. If he would only step back so I couldn’t feel his hard chest against my br**sts, inhale his scent of sex and sweat, or hear the deep tremor of his voice that betrays his arousal. Desire wouldn’t be curled around my lungs so tight I have to fight to breathe.

“I want you,” I whisper. I will do anything, say anything, to get him inside me to have the one thing I understand, the intimacy that tells me his words are real.

With a groan, I move against him, pressing and rubbing, grinding my hips against his. He may be holding my hands but I still have power, and if I’ve learned one thing over the years, it’s how to use it.

“Stop, Amanda.” He groans. “Fuck, baby. Don’t… I want you so bad. I won’t be able to... Stop.”

But I can’t stop. I am helpless to stop. I need him too much, and I let him know it with every twist of my body, every whimper from my lips. This is how I speak. This is how I communicate the torrent of emotion inside me.

His hand tightens painfully around my wrists. He leans closer, so close I can feel every wire of the fence against my body. I can breathe every breath with him. My skin is his skin. My heart is his heart. My head falls back and I moan and grind against him.

“Fuck.” And then he screams it, “Fuck.” Still holding my wrists with one hand, he tears open my shirt with one swift, brutal jerk. Buttons patter across the mat in a hailstorm of plastic tears.

I have unleashed the tiger.

With a low growl, he rips open the front closure of my bra. My br**sts spill into his palm. There is no gentleness in his touch, no soft caresses. Rough, calloused fingers squeeze soft flesh, pinch and tweak taut ni**les. Teeth nip, lips suck, skin bruises. But all his rough ministrations do is inflame me even more until my body is wound so tight, one touch in the right place will set me free.

“Christ. I didn’t want it to be like this.” Muttering under his breath, he shoves my skirt up to my waist. “I wanted to wait. I wanted it to be perfect. I wanted past the walls you’ve built up around your heart. But you’re too f**king much to resist. Too damn hot. Too damn sexy. I’ve wanted you so bad for so long. And you pushed me too f**king hard.”

A yank. Fabric rents. My panties flutter to the ground like a discarded tissue.

A low carnal snarl escapes his lips and he kicks my legs apart. “Open.”

I suck in a sharp breath at his demand and I part my legs as all my dark fantasies come true.

And then his hand is on his waist, untying his shorts. Silk whispers over his skin. He peels off his bike shorts and then his cup and releases one of my hands.

“There’s something you need to know.”

Before my frantic mind can conjure up all manner of terrible things a woman might need to know two seconds before having sex with the object of her deepest desires, he guides my hand down to his c**k and wraps it around the base. Almost giddy with lust, I hold him tight, luxuriating in the feel of him, hot, heavy, and throbbing in my hand.

“Keep going.”

I stroke up. Silky smooth skin ripples over a core of steel, the sensation mouthwateringly erotic. But when I reach the tip I stop.

Steel.

For real.

My hand jerks away so hard it flies back and hits the fence.

Jake grasps my hand and forces it back down. He wraps my fingers around the tip of his erection and I run my fingers over a round knob at the top and another at the bottom. Finally, I look down so my mind can process what my fingers feel.

“Oh God, Jake. You’re pierced right through.”

“It’s an apadravya piercing and if you keep touching me like that I won’t be able to hold on. You got any condoms?”

“My purse.” I point to my black leather handbag, discarded not so long ago beside the cage door.

He pulls away, leaving me bereft, but only for a moment. Within a minute he returns, sheathed, his c**k jutting toward me from its golden nest of curls. Then he slams me back against the cage.

“This is not how I wanted you to find out.” His deep voice rumbles through me. “I wanted it slow. I wanted it easy. But f**k, baby, you’ve wound me up so tight, I’m gonna f**k you so hard, you’re gonna forget where you start and where I end.”

Hand shaking, I trace a finger along his throbbing shaft, hot despite the latex. “Does it hurt?” I whisper. “When you’re hard?”

Jake fists my hair and tugs my head back. “The harder I am, the better if feels, and I can tell you, it’s never felt so f**king good as it does right now.”

He slides his hands under my ass and lifts me against his hips. “Fingers in the fence,” he orders. “I want you doing nothing but thinking about how I feel inside you.”