And as he had when we entered the castle, I have this sense of him asking for my trust, but also demanding control. “Yes,” I whisper, amazingly unafraid and willing to give him what he wants, needing him to prove he deserves it. “I understand.”

He is pleased with my answer, his eyes darkening, his gaze sweeping low again, lingering, and heating my skin before he looks at me and declares, “You are the one who is beautiful, and I promise you, I fully intend to show you just how beautiful.” He lowers his head, his teeth scraping my shoulder, his fingers giving a gentle flick to my nipple. I bite my lip at the sensations rolling through me and his palm flattens tantalizingly on my belly, caressing lower, one finger traveling the line above my panties.

“Kayden,” I pant, pleading for some unknown something I’m desperate for him to give me.

“The minute you stepped into my room,” he murmurs, nibbling at my neck, “you became mine tonight. Mine to tease. Mine to please. Mine to fuck how I want.” His breath teases my ear. “Say it.”

“Yes.”

“Mine to fuck how I want,” he states, the boldness of his words, of the words he wants me to speak, shivering through me.

I wait for fear to replace shock, for the past to attack me, but there is only desire, and the clenching of my sex. “Yours to fuck how you want,” I say, sounding breathless. Feeling breathless.

He leans back, letting me see the satisfaction light his eyes, and his reply is not words, or a kiss, but ripping the silk between my legs from my body. I’ve barely recovered from a gasp when he’s exploring the slick, wet heat of my sex, stroking, teasing, two fingers sliding inside me. Filling me, stretching me, and promising soon he will be there, inside me, fucking me the way he promised.

I moan with the sensations spiraling through me, clinging to the post when I want to hold onto him, but I know he meant what he said. He’ll stop touching me if I let go and I cannot bear the idea. My lashes lower, fingers digging into the unmovable wood, breasts thrust in the air, and I want him to touch them and me. One of his hands flattens in the crevice between them, teasing me with how close he is to giving me what I want, the other intimately caressing the ache swelling in my sex, and he leans in, his breath warm on my ear as he murmurs, “I’m not going to let you come yet.”

My eyes pop open. “What?”

“You heard me.” His fingers leave my sex, and before I can recover, he turns me to face the post, forcing me to catch myself on the wooden surface. He pins me between it and him, his powerful hips bracing mine, and his hands slide around me, cupping my breasts, caressing my waist, my backside. Everywhere but that sweet spot between my thighs where he left me burning, and not for his fingers anymore, but for him.

“Don’t move,” he orders. “Not until I tell you to.”

But I do. I try to turn and he flattens his hand on my back. “Wait for me, sweetheart. Trust me.”

Trust me. Those are the words that undo me and slam me with realization. I need someone to trust and he needs to be trusted. I know why this is true for me but I do not know why it is true for him. “I do,” I whisper, meaning it. Right or wrong, I’ve gone too far with him to question what comes next.

He doesn’t immediately move away, and I can almost feel him riding a stormy wave of emotions, each one crashing against the walls he tries to erect to protect himself. Seconds tick by and his hand slowly glides down my back and disappears, leaving my skin tingling in its wake. The air shifts and he is no longer behind me, but I feel him everywhere, inside and out. His body. His lust. His heartache. I want to turn, but not because I do not trust him. Because pain cuts him deeply, and he bleeds, and bleeds some more. Suddenly, I am far less worried about what haunts me and more about what haunts him, and I want desperately, if only for tonight, to drive away his memories, his enemies.

There is a shuffle of clothing, and a promise of him undressing, followed by a tear of paper, a condom wrapper, and unbidden, no matter what I desire, what haunts me will not let go, thrusting into the past. I am stepping out of a giant sunken tub in a bathroom of cream and blue tiles. The bath was an escape, a way of comforting myself, and I don’t know why. I try to pull myself out of the memory, trying to just be with Kayden, but I go deeper instead.

The door opens and he bursts inside, stalking angrily toward me. He grabs my arm, the towel falling to my feet as he yanks my wet body against his perfect suit-clad body. “You disobeyed me again.”

Fear shoots through me. He knows. How does he know? “No. I—”

He turns me to face the tub and grabs my hands, wrapping them with some kind of rope. “What are you doing?”

I whirl around to face Kayden at the same moment he returns, naked, beautiful, everything about him power and sex. And safety. He is safe. My hands flatten on his chest. “I . . . trust you. I do. I just . . . waiting made my mind crazy and—”

His hands cover mine, concern darkening his stare. “A flashback?”

“Yes. I’m sorry, and I don’t want you to think I’m some sort of wilting flower you have to be careful with. I’m not, but—”

His fingers tangle in my hair, roughly, erotically. “You are the furthest thing from a wilting flower,” he declares, his mouth closing down on mine, and his kiss is not gentle. He does not treat me like that wilting flower. He is demanding. He is the wolf. And this is the part of him I want to know, the part he tames, but I want set free. And I am free with him.

I touch him, everywhere, anywhere, indulging in the best of the sins I can wish to commit tonight, his thick erection at my hip. And I do not hold back. I reach down and wrap it with my hand, feeling the pulse against my palm. He presses me against the post again, cupping my backside and lifting me. “I need to be inside you,” he rasps against my lips.

“Yes. Please.”

He balances me, pressing the thick head of his erection into my slick heat, and I feel the sweet stretch of my body as he enters me and pulls me down on top of him. And with him buried inside me, we are steady, unmoving, savoring the moment as our gazes connect in a collision of raw, dark emotions, one part mine and one part his. His arm wraps around me, hand flattening on my back, and he lifts me off the post, holding my weight, holding me. He molds me close, breathing with me, long seconds passing before we start to move. Slowly at first and then faster, he is pumping into me and I am grasping his shoulders, driving against him. Driving everything away but the feeling of him inside me. And he answers every need I have. Pumping harder. Faster. Giving me more when I want more. More of this. More of him. More of the escape.

And oh God, I can feel the ache in my sex, the promise of release. I do not want to come. Not yet. But Kayden feels so good, and I bury my face in his shoulder, holding on, barely aware of the moment he presses my back onto the mattress, the sweet weight of him settling over me. His hands cup my head and the pause comes, the moment when we don’t move, and just breathe together. And I can breathe again. Because of him.

“Kayden,” I whisper, asking for some indescribable something only he can give me.

His lips brush mine, the soft, sensual caress touching every nerve ending I own. He cups my breast, squeezing it, a rough, erotic sensation that has me arching into him, a moan slipping from my lips. He swallows it, kissing me, a deep stroke of his tongue and we start to move again, and this time it’s a slow, sensual dance. The music I’d forgotten invades the moment, the same song on replay. And I swear to God I’ll find myself in the end. But here, now, with him, I lose myself. He is the burn in my belly that moves lower and lower, and I stiffen with the tight ball of pressure in my sex, unable to move.