“How banged up from the fight are you?” I mumbled between kisses that were becoming more and more intense.

“What fight?” he mumbled back. Clearly, lust had scrambled more brain cells than his opponent repeatedly smacking him in the head had.

“This isn’t hurting you, then?” I asked as he moved between my legs to kiss the skin that he’d just been stroking.

“I’m good,” he replied. He’d slowly been edging my top upwards, and he was so talented with his lips that I barely paused when he pulled it over my head to drop it on the floor. When he gently held my breast in his rough, calloused hand and sucked the turgid peak of my nipple into his mouth, I couldn’t help arching off the bed and deeper into his touch.

“O’Connell,” I moaned, as spasms of white-hot lust shot right to my core. My skin was on fire, and I want so badly to climb out of it and into his. He repeated the action with my other breast, and when he gently blew over my hard nipples, I was so close to coming that I cried out.

“Not yet, baby.” He grinned, with that cocky smile that I loved so much. “You’re gonna have to beg before I let you come.” With both hands, he pulled my pyjama bottoms down my legs achingly slowly, until I was left in simple white underwear. He kissed the tiny daisy at the top of my panties, still grinning.

“These are so you.” He smiled.

“Plain and boring?” I replied, slightly hurt.

“Pure and sweet. It’s fucking sexy,” he answered. “It makes me want to corrupt you.”

“I’m not so pure,” I whispered turning my head away from his gaze, more than a little ashamed. He cupped my face to look up at him.

“You are pure and innocent. I don’t care what that sick fuck said or did. To me, you’ll always be this way, and everything that happens between us is fucking beautiful. So don’t let him make you think any different.”

I nodded in agreement, knowing that he was right, but I wasn’t sure that I’d ever see myself the way he saw me. It was hard to dwell on my worries, as he resumed the path of his lips down my body. When he got to my panties, he peeled them down my legs as he kissed me lower and the tingling only became more intense. I couldn’t take any more. I couldn’t remember any of my anxieties, I couldn’t remember why I had any self-doubt, and I was having a bit of trouble remembering my own name. All I could think about was this god between my legs, and how at any minute now, he’d make me see stars.

“Are you ready, baby?” He grinned.

I nodded my head, completely incapable of speech, as he pinched my clit between his lips and sucked. My back was taut as a bow, and I gripped the sheets so tightly I felt like either they were going to rip, or something inside me would. I didn’t think I could last one more second when he licked me gently, and tremors ripped through my body. Whenever I thought of sex before, I imagined pain and embarrassment. Never in a million years could I have believed such intimacy to be so heart achingly wonderful. As consciousness crept back in tiny increments, my body was weightless, like I was immersed in water. O’Connell collapsed onto his back next to me.

“Watching you come was the most fucking beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he said.

“Mmmm...” I mumbled back, still unable even to open my eyes.

Flipping over onto his stomach, with a speed that belied the fact that he’d not long fought five hard rounds, he told me, “I’m gonna have to make you come again, sunshine. I forgot to make you beg.”

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME?” I whispered. “If you do that again, you’re going to snap my spine in half.”

“I seem to remember you telling me once that you could bend like a pretzel.”

“I was blind drunk. You should never listen to anything a girl says when she’s blind drunk.”

He chuckled as he kissed me long and hard. It was so intense, so amazing, that I honestly believed that he would have made good on his word if I hadn’t decided to repeat the favour. Running my fingers down the washboard abs that I’d admired for so long, I didn’t stop when I reached his jeans and brushed my hand gently across the rock hard denim.

“Fuck, baby, I’ve got to stop,” he muttered harshly¸ resting his forehead against mine.

“Why?” I ask timidly, worried that I was doing something wrong.

“Sunshine. I’m hanging on by a thread here. If you touch me like that again I’m gonna come in my jeans like some horny fifteen-year-old.”

I loved that I had the same power over his body that he had over mine. I didn’t feel ashamed of what he’d made me feel. I felt beautiful and loved and so completely satisfied that I wanted to share that feeling with him. So I offered him something that I’d never offered anyone before.

“O’Connell,” I whispered, and he looked up into my eyes. “I don’t want you to stop.”

His gaze softened as he comprehended my meaning. “Baby, it’s too soon. I don’t want to push you into something that you’re going to regret tomorrow. I don’t think I could handle that.”

Once upon a time, I would have taken his rejection as a valuation of my self-worth, but I was stronger than that now. This man could have taken whatever he wanted without my consent, or even with it, knowing that I wasn’t truly ready. But he didn’t want my body if it didn’t come with my heart. This giant among giants had never used his strength to intimidate me. His power lay in making me fall in love with him, and to do that, he’d laid himself at my feet, offering all that he had and all of himself without asking for anything in return except my heart.

“It’s not too soon. It’s exactly the right time. I love you, and you love me.”

O’Connell really looked pained.

“Baby, you’re ruining this for me. I had it all planned out. There was supposed to be expensive wine and a really nice dinner, followed by a night in a posh hotel room...”

He lost his chain of thought as I nibbled on his neck and resumed stroking his abs, which had quickly become my favourite pastime.

“I’m never drinking again,” I reminded him.

“I would have worn a really nice suit and taken you on a great date...” He carried on as I distracted him, until I finally left him speechless.

“It’s okay if you have performance anxiety, you know,” I joked.