“Yes. Yes.”

She purred that second “yes,” and his balls cinched up painfully, making him grit his teeth, mentally ordering himself not to come too fast. But when he notched his first few inches inside of her wet heat, it became obvious what a challenge that would be. “God, baby. God.” He rocked deeper, and she gasped. “You’re tighter than sin.”

By the time he filled her completely, she was shaking like a fucking leaf, and he had to focus, focus on staying still. Just long enough to organize his lust, garner some semblance of control, or he’d just take her in a frenzy. He just needed a minute. Just a minute.

“Rough,” she sobbed, her back arching off the wall. “Want you rough.”

There went his minute.

Brendan’s first upward thrust drove her up the wall, and she choked on a scream, those beautiful blue eyes glazing over. He clapped a palm over her mouth and pumped again, harder, their eyes meeting over the curve of his hand. There was a coiling in the dead center of his chest, and it must have registered on his face because something flared in her gaze. A ripple of panic in the lake of her lust.

She pushed his hand away slowly, her expression changing. Her eyelids dropped to half-mast, and she looked up at him through the veil of them, biting her lip. “Does this feel good?” Rhythmically, she squeezed him with the walls of her pussy, humming in her throat, killing him slowly. “Are my thighs open wide enough for you, Captain?”

His legs almost gave out, but he held on. Held on, even though part of him was so starved for release that he was tempted to let her make this just about sex. Even though she’d slept in his bed, worried for him enough to show up at the hospital crying. But he would fight this battle with her as many times as it took. Until she realized he wasn’t falling for it and there was more here. A hell of a lot more.

Brendan glued his mouth to her ear and started to fuck—hard—her legs jostling around his hips with every vicious thrust. “Came here to be neighborly, Piper? Is there anything neighborly about the way I’m giving you this cock?”

God, he loved the way she whined his name in response.

“I was out in the middle of a fucking storm thinking about you. Thinking about how pretty you look in my garden. Thinking about you waiting for me at the end of my dock, in my harbor. Standing there in the sunset so I can touch you before I even touch land.” He opened his lips on the pulse at her neck, razing the spot with his teeth, his hips moving in hard punches. “I thought about your mouth and your eyes and your legs and your pussy. I never stopped. Now you knock that phony shit off, baby, and tell me you missed me.”

She inhaled hard, her fingers curling on his shoulders. “I missed you.”

A balm spread over his heart, even as his need, his urgency, wrenched higher, hotter. “You can wrap me as tight as you want around that little finger, but I won’t play games about what this is. Get me, Piper?”

Their eyes locked just before their mouths did. They knew the battle of wills was far from over, but their hunger was going to eclipse it for now. He took hold of her ass and hefted her higher against the wall, jerking her knees up and propping them on his hips. He angled himself deep, inward and up, so he could hit that spot inside of her—and he went at her hard. Her throaty whimpers told him to stay right there, keep delivering, and he did. He put a lock on the hot seed inside of him dying to get loose and focused on the way her face changed every time he increased his pace. It went from optimistic to astonished to desperate.

“Oh my God, Brendan, don’t s-stop.” Her eyes lost focus, her nails digging into the skin of his shoulders. “Harder. Harder. You’re going to . . . you’re going to make me . . .”

“Every time, Piper.” Out on the water, he’d replayed Piper having an orgasm while he licked her clit on his kitchen table about a thousand times, but feeling it happen around his cock flipped some primal switch inside of him, and he let loose, pressing their foreheads together and drilling into her sweet, snug channel that was already starting to convulse. “Come on, baby. Let’s have it. Show me what I do to that high-maintenance pussy.”

Her mouth formed an O, and she tightened up, her hands slapping at his shoulders—and then she crashed, her flesh rippling around him. She writhed between him and the wall, fighting the pleasure and requiring it at the same time, her eyes wide and seeing nothing. “Brendan. Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. Brendan.”

Hearing his name on her lips pushed him past his breaking point, and the seal ripped off his resistance. The bottom of his spine twisted, molten lust impacting him low, hard, more urgently than he’d ever felt anything. Piper’s legs went limp right as he came, but she held on to him tight as he bucked. Lifting her feet off the floor until the last of the unbelievable pressure left him. And he collapsed against her.

“Holy . . .” she breathed into his neck. “Holy shit.”

His heart pounded in his jugular. “Couldn’t agree more.”

She puffed a dazed laugh.

He kissed her temple, pulled back to search her eyes. “Don’t tense up on me, Piper.”

“I’m not sure I’ll ever be tense again,” she whispered, her lids falling.

With a chest full of pride, Brendan kissed her forehead, cheeks, mouth, then knelt down and kissed her belly, picking up her borrowed shirt before straightening. He dropped it over her head, helping her put both arms through the holes, and zipped himself back into his jeans. With Piper still leaning against the wall in a stupor that he definitely didn’t mind, he found a box of tissues, plucked out a handful, and cleaned his spend off the insides of her thighs.

That last part woke her up. “I can do that,” she said, reaching for the tissue box.

He caught her wrist. “I like doing it.”

“Brendan . . .” Her swallow was audible. “Just because I missed you . . .”

There it was. “Yeah?”

“Well . . .” She stooped down and collected her pants, dragging them up her legs with trembling hands. “I—I’m worried I’m leading you on—”

“Jesus.” He laughed without humor, took a moment to pull his sweatshirt over his head, and ignored the pinch in his chest. “I can only imagine what kind of idiots you’ve dated, Piper. But I’m not one of them. I’m a grown-ass man, and I know where we stand. I know you’re going to make me work for you, and I’m not scared of it.”

Her eyes went momentarily dreamy, but she snapped out of it fast. “Work for me? There’s nothing to work for!”

“What the hell does that mean?” he barked.

“It means . . .” She wrung her hands. “I’m . . . I’m not available to be your girlfriend.”

Brendan sighed. Was he annoyed? Yes. Did he want to be anywhere else in the world? No. And that was fucking confusing, but apparently it was what he enjoyed now. Being confused and charmed and pulled apart over this woman. “What do you want to call this, Piper? Let’s compromise.”

“Friends with benefits?”

“No.”

“Why?”

He reached out, cupped her pussy roughly through the Lycra of her yoga pants, teasing the seam with his middle finger. “This is a hell of a lot more than a benefit.”