She wasn’t going to stop him.

Elation rolled through him like a drug, clouding his senses. He tugged the peak of her breast again then, hard enough that she felt it. She tensed and moaned, making it impossible to hear anything over the blood pounding in his ears. She might not know it yet, but she was ripe for this. For someone—no, not someone, he thought fiercely, for him—to teach her what her body already knew.

She craved it. The pleasure and the pain. The ability to give herself over completely.

Now if only he could impart her first lesson without coming in his pants, they’d be golden. He refused to think about tomorrow.

He wedged his knee between her thighs, spreading them wide enough that he could press his cock in the cleft between her ass cheeks. He thrust hard against her, letting her feel his need, before pulling back. With a deliberateness that had him shaking with the effort, he straightened and traced his hands down her sides until he reached her full hips again.

He loved that about her. She was fit for sure, but her curves were luscious; he couldn’t wait to get his hands on them. He stepped back and, with a flick of his wrists, he flipped up her skirt, baring her smooth, round ass cheeks to his hungry gaze, interrupted only by the peach lace thong nestled between them.

The red and blue flashing lights from his police siren dappled her ivory skin, and the urge to replace those marks with some of his own gripped him like a boa constrictor. If he was home, he’d use a mini-deerskin…start slow. Easy. Let her get used to the sting. Then he’d work his way up.

He traced the scrap of panties with his fingertips, lower and lower still until he reached her core. Fuck, she was soaked. He growled low in his throat and she let out a hiss as he stroked her, hard and deep, through the wet satin.

“That’s good, Court. Really good. Scoot up now, until your feet are off the ground.” It wasn’t a suggestion. In spite of his praise, his tone was all demand, and again, he waited with bated breath for her reaction, well aware that at any time, something could trigger her to call it quits.

She didn’t hesitate, shimmying forward, skin squeaking against the hood as she did his bidding. He dragged his gaze from her glorious ass because if he didn’t, he wasn’t sure he could stop himself from freeing his cock from his pants and plunging into her until they both saw stars.

Instead, he took a long, slow breath and stared down at her. Ass up, lips parted, eyes squeezed closed as her fingers scrabbled at the gleaming silver of the hood while he stroked her hot slit.

“Please,” she whispered, her hips pulsing now, urging him to dip his fingers deeper. The motion brought the garter he’d placed high on her thigh into view and his stomach tightened. “I need—”

He sent one long digit past the soaked scrap between her thighs and thrust it into her. She bucked back against him, but it was the way that her walls gripped him so perfectly that made his balls ache with pressure to finish the deed. It was exactly that grinding need that made him pull back and return to low, teasing thrusts.

She protested, wriggling and making soft, pleading sounds in the back of her throat, but he didn’t give in. He couldn’t be trusted with her orgasms if he couldn’t manage his own.

“Rafe, I can’t wait.” She sounded close to tears and it jarred him from his thoughts. “Please, just…”

He didn’t waste time contemplating the hows or whys of it. Courtney had reached her tipping point. He was a hard man, but he wasn’t a monster.

He closed his fist around the offending scrap between them and yanked. Her panties came away with a snap, and he shoved them in his pocket before sliding his fingers back between her legs, coating them in her silky wetness. Calling on every ounce of restraint, he focused on her body’s response to his touch, adjusting the pressure, massaging her clit until she couldn’t keep from moving with him.

“I want you to come now, Court. Make it hard. Make it loud. Make it pretty for me.” He tucked one finger inside her, hard and deep, curling it until it butted against her G-spot with every thrust.

“Oh my God, Rafe, please, f—” She jammed her knuckles into her mouth and muttered incoherently as he worked his finger in and out, harder and faster. Her body quaked and shook.

“Move your hand. I want to hear you.” His words were clear but mustn’t have registered, so he repeated them with an accompanying firm slap on the ass to get her attention.

The crack resounded through the trees and echoed back. She froze, but not before shudders racked her from head to toe. He waited for a long moment, and his patience was rewarded as she flexed her ass up higher in the universal sign for “Please sir, can I have some more.”

Even the forest seemed to hold its breath as he raised his hand high, and sent it screaming down to connect with the smooth flesh of her ass a second time. Her juices soaked his hand and he thrust a second finger to join the first, plunging them deep and deeper still as a low, keening sound built in her throat. Then she exploded, her tight pussy clenching and releasing over his fingers as she screamed. His cock leaped, heaving against its confines with the need to join her, but he managed to regain his focus, working her through her climax, keeping his strokes long and steady until she finally stopped bucking.

The sounds of their combined harsh breathing reached his ears as she quieted and he slid his hand from her still-molten core. He hadn’t worked out any plan past this moment, and his brain had ceased to function due to lack of blood flow anywhere but south.

He patted her gently on the ass and stepped back, every nerve in his body straining against the need to finish it. To pound into her until he came so hard, he couldn’t see straight.

She stirred, slowly at first, then with clear intent, scrabbling backward toward him until her feet touched the ground. Eyes still glassy as she drifted downward, nearly to her knees.

