In that heightened moment, he swore he felt her heart beat faster in the air pulsing between them. His blood pounded in perfect cadence to that sensuous tempo.

No words were needed.

Colby tapped the inside of her thighs and she stretched them wider.

While bestowing open-mouthed, nuzzling kisses on the back of her head and inhaling the flowery aroma of her shampoo, he speared the entrance to her pussy with two fingers. He rocked those fingers in and out of her wetness, rotating his hand to brush the callused pad of his thumb over her bottom hole. Lightly. A barely-there sweep across that extremely sensitive knot of nerves.

Channing wiggled and panted, bumping her hips, trying to wrest control from him, frantic for deeper contact.

A quick slap on her heart-shaped ass and she gasped.

He reached for the lube on the nightstand and tugged her closer to him so she was perched up high on her knees; her arms were in a “V” above her head. Her hands were fisted into the sheets. Tilting the lower half of her body to his liking, he removed his fingers from her pussy and parted her ass cheeks. Goddamn, she was gorgeous here, too. He ran his wet tongue in an extended line from her clit over her slippery slit, to circle that secret portal with the very tip of his tongue.

She whimpered a strangled sound of need.

Several times he followed that same pathway and with each thorough, more intimate pass, Channing’s body softened, preparing for the invasion into that place no man’s cock had ever breached.

Mine. Possession rolled through his blood. No matter what happened in the future, tonight she’d be his in a way she’d never be to any other man and she’d damn well remember it forever.

He squirted lube on his palm, working his cock in long twisting pulls.

After he was sufficiently greased up, he coated his fingers and pressed them both deep inside her ass.

She moaned softy, thrusting her butt back.

He scissored his fingers in that dark recess, then pumped, stretching the untried muscles. His breathing was labored, as was hers, the desperate sounds the only noises in the concentrated silence as he prepared her. He saw no reason to give her a blow by blow on what he planned to do to her. No more sweet, coaxing kisses. Lingering touches.

She was fully aware of what was happening. With the spicy scent of her arousal, he was fully aware of how badly she wanted it.

Colby inserted the end of the lube tube in her ass and squeezed.

Channing shuddered. He knew the clear gel was cold, but he also knew it wouldn’t stay cold for long once he started ramming his cock in and out, creating friction that would be a combination of pleasure and pain.

With one hand he pushed her shoulders down on the bed, until the side of her face rested against the mattress. Then holding her cheeks apart with his hands, he placed the thick crown of his shaft on that puckered rosette and pushed in.

Channing clenched.

He growled and probed harder, and little by little she relaxed the rigid ring of muscles.

He couldn’t delay any longer and he popped the blood-engorged tip in that tight opening. Somehow he managed to stop and let her body adjust to the intrusion before he went further.

The pressure was intense enough to make her gasp.

Colby gritted his teeth. She was so fucking tight. So fucking perfect.

Goddamn, he wanted to ream her. Just ram the remaining length of his dick into her impossibly tight channel until his hips were nestled between those softly rounded cheeks. Until she felt every damn inch of his hard cock impaling her virgin ass and his balls slapping her clit.

Feeling every bit of his invasion so she’d never forget who’d initiated her into these dark desires she’d been begging him to satisfy.

As he imagined reaming her, he didn’t envision an easy, gentle retreat as he pulled out. No. He’d plow in, deeper with every hard thrust. He’d let those supremely snug muscles grip the head of his cock before plunging past them right back in to the hilt. Over and over until that moment he exploded, shooting streams of come high and deep into her.

But he did none of that for her first time.

Colby held off on the aggressive male need to claim her, to mark her there as his alone. The yowling in his head had lessened and he eased into her rectum inch by inch, not stopping, not worrying whether his actions hurt her. Because he knew it did. He knew that it didn’t matter because he couldn’t stop from fucking her ass right now if the goddamn building would’ve caught fire.

When Colby was buried as far in as he could go, he expelled a quiet breath. He felt his blood pounding in his head, in his neck, in his arms, in his cock, all pulses like insistent sticky whispers urging him to move.

Hard. Fast. Now. Prove to her who this ass and everything else belonged to.

Channing clenched and released, grinding back into him, a clear sign she was ready for more.

That was all it took. Colby slid halfway out and slammed back in.

Twice. Three times. Four. This wouldn’t last long. He couldn’t hold out against the breath-stealing sensation of that tighter clasp milking him on every upstroke. He pumped faster, his left hand gripped her hip, holding her in place while his right hand snaked between her drenched thighs and plumped her clit.

