“I’d like to be taken that way,” I confessed, looking deep into his eyes. “But only with someone I trusted. Who’d care for me and my safety.”

“Come up here,” he said, spreading me over him. “I’m only going to use my finger. You’re already quivering so much.”

“I do like it, it feels exciting, but I don’t know . . . Greyson . . .”

“Shh.” He brushed his lips over mine to quiet me. He was hard under me. He liked touching me, whispering at me as he kissed me and slowly I relaxed as he dipped his thumb into my ass, and when I moaned, he tipped my head back and slowly kissed me some more. “Just relax, let me in.” He teased me with his thumb moving, ever so slowly, in and out, and I began shivering more, moving over him until I felt the wetness seeping from the tip of his c**k against my abdomen.

He rolled me to my stomach. In silence, he bent over and bit one ass cheek, cupping the other in his hand as he slid his thumb up my ass again.

“Fold to your knees, Melanie.” He ran his hand down my spine as I did what he said, whimpering softly.

“Greyson, it feels intense . . .”

“Let it take you, princess. Give me this. Fuck, let me watch you come apart like this.”

He stroked his hand up my back while the other kept fingering me. Sensations took over. I whimpered, closing my eyes as his intoxicating touch did new and profound things to me. He nibbled my other ass cheek and f**ked his thumb in three more times, and when he slipped his middle finger into my pu**y, I started coming. And coming. And coming.

He pressed his c**k against me as I came, so I could feel it close, tempting me, hard, pulsing, his voice gruff with arousal close to my nape, exposed as he shoved my braid aside.

“Thatta girl,” he purred, pinching my ni**les, rubbing the outer rim of my little ass as the contractions eased.

“It was . . . incredible.”

I turned, and he rolled to his back and folded his arms behind his head as I tried to catch my breath. But it was hard to breathe when the air was thick with it—with lust, with want, with this animal, chemical attraction I have never, ever felt. I wanted his c**k in me, I wanted to do it all with him, but would he be careful with me?

His body oozed tension, muscles tight with it, c**k up at full mast again.

“You’ve had a lot of lovers?” I whispered, gripping him in my hand, strangely jealous.

“Lovers, not really. Fucks, yeah.” He grabbed my face in one hand and gave a firm squeeze to my cheeks. “But I’ve never f**ked a little mouth like yours. Now open up, princess.”

I was wet again as he came up on his knees, pulling me up by the braid. When he filled me, I made eye contact, he didn’t take his eyes off me, watching every swipe of my tongue, every inch I licked, every breath I let caress the length of him. “Fuck,” he rasped, pumping and drawing out his pleasure. I ran my tongue over him, our eyes connected like magnets. “You like that, don’t you?” he cooed. The way he talked to me excited me. If he’d touched me again, I’d have come. I almost slipped my hand between my legs and touched myself. Instead I grabbed the base of him because I wanted him to fantasize about this one b**w j*b whenever it is he plans to leave. . . .

He jetted off and, usually, I pull away when men do, but when I felt him tense up and I was about to pull back, he cooed, “Every last drop of come is yours, Melanie.” He fisted my braid, his eyes demanding and commanding, and suddenly I wanted to please him, taste him, and I did.

I close my eyes briefly and exhale out the memories of yesterday. When I open my eyes, he’s out on the balcony, still on his phone. His legs, thick like tree trunks, are braced apart, long, muscular, and just dusted with hair. His calves are shapely and powerful, his tan golden, his ass perfection, as perfectly molded as the muscled, upside-down triangle of his broad shoulders and narrow hips. And he’s just out there for anyone with binoculars to see, buck naked. Standing right there.

A f**king sex god.

When Greyson rolls the glass door open, he’s still on the phone. As he comes back into the room and hangs up, I notice he’s got a thick bandage wrapped around his upper arm.

As he approaches, I lift the sheets because I crave his heat, his nearness, the smell of him on my skin.

“Work?” I ask.