It went against every instinct to stop her when he wanted nothing more than to let her take him in her mouth right now. But if they went further, it would be because she’d had the time and the mental awareness to think it through, not because she was still addled by their unquestionably mind-boggling chemistry. “No.”

She blinked up at him, seeming to come back into herself, and her cheeks reddened. “I want…”

He tugged her to her feet, wondering how much to say. He needn’t have worried because a shrill sound came from inside the car, saving him the immediate trouble.

“That’s…” She cleared her throat and tried again, righting her dress with a fluttering hand. “That’s my phone.”

She shouldered past him without meeting his gaze and yanked open the passenger’s-side door.

A second later, she answered the call with a shrill, “Hello?”

He adjusted himself in his pants, even the utilitarian touch adding to his ache, as she replied to the person on the other end of the line.

“Thank you so much, I’ll keep an eye out.” Her gratitude was so effusive, her body language so stiff and standoffish, he didn’t need her to tell him that her automotive guardian angel was on the way, and that she could hardly wait to be rescued from the big bad wolf now that she’d regained her senses. A pang of disappointment hit him harder than he was comfortable with.

She disconnected and squared her shoulders before facing him.

“Well, that was good timing, I guess.” It took him a second to get the words out past the thickness in his throat, and when he did, they were less casual-sounding than he’d hoped. In fact, he sounded like he’d swallowed a cactus.

Luckily—or not, depending on how he chose to look at it—she was too caught up in her own regret and desire to get rid of him to notice. “A minute sooner, and that would have been a damned shame.”

Although, he was still pretty pissed off that he’d been forced to break a promise. He’d told her he’d make her come and then come again. She wasn’t his woman, but if she was, that phone would’ve gone unanswered until he’d made good on his vow.

She looked away, giving him her profile in the moonlight. Her lips were swollen, probably from biting them, or maybe from her knuckles mashing the tender flesh against her teeth. Either way, he couldn’t take the credit no matter how much he wanted to. They’d never even kissed, a fact that annoyed him now as he stared at her.

Tousled honey curls and heaving breasts derailed his thoughts. The grinding need to press her to her knees into the soft grass and fuck that sweet mouth until he exploded against the back of her throat and she sucked him dry. His cock pulsed, and he felt a thick, salty tear escape the swollen head as he ran his still-damp index finger over her bottom lip.

“That”—he gestured to the hood of the car—“was beautiful. I don’t know why you’ve chosen to be without a man for so long, and I’m not going to ask you to tell me. But know this. We could be great together.”

He took a step forward and she took a step back, holding him off with a hand on his chest that would have been much more convincing if she hadn’t caressed his pectoral muscle for an instant before stilling.

“I’m not in a good place right now,” she admitted softly. “I don’t even know who I am anymore. I feel so lost. I can’t be in a relationship until I figure out how I went so wrong in the last one.”

He knew what it was to be lost. He’d felt that way since the day Monica died. The only difference between him and Courtney was that she wanted to be found again someday. Not him. He’d been in love before and knew one thing for sure. That would be the first and last time. Nothing was worth going through that kind of pain again.

He pushed away the bitter sadness that always came with thoughts of his past and focused on the now. “I don’t do relationships either, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to live like a priest.”

She shook her head slowly. “Don’t you feel bad doing that to the women you’re with?”

“Bad about what? A mutually pleasurable exchange? The rules are set out front so everybody’s eyes are open. I keep it to four scenes, max, with the understanding before we ever start that it will never be more. We’re all adults. I don’t see the victim here.”

Curiosity seemed to pull her from the melancholy and she blinked up at him. “Why four scenes?”

“Any more than that, things tend to get…sticky, no matter how clearly expectations are laid out.” It had taken him a few tries and one set of slashed tires to get the formula exactly right, but since then, his partners had been content, and so had he.

But right now, he was the furthest thing from content. For some reason he couldn’t explain, he needed to know that he’d be able to touch this woman again more than he needed air.

“I believe we can help each other, Courtney. You can help me get you out of my head, and I can help give you back your confidence, teach you to trust again, in the purest sense. That’s the beauty of a power exchange. It’s all about trust on both sides.”

He could see her wavering, taking his words in and letting them settle.

“A contract. Four scenes. Sex only.”

“It all seems so clinical,” she murmured, but she didn’t say no.

“Believe me, it will be anything but that. You want to trust yourself again? Start now. Go with your gut. I dare you.” He’d wondered if she’d been friends with Cat and Lacey long enough for the gravity of those three words to hit home, but her gasp answered his question. His crew took dares very seriously and so, apparently, did she. “Four scenes,” he pressed. “Me and you.”

She opened her mouth, but he held up a hand.

“Don’t decide now. Think about it. The next time I see you, I’ll expect an answer. Know this, though. If you pass, I won’t ask again.”

The sound of an engine echoed, and lights flashed in the distance. The tow truck had made good time. Too good. He could sense her pulling away from him already.