I put my hands around the base of her head and used my thumbs to tilt her head back as far as her position and the bed would allow. I bent my head so I could nibble on the taut arch of her throat and nudged her legs out of my way so I could slide inside of her welcoming heat. Even through the latex she scorched me. So hot. So wet. So greedy, as her inner muscles pulled me farther and farther in. Everything inside me was clawing at me to drive home, to bury myself as deep as I could go and assuage the need hammering at my insides. This was supposed to be about her, about showing her this was something, maybe not something more, but something nonetheless. I had finesse goddammit, and I would use it even if it felt like it was going to strangle me.

Her hands slipped up my back and then wrapped around my shoulders. She brought her long legs up on either side of me and then I felt the bite of her heels in my ass, urging me closer and closer. Without a thought I let my teeth sink harder into her tender skin and she moaned in response.

“Titus, move!” It wasn’t a sigh or a sweet nothing, it was an order, and it was fucking hotter than anything had ever been.

She arched against me, clamped down on me, and moved against the sharp edge of my teeth. Her fingernails scratched against my back and the burn of it was enough for the reins to slip. I grunted and did what she commanded. I moved.

I pulled her legs up even higher and plowed into her. There was no finesse. There was no care. There was no elegance or romance . . . there was only me taking her and her letting me have her over and over again.

It was sweaty. It was aggressive. It was noisy and almost brutal in the way our hands grabbed, the way our bodies fought to get closer and take more. It was the single best sexual experience I had ever had in my life.

I forgot that my face was covered in stubble and it tore her soft skin up as I ate at her neck and her mouth over and over again. I got a hand between us and captured one of her nipples between my thumb and forefinger and pinched until she called out as pleasure turned to pain. I would’ve apologized, but I felt the way she liked it as pleasure coated the surface of my cock as it moved in and out of her at a fevered pace. It was so good. Everything about her, everything about doing this with her, was so unbelievably good and it was going to turn me inside out. I felt it racing up my spine. I felt burning in my balls. I felt it as my dick drove harder and deeper with every thrust.

“More. I want more.”

Her voice cracked and that was it for me. I couldn’t give her the more that she wanted, but I could give her this.

I lifted her hips up and pounded into her hard enough that our pelvises banged together in an almost painful way. I sank my teeth into her lower lip and sucked on it hard. That was all it took to shove her over again. She screamed my name into my lips and I felt her body flutter and spasm around me. I was close myself, so as soon as those dark blue eyes locked on mine and shined up at me with pleasure and completion, I let go. It all raced out of me and rushed into her, and like she had done since she came crashing back into my life, she caught it all without a complaint.

I collapsed on top of her, breathing heavy and covered in sex and sweat. I panted into her throat as she glided her hands up and down my back. I felt boneless. I felt weightless. I felt like all that mattered in this moment was me and her, which is exactly why I couldn’t give her more. She already had too much.

“This has to be good enough for now.” I said the words but I could hear they lacked the strength they needed to make my point.

“For now. Let’s get cleaned up so you can go see your brother.”

I muttered an agreement and rolled off of her so she could get up. I didn’t want to tell her now was all the time we might have if I couldn’t get a handle on Roark before he got a handle on me.

Chapter 11

Reeve

THERE WAS A TANGIBLE shift between the two of us as we raced across town in his badass car. It went beyond sex. It went beyond wanting what we shouldn’t. There was a simple acceptance now that it wasn’t “him” and “me,” it was “us,” whether that was good or bad. We were finally in it together no matter what the outcome might be. We were a team.

The engine roared in my ears and so did the fact that any legal deal I had with the feds was gone, considering they were closing the Novak case and they no longer needed me. Titus laid it out for me in bare bones terms, and I knew good and well that meant I could be looking at jail time if I didn’t manage to help him bring in Conner. My purpose had been served and I was of no use anymore, at least as it applied to the feds and Novak’s crew. The feds thought the same thing Titus did. Conner would come for me and that would be the only chance anyone had to snatch him up. I had no intention of letting Conner go anywhere without a bullet in his head, so that meant I was going to royally screw up any chance I had of skating out of all of this without seeing the inside of a cell.

I didn’t say anything to Titus while he tried to tell me it would all work out once he had Conner on lockdown. He tried to tell me that I was the one risking my neck and that even the straitlaced feds had to know that came with some give and take. I just muttered a noncommittal response and thought about the Glock that was sitting heavy and loaded in the purse at my feet. Everything came with give and take, and when I was done taking it would be well past time that I gave something up. If that something had to be my freedom¸ then so be it. It was a price I was willing to pay after setting everything back to rights.

Once we got to the hospital I thought we would just go our separate ways since Bax was still in intensive care and Keelyn was on another floor in general recovery, but surprisingly Titus wanted me to walk with him to his brother’s room. I was hesitant because I knew Dovie and Race were floating around and I didn’t want any kind of ugly confrontation. I mean, before I was sleeping with Titus I was sleeping with Conner, and Conner was the reason Bax had nearly died. If the situation were reversed I would have had a lot to say on the subject myself. However, as Titus clasped my hand in his and pulled me along behind him as our shoes squeaked obnoxiously on the linoleum floor, I didn’t really have the right words to object, so I just followed him silently.

Bax’s room was easy to spot. There were two armed police officers standing on either side of the door and a rumpled redhead pacing back and forth in front of them. Dovie looked haggard and worn out. She had purple shadows set deep under each green eye and her typically creamy pallor was splotchy and red. She looked a mess and agitated as we approached her. Her gaze flew up to Titus and without a word he dropped my hand and scooped her up in a rib-cracking hug. Immediately giant sobs started to shake her lithe body. Titus made soothing noises and stroked one of his big hands up and down her back. It made my heart swell just a little. He was always there to take care of everyone else, always. He had to put the beast away and be the guy that fixed everything so often that it was no wonder that when his own monster got loose he had no idea what to do with it.