“You could say that,” he says as he gets under the covers with me. I hold my breath because his hard c**k tells me he craves me too. I kiss his throat and curl my fingers around most of his girth, loving how hard he got, so fast. His c**k had turned semihard by the time he took the call, but it’s fully swelled again. Oh, f**k, I really dig this guy. What he whispers when we f**k?

My skin tingles everywhere, remembering.

He looks down at me with sleepy eyes and my toes are curling full force. When he smiles that sensual smile, I die.

Unexpectedly, he slowly pulls the sheet off my body. Full sunlight streams through the window, and when he tosses the covers aside to look at me, I squirm on the bed.

“Don’t,” I protest, attempting to pull up the sheets, squeaking in embarrassment.

“Yes,” he sternly counters. He grabs the sheets in a fist and tosses them aside again, pressing me down on my back.

Immediately I think of my kidney scars. “I’m not used to being seen like this.”

“Get used to being seen like this by me,” he says gently.

Though I’ve turned bright red, he’s got me mesmerized enough that I’ve fallen utterly still, on the bed, my br**sts heaving up and down as he looks at me. THE LOOK he gives me feels like a live, physical touch. It travels every inch of my body, from the top of my head down to my toes, like a tremor.

I never thought a look could be this powerful.

It makes me forget my scars, my every hurt.

You’d think that because I had the kidney transplant when I was a baby, the scar would be tiny. It’s not. It’s a slash on the lower right of my abdomen, and it’s grown with the rest of my body. It’s faded a very light pink and makeup does wonders for it, but the makeup is gone by now.

And Greyson sees it.

He traces the scar with one finger and sets my hand on his own scar. The gesture only endears him to me. Because he’s scarred too, but he’s not embarrassed about it.

As he bends over and presses his lips to my scar, my eyes well up.

“What happened here?” he murmurs.

I don’t know why he makes me emotional, but I blink back the tears and slide my hand down his chest over his own scar. “What happened here?” I counter, my voice thick with emotion.

“Ladies first,” he says gently, easing back and watching me with eyes that are no longer sleepy, but dark and patient.

I’m not sure I want him to know that one of my kidneys is not mine. That I’m a transplant patient. That I need to take pills to make sure my body doesn’t reject my donor’s organ. That maybe in a couple of years, I’ll need to exchange this one for a new one yet again, if it starts giving up.

These are not things you tell a man when you’re starting to date, or just f**k, or whatever we’re doing. There’s this show called the Millionaire Matchmaker, and I will never forget how the expert Patti went all over a girl who’d dumped some serious issues on a poor bachelor’s lap.

You do not do that!

Guys do not care about it unless they genuinely care about you first!

Quietly, I touch Greyson’s nipple ring instead, and hearing him hold his breath when I tug it playfully, I grin into his suddenly very dark, hungry eyes and say, “I should get a nipple ring.”

He laughs, then sobers up and shakes his head. “Yeah, that’s not happening.”

“Why not?”

He rubs my butt. “That’s not f**king happening. No one’s getting anywhere near my business.”

I realize the thick bandage on his right arm is stained with blood, so I sit up with a start. “What happened here? Did I scratch you?”

He merely smiles to himself as he tightens the bandage. “It takes a little more than a kitten’s claw to make me bleed.”

“Let me help.”

Shifting closer, I take the bandage and carefully wrap it around his bulging arm. “Are you okay?” I ask.

“I’m good,” he says dismissively.

When I finish wrapping it up, I impulsively set a kiss on it, slowly setting my lips on him and closing my eyes as a tenderness sweeps through me. A man making me feel this tenderness is so alien to me. Usually men are just . . . guys to me. Not even human. More like enemies that must be handled with care. Used, on occasion. But what I feel for this one is the most powerful thing I’ve ever in my life felt. Almost as if I know him from before. In some past life . . . in my dreams . . .

Before I can lift my head, his nose finds my ear, making me smile against his bandage and squirm when his breath tickles me.

