“Condom. Find it.”

“What?” Seriously I was struck dumb by the sight of him. He was beautiful. He was a warrior. He was a man made to fight, to win. He was big and hard. He was cut and defined. He was powerful and massive in a way that made me feel unbelievably delicate and feminine. He was all that a man should be and then some and there was never going to be anyone that would ever compare. He was going to ruin me in both the good and the bad ways.

“I bought a couple of rubbers last time I was at the gas station because I can’t get you off my fucking mind, and I like to be prepared. Find one.”

He sounded like a caveman and I kind of liked it. I also liked the light brush of his happy trail as he pressed his pelvis into mine. The long length of his cock rubbed against me as he pulled his zipper down and leaned farther into me. I found the foil packet and tore it open with my teeth after tossing the wallet to the floor.

“Hurry.” He sounded like he was on the brink, so I grasped the heavy shaft and rolled the latex down. He jerked at my touch and the power of that was so intoxicating I leaned forward and sealed my mouth back over his. He responded by wrapping one of his bandaged hands around my breast and squeezing it tight.

It wasn’t until the tip of him slid in, stretched me, burned a trail that felt like heaven and hell combined that I realized I was bare-assed and the tint on the windows was still turned off. Anyone looking close enough up at the complex would get a clear view of the debauchery currently happening between me and the hot cop.

“Titus . . .” I wanted to tell him we had to move. That we needed to stop for just a second, but he just grunted and thrust his hips hard so that we were joined all the way together, our pelvises aligned so there was no him and there was no me, there was just us. And we were so in tune with each other, so hungry for one another, I forgot what I was going to say.

He put a hand under my backside and tilted my hips more toward him. He nuzzled his face in the curve of my neck so every grunt, every pant, every whispered curse drifted through my ear like a promise. He put his other arm on the glass over my head for leverage and then proceeded to fuck me into oblivion.

Our chests rubbed together. Our bodies writhed and grinded against each other. I felt him tense and flex inside of my own and I felt the way my body responded to him. I was flushed and sweaty. I was wet and burning. Everywhere we touched felt fused together and I never wanted it to end. Suddenly the hand he had been using to hold me up vanished from my ass and showed back up between my legs. How he knew just where to touch, how he knew just how much pressure to add, I would never know. But he worked me over like a pro and it felt so good it hurt too much to hold back anymore.

I broke apart. Shattered like glass and he watched me the entire time. When I was stuck, captured and panting, he ran his fingers, wet from my own desire, up the center of my chest and used them to wrap lightly around my throat. It made me open my eyes wider and he just grinned at me. I had told him I wanted it all, but he didn’t squeeze, didn’t tighten his grip. He just left his fingers there as he pounded into me, rutting and thrusting like the beast he had released.

It only took a few more minutes for him to reach his own completion, and when he did, it again made me dumb. His muscles all locked, his eyes scorched everything they touched, and the look of relaxation that finally dotted his hard features was like a miracle. I wanted him to look like that for me all the time.

He bent his head so that he could put little butterfly kisses all along my collarbone as he pulled out and let my legs fall to either side of him. Our clothes were a mess and we both definitely looked like we had been frantically screwing each other’s brains out.

“You didn’t give me a chance to hit the control for the window. The people in the building across the street probably just got one hell of a show.” It was really early in the morning, but still.

He pulled the condom off and situated himself back inside his pants. He ran a hand through his hair and looked at me with eyes that once again looked summer-sky blue. “I wouldn’t have let you hit the tint. I want the people watching us to see.” He said it so matter-of-factly that it left me stunned. He knew exactly what he was doing. He wanted Conner to see what we were up to, wanted my ex to see us together like that. It hadn’t been about us at all. He told me he needed to take a shower, but I couldn’t really hear him over the sound of my heart yet again blowing up because of this man.

I was never going to learn. Or I would learn, but it was going to be too late by the time the lesson took hold to keep it from breaking me.

Chapter 10

Titus

I FELT LIKE A stranger had taken up residence in my body. He was doing things, saying things, making choices I would never make. I wanted to chalk it up to being tired, to the stress of almost losing my brother, to the frustration of figuring out too late who Roark was and exactly why he waging war on my city. But the truth of it was that I had grown up on these streets, had fought my own fight to survive and become the man I was, so there was just as much dirt and grime under my fingernails as the next guy’s. The rough parts of who I was and how I had become him had always been buried deep down inside of me, covered by my sense of honor or my drive to make the world around me a better place for the innocent and unprotected. The layers that covered up the darkness and brutality were getting thinner and thinner, and what was starting to get exposed was the heart of the man I really was.

The soul of that man had no qualms about getting in as deep and as far as he could with Reeve. She made the edges that poked at him less sharp. Those navy-blue eyes brought the calm, and that mouth, the things she did with it, made the buzzing from every bad thing that followed me home go quiet for a few minutes. She was like belladonna. So pretty and soft on the outside, so delicate to the touch. But once she was on the inside, once you had any part of her, you knew she was strong enough and deadly enough to kill you. She was just as dangerous on the inside as I was, and I was pretty sure after that round of purely animalistic sex in the living room, I no longer cared. I didn’t have any desire to search out reasons and logic to stay away. I liked being with her. I liked that she wanted to make sure that I was okay. I liked that she looked at me like I was everything and then in the next blink dared me to give her all that I had. I was done trying to make myself feel bad for the attraction that pulled me toward her. I wanted to feast on it instead.

I was always careful during sex and not just with protection. I knew I had a tendency to get intense, to forget that my partner didn’t need the escape, need the oblivion in the same way I did. More than once, sex had ended badly when I let the leash slip and the act turned into more than the girl could take. Reeve didn’t care. She didn’t just tempt the beast that lurked inside of me, she poked the needy bastard with a stick and demanded he come out and play. She called to the parts of me I often forgot existed. She demanded more and more.