She wailed and bucked.

The bed frame banged into the wall as he banged her with little finesse. Just raw, dirty sex. His cock tunneling in and out of that tight portal was the hottest thing he’d ever seen. His thrusts rivaled the power of a rocket booster and he was damn close to detonation.

Sweat dripped down his spine. He rubbed her swollen clit persistently. It throbbed beneath his fingers and she screamed as the orgasm burst across her wet sex in juicy ripples.

Her internal muscles clamped around his cock as her climax continued to spasm, reverberating through him. His balls drew up. He came so fast and so hard he nearly passed out as spurt after spurt of come jetted against those amazingly snug walls, until he was depleted and mindless and weak.

When Colby’s eyes finally opened from near darkness behind his lids—his damn eyeballs had rolled clean back in his head, a case of vertigo tipped him sideways. He swayed and almost collapsed on top of her. When he steadied himself by running a trembling hand up her sweaty back, her whole body shuddered. Her chest heaved and masses of curly hair covered her beautiful face.

Shit. She wasn’t crying, was she?

No kidding, asshole. Would you blame her?

Jesus. He’d acted like an absolute brute. Shame bloomed across his cheeks. “Chan? Shug, you okay?”

No answer.

Channing sucked in a harsh breath as he slowly removed his softened cock and her whole body flopped to the bed.

In the tiny bathroom Colby cleaned himself up and brought a warm washcloth with him to do the same for Channing. Gently, he smoothed her hair while he wiped the warmth over her tender flesh. When he finished, he tossed the washcloth away and crawled in, spooning behind her.

Luckily, she didn’t squirm away from his touch.

She didn’t say a single word, either.

He held her in silence for the longest time. Wanting to demand answers, needing reassurance he hadn’t hurt her.

She stayed uncharacteristically quiet.

Colby pressed his lips to the back of her head. “You ever gonna talk to me again?”

“Yeah. I’m just a little stunned right now, to tell you the truth.”

A long sigh escaped from him, ruffling her hair. “In a good way or a bad way?”

“Both.”

His patience snapped. He rolled on top of her, pinning her hands near the headboard as he stared into her face. “What the hell does that mean, Channing?”

A beat passed. “It means I never thought I’d get to experience the passion that you’ve shown me. I’ve never had a man look at me the way you did tonight, Colby. Like I was…everything,” she whispered. “I’ve never been utterly incapable of speech because I couldn’t think beyond how you felt on me. In me. My world has never been distilled down to such an elemental need. It scares me to death.”

Now he was absolutely stunned. And scared shitless. He’d never been more in tune with a woman—a woman who was guaranteed to leave him.

And as each day with her progressed, he suspected she’d mostly likely leave him a broken man.

Instead of trying to come up with flowery love words or a sly retort, he kissed her. Pouring his heart and soul into that sweet, steady mating of mouths, hoping she understood all he couldn’t say.

Exhausted, for the first time in three nights they didn’t share lovers’

pillow talk, or dissect how things had changed between them—even when it was obvious it had.

Chapter Twelve

Early the next morning Colby brought her new coffee pot into the motel room before he headed out to watch the morning “slack”

competition. He urged her to stay in bed and rest until check-out time.

Channing didn’t argue. She was wiped out. Too much tension. Too much sun. Too much booze. Too much sex.

She groaned and rolled over. Her whole body ached. Talk about sore.

She’d had sex with Colby twice early yesterday morning. Oral and sixty-nine with Trevor mid-morning, and then last night…

Wowza. Hot flash. Last night had been the most erotic night of her life. Not only because she’d been initiated into the pain/pleasure of anal sex, but because she’d been initiated into dark, possessive side of consuming lust. Hers. His. The scary beauty of it when they came together in unrestrained passion.

Maybe it’d been foolish in the aftermath of such a scintillating episode, but Channing couldn’t stop from telling Colby how she’d felt last night. No. How he’d made her feel. Sensual. Beautiful. Desired. And he couldn’t have marked her as his any more clearly than if he’d whipped out a branding iron and burned his initials into her ass.

Oh, it would be easier if she could be blasé about it. Chalk up the experience to another rocking sexual encounter and move on. Problem was, she couldn’t. She didn’t want to. And she didn’t want to analyze why things had changed last night.

She’d rather curl up in a ball, comforted by the scent of sex lingering on the sheets as she napped. Naturally her brain wouldn’t stop spinning.