“I don’t need to be protected,” I clipped, feeling my anger return as my hands clenched into fists. “I don’t need to rely on anyone else to take care of me. I’m more than capable of taking care of myself.”
For some inexplicable reason, my comment made him smile. “Trust me, baby. I’m well aware of that. You’re so goddamn strong; I’m constantly in awe of you. Every time I think I’ve figured out who you are, you show me another piece, and I’m taken back all over again. You don’t need protecting, but when it comes to you, those instincts won’t let up. And I realized something a while back that scared the shit out of me and made me more determined than ever to stay away.”
I could feel my heart racing and my hands trembling as I clasped them together and held them in my lap. “What was that?”
“That I never want that feeling to fade. Whether you need it or not, no matter how capable you are, I want to protect you. You blew everything I thought I believed out of the water. I was made to be the man you rely on, mouse. I never really felt like I had a purpose until I met you.”
Oh God. My heart was in my throat, my mind spinning out of control. “What-what are you saying?”
Before I could react, he reached over and grabbed me by the hips, pulling me into his lap and taking my face into his big hands. “I’m saying I fucked up. I don’t deserve it, but I’m asking you to give me another chance, because I want to spend my days trying to make each one of yours better. You’re mine, baby. You can fight me on that, but I’m not gonna stop trying to prove it to you.”
You are not going to cry, Willow, I warned myself. Get your shit together. The man you’ve wanted for a freaking year just claimed you as his.
There was just one thing I had to know. “If I’m yours, what does that make you?”
He gave me that smile again, and that tightness between my thighs was accompanied by a rush of dampness that made me squirm in his lap.
“That makes me all yours, baby. For as long as you want me.”
I wanted to tell him right then and there that I wanted him forever, but I worried it might be too soon for that. Besides, what he’d just given me was more than enough. By a lot.
That pulsing between my thighs morphed into a needy ache I couldn’t deny. “Stone,” I whispered, scratching my nails through the stubble on his jaw.
His eyes darkened and his nostrils flared. “Yeah, baby?”
“We’ve had two kisses by my count, and I was the one who initiated both of them. I think it’s your turn to—”
Before I could finish, he fisted his hand in my hair, jerked my mouth down to his, and plunged his tongue inside. I loved that there was no slow, sweet buildup with our kisses. Stone wasn’t a slow and sweet kind of guy. The way he kissed me made me feel like he was desperate for me, and that was the biggest turn-on I’d ever experienced. I didn’t need slow and sweet. I needed him to be so crazed for me that he couldn’t maintain control.
“Tell me something, mouse,” he growled against my lips when we had to break apart in order to breathe. “Are you wet for me right now?”
I sucked in a needy gasp and nodded, because, God, was I ever!
He let out a primal sound that drove me wild. One second I was on his lap and the next he had us both on our feet. Grabbing me by the hips, he spun me around and pressed his chest to my back, using his chin to brush the hair off my neck. “Promise I’ll go nice and slow next time. Take my time with you. But I need you too goddamn bad right now,” his husky voice said into my ear right before his teeth nipped at my neck, making me shiver.
My lids fell to half-mast, unable to stay open all the way as I looked back at him over my shoulder. I didn’t know who I was when I was with him, but something about this man brought out a side of me I’d never known existed. And I freaking loved it! “I don’t want nice and slow. I want to feel you. After last time, I felt you between my thighs for days. I want that again.”
His chest rumbled with appreciation. He wrenched my pants and underwear down to my ankles and pushed me so my chest was flat against the cool surface of the table. He caressed one of my bare cheeks. “Jesus, do you have any idea how long I’ve dreamed about this ass?”
“N-no,” I whispered, my desperation growing until I was practically dripping. His hand disappeared for just a brief moment before returning with a stinging slap to my left cheek. I sucked in a gasp at the needles of pleasure that sent through me and lifted off the table.
“Stay down,” he ordered on a snarl. I did what he said, pressing the side of my face against the wood. “Do you like being spanked, mouse?”
“I-I don’t know,” I answered, my brain too flooded with endorphins at the moment to tell. “I’ve never had anyone do that to me—Oh!” He smacked me again, this time on the other cheek.
“What do you think now?”
I felt uncomfortably wet and swollen between my legs. “Um . . .”
Smack. This time, he didn’t ask. Instead, he reached down and slid his fingers across my slit and let out a growl. “Fuck me, you’re so goddamn wet. Know what I think, Willow?”
“What?”
“I think you love this.” He spanked me again. And again. Over and over until my ass cheeks felt like they were on fire and I was rocking back against him, silently begging for another.
I was so ready for him I thought I’d burst into tears at any second—or come from just this if he kept going. Either way, I needed a release or I was going to lose my mind.
“Stone,” I called out on a whimper as his fingertips teased me again. “Please.”
“Please what? Say the words.”
“Please fuck me,” I begged with no shame whatsoever. “I need you to fuck me.”
He didn’t make me wait; almost as soon as the last word left my lips, it was followed by a rush of air escaping my lungs when he buried himself deep. “Oh God, yes,” I cried, some of the tension he’d been building inside of me releasing at the feel of him stretching me wide with his cock. But it still wasn’t enough.
“This what you need, baby? You need me to fuck you good and hard?”
“Yes. Please.”
He pulled nearly all the way out and pounded back in. “Like that?”
“Yes,” I hissed, feeling myself tighten around him. “Again.”
He didn’t have to be told again. He began to fuck me so hard the legs of the table scraped against the floor beneath me. “In awe of you,” he grunted as he powered in and out, building that pressure deep inside me with every thrust. “Every time I think I’ve figured you out, you show me a new layer I love just as much as the last.”
“Don’t stop,” I pleaded, bracing my hands on the table and lifting up just enough to drive myself back against him every time he plunged into me.
“Not going to stop, baby. Never going to stop. This is the best pussy I’ve ever had.”
“God, you feel so good,” I said on a cry.
His fingers tangled in my hair and jerked, forcing me up so we were standing front to back. The new angle made everything more intense, and I cried out at the sensation. That hand in my hair yanked my head to the side so he could kiss and lick and nip at my neck, while his other hand traveled down to my center, his fingers spreading out in a V so he could cup where he was entering me. “Who’s this pussy belong to?”