“You kill me in class,” he said in a guttural voice.

“Why?”

“I can’t stop staring at you. I look at the nape of your neck.” That sound came again, and she realized it was halfway between a purr and a growl … clearly, he was utterly aroused already. “I have these fantasies of going up behind you and tilting your head back. I run my hands down your throat … under your uniform … onto your breasts.”

Paradise’s eyes fluttered shut. “Oh, God … you do?”

“All the time. Why do you think I couldn’t get up out of my seat tonight.”

She had an image of him frozen in the back of the classroom, no expression on his face, his big body tense. “What are you talking about?”

“I was hard. And it would have showed.”

Paradise’s body arched as she pictured what the front of his loose pants would have looked like, all stretched tight over that big rigid length of his.

“I need to sit down in front so I don’t see you as much.” As she laughed softly, he moaned. “Do that again.”

“Do what?”

“That laugh. It’s so fucking sexy.” When she obliged, she heard rustling. “Have you ever touched yourself, Paradise?”

She had a brief image of Novo, so secure, so sexual, so confident. And she thought about lying. “No.”

“I’ve been touching you in my head since I got back here.”

More images of him flickered across the black backdrop of the darkness in the room: him fighting the Brother Butch with such honor; him pumping weights; him staring at her in the locker room.

“What are you wearing?” he breathed.

“It’s like you’re here with me.”

“I am. What do you have on top?”

She glanced down in the dark and saw nothing. “I have a button-down blouse on.”

“Don’t take it off,” he moaned. Or maybe that was another purr. “Put your hand inside the collar.”

It seemed like the most natural thing in the world to do what he said, and the sensation of her own fingertips going over her skin made shivers rush down her body.

“Are you wearing a bra?”

“Yes.”

“Can you feel one of the straps? It’s warm from your skin, right?”

“Yes,” she breathed.

“Loosen the top button. Do it for me. Now go inside deep—is your nipple tight against the cup?”

As she complied, she meant to answer him yes, except she was breathing too hard and her mind had gone on the fritz. But he didn’t seem to mind the silence.

Craeg laughed, the deep, dark ripple thrilling her. “I want my mouth on there. I want to look up and watch you gasp when I lick at you, suck on you.”

For a male who didn’t say much, he sure could put a string of words together.

“I keep thinking about the clinic,” she heard herself say. “Your hand under the sheets. I remember exactly what it looked like, going up and down—”

“Fuck.”

“—until you—”

“Rip the shirt in half.”

“What?”

“Rip the fucking thing off your body,” he barked. “Put the fucking phone down and rip it in half!”

Buttons. Everywhere.

And God, that felt good, her torso arching up again as she tore the thing apart, the fastenings offering no resistance as she put her strength into the job.

Flopping back against the mattress, she scrambled to get the phone to her ear once more—and then heard him breathing harder and harder, except then he stopped.

In a tight tone, like he’d clamped his molars together, he gritted out commands for her to go under the cups of her bra and rub her nipples and feel the swells of her breasts and then get rid of the bra altogether. She didn’t hesitate, and was astonished to feel her own fingertips exploring the soft skin, the tight tips, creating bolts of electricity and heat that went straight to her core. And the entire time, he was talking in that velvet voice of his, coaching her in a deliberate way in spite of the erotic charge to it all, building her up slowly, inexorably. The higher she got, the hotter, the wetter, the less she cared about the modest, lady-like crap—and the more she wanted what he was giving to her.

But she kept her wits enough to stay relatively quiet. Even though she wanted to scream his name, the idea of a doggen or her father trying her locked door because they’d heard something would lead to conversations she wouldn’t be able to fake her way through.

“Now what,” she moaned.

In the darkness of the bedroom he’d been assigned, Craeg was all in. All fucking in. The training center could have caught fire or been rocked by an earthquake and he wouldn’t have cut the connection.

He had no idea what Paradise’s room looked like, where her bed was, how many pillows she was up against, or what color the duvet might be. But he had a crystal-fucking-clear picture of what she’d be like, all stretched out and writhing, torn shirt hanging from her arms in two pieces, simple, modest bra undone, her breasts exposed.

Little nipples all high and tight, ready for his mouth.

“Can you feel me on you?” he demanded.

“Yes…” she gasped.

Good, then it was time to go down farther. Not on himself, though. He’d had to stop working his cock, because when he did, he started to orgasm and that conked his brain out: More than anything, more than getting off himself, he wanted to make this right for her.