His tongue pierced the snug opening as his two fingers penetrated her rear entrance and sent pleasure tearing through her system.

“Oh God. Dawg!” She screamed his name as the dual caresses had her trying to writhe, trying to escape the incredible sensations rocking through her body.

Heat and lightning, fiery flames licked over her flesh and burned beneath the skin. It was incredible. The pleasure was like being stretched upon a rack of impending ecstasy and tortured with the knowledge that rapture awaited.

Breathing was nearly impossible as she reached for it. Her legs strained with the effort to get closer. To drive his fingers deeper, then his tongue deeper. To make him, force him give her what she needed to release her from the almost painful pleasure searing her body.

She tried to tighten her legs, to close them just enough to tighten the sensation on her clit, to give that final pressure she was certain she needed to find her orgasm.

Below her, Dawg chuckled, a rough rasp of arousal and pleasure vibrating through her as his tongue licked with wicked strokes into the snug entrance to her pussy.

His fingers moved farther back. Stroked. Thrust.

“You’re killing me!” Her fingers dug into the mattress, her hips lifted, fighting to get closer, only to have him ease the pressure she so desperately needed.

A ragged cry tore from her throat as a rumbled sound of pleasure whispered over her pussy.

“It’s okay, fancy-face,” he assured her erotically before his tongue licked around her clit again and his fingers flexed in her rear. “I’ll take care of you.”

His lips covered her clit. He drew it into the heat of his mouth and suckled her, drew on her until she was screaming for relief. His tongue rasped over it, and she begged. As release built in her womb, he eased off, his head lowering, his tongue licking through her juices once again and denying her the relief she was begging for.

“Damn you! Stop teasing me.” She reached for him, her fingers locking in his hair and clenching as another heated thrust filled her rear.

“I want your ass, Crista,” he groaned, his lips pressing against her thigh before his teeth scraped over the flesh there.

She trembled, remembering the act, knowing what it would do to her, knowing how it would bind her to him. The ultimate submission. He had muttered those words as he took her there the first time. His.

Crista stared back at him as he moved, rising to his knees, spreading her thighs farther apart as his fingers slid from her rear.

“Dawg?” Crista shuddered, watching as he pulled her hips closer and pushed her legs back.

She watched, shocked, torn between feminine fear and erotic thrill as she saw him spread a heavy layer of lubrication over his cock.

It glistened, thick and powerful. Heavy veins pulsed beneath the flesh as the engorged crest visibly throbbed. Crista swallowed tightly. It looked huge, too large, too hard to breach the narrow opening it was tucking against.

“Dawg.” She lifted her eyes back to his, mesmerized by the eroticism in his expression and the darkening of his light green eyes.

“Are you mine, Crista?” he asked, his voice rasping in the back of his throat as his cock pressed against her, into her.

“Always.” She couldn’t deny what her soul had always known.

A whimpering cry left her lips as he shifted his hold on her and let her legs fall to his chest while one hand gripped her hip, the other gripped the shaft of his cock.

Crista felt the invasion, slowly, a penetration that sent sensation shattering through the tender nerve endings. Her anal entrance began to stretch, to open beneath the blunt force of his erection.

“Oh God! Dawg, I can’t stand this.” Her body undulated involuntarily as her hands fisted into the blanket beneath her.

Flames were licking around her rear as the flesh parted. Pleasure and pain, submission and seduction. It was ownership. Not of her mind or really of her body. Ownership of her sensuality, of her pleasure. The intimacy was one so binding that even eight years after he had first given it, she had never recovered from the effects of it on her soul.

He was branding himself onto her soul and into her body.

Her lips opened on a soundless scream as the thickly flared head cleared the entrance, then forged inside once again. He buried his cock head inside the clenching tissue, groaning as she cried out his name in shocked pleasure.

Dawg paused then, his breathing rough, rapid, as sweat trickled down his chest and his eyes lowered to the tender opening he was taking.

“So hot and tight,” he groaned, moving again, slow, shallow thrusts that worked his cock deeper inside her by small degrees. “It’s like being held by flames, Crista.”

Or taken by flames.

Her head thrashed on the bed as his cock moved deeper inside her ass, stretching her, revealing nerve endings so sensitive that the slam of sensation echoed into her clit. She was surrounded by a pleasure so intense, so forceful, she wondered if she could survive it.

“You’re burning me alive.” The hoarse snarl of his voice as the final inches of his erection burrowed into her anus had her womb contracting with an impending orgasm.

It was so wickedly erotic. It was the most forbidden, most submissive act Crista could envision, and it was overriding her sanity.

Control was a thing of the past. Dawg held the control. He held her. He shifted and moved, pulling nearly free before surging forward again. He stroked and caressed and set aflame nerve endings that hadn’t flared to life in eight years.

Crista arched to him, her hips twisting in his grip as the need began to spiral out of control. She needed it hard and deep. She needed him to…

“Fuck me.” She didn’t recognize her own voice as the shattered plea filled the air. “Please, Dawg.

Harder. Fuck me harder.”

Her lashes lifted, her gaze hazy as she tried to focus on his face. A hard grimace twisted it, pleasure racking his features as he shook his head, sweat beading and dripping down his forehead as his hands clenched on her hips and his cock throbbed inside her ass.

