But the second that I lightly bit her neck, she vaulted out of my arms and with lightning speed, had me on my back with her straddling my lap.

“You came,” she pants.

“Not yet, but if you keep rocking against my cock, I will.”

“You never responded. I didn’t think you would come.” She continues to speak, ignoring my smartass response, but she also doesn’t stop grinding her core against me, the heat of her making me clench my jaw.

“Ember, you need to stop.”

“Nate, you need to start,” she stresses with a moan.

It’s taking every bit of control I have not to flip her off me and show her who is in charge in here.

“Em,” I moan, my head pressing against the pillow when she gives a hard jerk of her hips.

“I need you,” she pleads.

“You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Make me yours,” she whines.

My heart thumps erratically. “Yours?”

“God, yes,” she moans, rocking even faster.

Reaching out blindly, I find the lamp next to her bed and click it on. Her flushed face and unfocused eyes don’t hide from me when the harsh brightness fills the room.

I curl my abs and lean up, forcing her with our new position to stop her movements. She pants, her chest heaving, and I know she was just seconds away from coming.

“Make you mine?”

She nods.

“You ready for that?”

She nods again.

“I take you, baby, and I’m never fucking letting go. You ready for that?”

She nods, but I don’t miss the small hesitation. She wants this, us, but she still has some lingering fears.

“That’s okay, my little firecracker, I’ll have fun making you believe that.”

Her hands move from where they had been resting against her spread thighs and she places each of them on my chest, pushing me back down to explore my body. She twists each of my nipple rings and her pupils dilate.

“I’m ready to be yours, if … if you’re ready to be mine.”

I feel my chest rumble, having a hard time hearing over the roaring in my ears, but I’m sure whatever sound I’m making right now sounds more animal than man.

“Yeah, Emberlyn Locke, I’m beyond fucking ready to be yours.”

THE SLEEPY DRUNK FEELING WAS just starting to recede when Nate spoke the words I’ve longed to hear for such a long time. Words that I had given up on ever hearing. Words that, if I lived to be a hundred, I would never forget how I felt when I heard them, finally, for the first time.

“Yeah, Emberlyn Locke, I’m beyond fucking ready to be yours.”

His eyes drop to my mouth as I feel my lips spread into a wide, toothy smile. I watch in fascination as his green eyes seem to darken and the color on his cheeks gets just a little flushed when his attention comes back from my mouth. His expression, so open and easy to read, is void of the playful mask he usually wears.

The realization that he’s been hiding his feelings, acting and trying to make everyone believe he is so unaffected by anything, hits me hard. How have I missed that? Probably because I’ve had my head up my ass licking my own wounded pride for the last couple of years.

I push back the thought that I could have changed things a long time ago and focus on here and now. His stare still holds me captive, just as the hands gripping my hips roughly are, but I have a feeling deep down that what I see in his eyes is love, not lust.

My thighs, still spread with his body between them, try to close when the enormity of the moment mixed with the adoration in his eyes hits me. All rational thought flies out the window and I know, I just know, if I don’t have him right now, I might just die from the need overtaking my body.