He trails his hand lightly down my spine and settles it at the small of my back. This man gets my lower body on overdrive, but my upper body is getting the same workout, just ask my heart, which hasn’t beaten right for over thiry-six hours. And is he giving me the look too? I raise my head, and I’m tingling from my fingers to my toes. His smile is lazy, sleepy, and it melts me.

“That’s nice,” he says in a rumbly voice.

“What?”

“Nurse Melanie,” he whispers.

Something inside me buzzes and zings and I groan at my body’s stupid, instant reaction, then I tip my head up to kiss him while holding his head and pulling him down to mine. He brushes my lips, teasing me with a smile.

I groan in protest when my phone alarm starts screaming like mad, and I realize it’s Sunday—for a fact.

“Uffff, I’ve got brunch with my parents.” When he doesn’t seem too willing to let go of my waist, I push at his thick wrists. “Mister, I have to go.”

“I propose you cancel,” he says lazily.

“I can’t. I’m the only one who comes to brunch, and we always do brunch on Sunday.” I start gathering my undergarments and hunting down my dress. “You can come if you want to,” I blurt out, and when I notice his closed expression, I add, “No strings. I mean, it’s just breakfast. Not even that, brunch.”

“Nah, don’t think so.”

He’s still sleepy and in bed, stretching as he checks his phone, first one, then he pulls out another. “Can I use your shower, real quick?” I nervously ask.

“Use anything you like.”

Once again I feel strangely shy . . . I don’t know why he does that to me. Normally in a fling I’m uninhibited and can boss a poor boy around, if I want to. But clearly there’s no bossing this one around. Aware of his eyes on my ass as I retreat, I walk to the bathroom and turn on the warm water, easing inside the stall. I slowly exhale as the water runs over my head.

Greyson stalks into the bathroom just as I’m coming out of the shower stall, and while I wrap my hair in one towel and my body in the other, he flips on the water and showers in about a minute flat.

This is completely alien, being with a man in the bathroom. Brooke has mentioned that after Remy works out, they take a shower together, and f**k like mad. I’m finding it terribly distracting. In a mind-fuck sort of way. Hell, in a let’s-fuck sort of way too.

In fact, I end up losing my brains and just stand there, ogling him as he towel-dries his hair in the nude, shoulders working, abs clenching, the V dipping to his beautiful c**k which I swear is so big that even in its normal state . . .

“Just gave you some of that. But it seems like the lady still craves a little more?”

His voice jerks my eyes up to his and to that heart-tugging smile he wears as he pulls off a plastic wrap that he put around his bandage to keep it dry.

“Like you’re not tempting me on purpose,” I say with a smirk, drooling as I watch his muscled ass walk into his closet.

“Sure you don’t want to come?” I ask.

“Yeah, I’m sure.” He comes back with some clothes wadded in one arm and stops before me with a smile. “I’ve done enough coming for a while.”

“Asshole. But we knew that about you, didn’t we?”

I lean over the counter and start applying my morning makeup.

“You didn’t mean it. Inviting me over? Did you, princess?” he asks, looking seriously perturbed.

I scowl. “We just talk and have breakfast. It’s not like we plot a world takeover or anything top secret you couldn’t listen in on. It’s not a ‘meet the parents’ thing. Urgh, but forget it, you’re looking at me all weird.”

I’ve start brushing my fingers through my hair when he comes and hugs me from behind, holding my gaze in the mirror. He cups my face and turns it around, then his mouth is near my ear, his voice as thick as the feel of his c**k against my tummy. “All I want lately is to drag you to bed and f**k you from behind, sideways, then several angles from up front, so every muscle in your body will remember me when you move today. Every breath will hurt, every step you take. I want to feed you, and spread my next meal all over you. I want to lick up my meal, head to toe, clean you up in the shower next, then I want to soap you up and fondle every inch of your sleek little body as I feed you my dick. When I take you out of the shower, I want to towel you dry, massage your sweet tits, flip you around, and give you that long, sweet f**k in the ass you’ve been waiting for.”