“Harder,” she whispered again, tempting him with a flex of those inner muscles, tightening on his flesh and feeling the pleasure spasm through her as well.

“Fuck. Crista,” he groaned, panting with the pleasure, just as she was.

“I need you.” She swallowed tightly. “All of you. Fuck me harder, Dawg. Give me what I need.”

His hips jerked, dragging his erection back before pushing it inside her with a longer, harder stroke. As he did, one hand moved from her hip to tuck between her thighs.

Broad male fingers slid through the slick essence that gathered there, found the weeping center, and two digits thrust inside heavily.

He moved then. Thrusting hard and heavy as Crista’s eyes widened, her gaze dimming as ecstasy began to wash over her.

Her orgasm came fast and hard. With his fingers stroking strong and sure inside her pussy, his cock burying repeatedly inside her ass, there was no holding back. The dark eroticism and extreme pleasure was too much.

Crista heard her own cries with a distant wonder. They sounded shattered, agonized. Beneath that sound was Dawg’s. His harsh male groan as he buried deep inside her rear, his seed spurting heavily inside her, would always follow her.

His broken “I love you, Crista. God help me, I love you” threw her orgasm higher, shattering her soul with the ragged edge of hope and pain she heard in his voice.

He jerked against her, spilling his semen into her rear before giving a final groan and easing slowly from the tight clasp she had on him.

Crista whimpered at the added sensation. The feel of him slowly leaving her, his cock easing from her, his fingers caressing away from her pussy were nearly painful now in their intensity.

They were both sweat-soaked as he eased on the bed beside her and pulled her to his chest. His lips pressed against the top of her head in a kiss that had her chest clenching in emotion.

Beneath her cheek his heart raced, just as hers was racing, and his lungs heaved for breath.

It was like this, every time. It wasn’t just the exertion of the sex but the intense emotions that tore through them and left them weak and shaken.

“I love you, Dawg,” she whispered when she could finally find her breath and her senses. “I’ve always loved you.”

TWENTY-ONE

Graceful Sweets and Bakery sat just off North Main Street outside the old town center. The house Johnny Grace had bought sat on the plot of land beside the house that Crista had inherited from her parents.

The two-story brick home sat amid a perfectly manicured and landscaped lawn. Summer blooms grew in abundance around the property, wooden archways held trailing vines and climbing roses, and the front porch was home to cement urns filled with sweetly scented flowers.

Crista walked to the wide front door. The sign hanging on the door claimed, Open to Fulfill Your Sweetest Needs.

“This is a very bad idea,” she muttered, not for the first time, as Dawg gripped the door latch and opened the door.

Instantly, a profusion of scents wrapped around them. Baking breads, sweet icings, and tempting delights. Crista inhaled unconsciously and felt her sweet tooth awaken with a vengeance.

Johnny had always kept her supplied with sweets. For the past year, she hadn’t had to buy so much as a loaf of bread because of his generosity. Payment for betraying her? A guilty conscience?

Betrayal and anger began to burn brighter inside her. It made her chest ache with the knowledge that Dawg had dealt with this most of his life.

“Crista.” Johnny’s voice greeted her with an edge of concern as she stepped into what had once been an open living room and dining room. It now held display cases of profuse sweets and breads.

There were other customers. Johnny had a steady clientele that kept him busy through the day.

He stepped away from the register cabinet, a frown pulling at his brow, as he glanced at Dawg behind her.

“Natches said you had left town.” His gaze was filled with concern. “Is everything okay?”

He gripped her hands before kissing her cheek. Reacting normally was the hardest thing Crista had ever done. She wanted to rage; she wanted to cry. For all his problems with the Mackay family, she had always enjoyed Johnny’s company.

“Everything’s fine, Johnny. Natches misunderstood a slight argument Dawg and I had. Nothing to be worried about. But I have been missing my banana nut bread. Do you have any made?”

Johnny glanced over her shoulder once again, his gaze flickering with indecision.

Crista glanced back. Dawg hadn’t taken off his dark glasses, and he looked mean enough to bite nails in half. She butted her elbow into his tight abs with a warning look.

Customers were watching the scene curiously, a spate of whispers breaking out as Dawg looked down at her and rubbed at his hard stomach almost absently.

“I always have your bread, Crista.” Johnny’s voice could have held nerves, anger, or fear. It was hard to tell.

He turned and moved back to the main display case. Lifting the hinged glass door to the long case, Johnny grabbed a wax liner, lifted a small loaf of banana nut bread from the case, and pushed it quickly into a white wax bag he used for the breads.

“Here you go,” he said, moving to the register, his expression emotionless, his gaze flickering between Crista and Dawg. “Anything else?” His gaze lingered on Dawg, and Crista swore she saw hatred glittering in the depths then.

“I tried to tell her she could get the bread somewhere else.” Dawg spoke up then, his tone taunting. “It’s a nice place you have here, Johnny. Real nice. I’m glad to see your little court battle paid off.”

The money and land they had won during the estate battle with Dawg had evidently paid for the store.

“Dawg,” Crista chided, hating the need to maintain a semblance of compassion toward Johnny.

She could feel the animosity that began to thicken between the two men. She pulled some money quickly from her purse to pay for the bread, wanting only to get out of there, to breathe without the stench of Johnny’s betrayal choking her.