I couldn’t take this unending pressure, this sense I was about to blow apart then everything stopped, my entire awareness tunneling down to just one thing, and it wasn’t Darius’s cock poised at my entrance, though I was more than ready for him. It was how he tenderly stroked my face, the concern bleeding out of his green-flecked eyes.

The look on his face went deeper than my wanting, deeper than anything I’d ever thought possible, reeling me back down to earth, to where his powerful arms were braced on either side of me, his pelvis resting on mine, his cock brushing my sex.

“That’s it, Nyx, come back to me.” Darius was a mess, still stained with blood and dirt, but his tone was tender as he kissed the tears from my face. “I need you to say you want this. Say the words.”

I’d…never been given a choice before. Not about this.

Lennix had always taken and taken and…

“Nyx.” Maybe it was his sternness, but Darius pulled me out of those dark thoughts. “Say you want this. We’re running out of time.”

We. We’re running out of time.

Not me. Not alone. Not anymore.

His face turned hard. “Or if you’d rather have Ronan…”

“No. You.”

“Then tell me.”

“Yes.” In my head, the word was crystal clear, but my mouth fumbled it, yet still Darius understood, pushing my legs wider as he dragged the head of his cock through my drenched folds.

“I’ll be gentle.” He pushed in slightly then stopped. “Fuck.” His head hung low, his chest heaving. “You are so tight.”

Another inch sent me trembling all over, and my nails raked his shoulders. “More.” My head snapped back as another wave crested, this one rising and rising and rising…

Darius slammed into me, so deep I clenched around him. The head of his cock stroked me with every thrust; his hips crashed against where he held me spread open; his gaze was fixed on where we were joined.

I wrapped my hands around his biceps like iron shackles, digging my nails in, ripping his flesh as he fucked me. And still, it wasn’t nearly enough. I wanted him wild, unleashed, completely undone. I wanted him to erase the world.

“More, goddamn it—more, Darius.”

I didn’t know what I was asking for.

The only male I’d ever been with was Lennix, and those encounters… I pushed that ugliness out of my head. This would be different. It had to be different, because if it wasn’t, then there was something wrong with me.

Something defective.

He pried my fingers from his arms and looped his hand under my knees, throwing them over his shoulders until he had me bent like a pretzel, his cock sinking home. This was…

There. Right there. He hit that spot over and over again, hips crashing into me as he drove his cock in deep enough for me to feel every fucking inch.

All the heat drained from my body and gathered in my pussy, pulsing enough that Darius groaned with pleasure. “Fuck, you are so wet. You were made for me, Nyx. So tight and perfect around my cock. Does it feel good? Do you like my cock inside you?”

“Yes.” The word came out in a rush of air. My emotions were tangling together, his words ramping me up even higher. I was close. So fucking close. So fucking…

My orgasm crested like a tidal wave, and my core clenched around Darius’s cock, pulling another low, husky groan out of him. He wrapped his hand around my neck and pressed me down as he rode me, fucking me harder and harder, as if he’d lost complete control, his eyes squeezed shut, his face rigid.

Every punishing stroke drew out this incredible sensation of breaking apart, scattering to the winds, and my head buzzed from the intensity. When he finally froze and threw his head back, tendons in his neck straining, his roar echoed off the walls. His seed filled me with a different kind of heat, and my body went limp as I floated in some half-conscious state of utter contentment.

This was like nothing I’d ever imagined. Better, but far more dangerous.

As if there was no going back from what had just happened.

Darius eased my legs off his shoulders and arranged me carefully beneath him, one hand still on my neck, his thumb brushing over the pulse beating at the base of my throat. “You are so beautiful.”

I opened my eyes at the absolute reverence in his tone, studied the light shining from his green-flecked eyes. A bead of sweat dripped down his face then gathered on his lip, and I leaned up and licked it off. For a second he froze, his tongue retracing the spot.

“Better?” he asked softly, searching my face. “I’m sorry, that was—”

“More,” I said, heat gathering again, fire spooling up through my body. “More.”