He is shirtless and yanking off his jeans when the waves ebb away. For a few seconds I simply lie there enjoying the show. He has an incredibly fit body. There is a beautiful tattoo on his left breast of a roaring tiger’s face and a coiled snake on one of his biceps. I would have looked at them more closely, run my tongue over them, but he pulls his boxers off and his dick springs out.

‘Wow!’ I exclaim, my eyes wide and an awed grin on my face. ‘Huge and straight and beautiful.’

‘It’s all for you, babe,’ he says cockily.

My heart lurches. ‘Fuck me,’ I whisper.

His eyebrows lift. ‘I fucking intend to. For hours!’

‘So, what you waiting for then?’ I invite cheekily.

A slow, devastatingly sexy smile spreads across his face. He puts his knee on the mattress and comes toward me on his hands and knees. He has held back for much longer than I would have done, and now he is coming to claim his reward.

I lift my leg and rest the sole of my foot in the middle of his approaching chest. He freezes, a new flash of excitement in his eyes. He thought I was shy. But I’m not. I’ll be the wild temptress he could never have suspected.

‘My turn,’ I say. ‘My rules.’

I lift my body upwards and place my finger in the dimple made by the meeting of muscles in his shoulders. Without warning I grab his forearms and he lets me tackle him to the mattress. I push him down hard and sit astride his thighs.

Taking his erect cock in my hand, I toy with it, enjoying the way it jerks and pulsates in my palm. It has its own musky scent that steals deep into my mind, infuses itself as a memory that will never be forgotten. Actually, it is a scent that drives me quite mad.

Like a feral animal, I bend my head and, taking him in my mouth, I suck the warm, satiny skin sensually and deeply. He growls, a low hum deep in his chest. The sound is erotic. I love blowing him. I lift my eyes and watch him watching his dick disappear into my face.

I slip the middle finger of my left hand into the slickness between my legs and sneak the finger between his legs up to his butthole. Michael, I remember clearly, absolutely adored it. I probe the entrance gently. A bundle of firm muscles pushes back. Nope, no one else has been in there.

Suddenly, a strong hand curls around my wrist and yanks it away. ‘I ain’t no pretty boy, baby. In my bed it’s always going to be your ass that gets fucked.’

Right. Message received loud and clear.

And that, it seems, is the end of the ‘my turn, my rules’ episode. He fists his hand in my hair and thrusts his dick deep into my throat. Only once has a man ever done that to me and I was so shocked and offended I bit him. But with this god of a man, I’m not annoyed. Not even a bit. I let him take total control. He fucks my mouth forcefully. There’s almost a desperation to his movements, a sentiment that I understand and welcome. It’s good to know that at least on a physical level I’m as necessary to him as he is to me.

He reaches for something on the bedside table. I hear the sound of foil tearing. He passes the rubber to me. ‘Climb on top of me,’ he orders.

I roll the condom over his cock and hold myself poised over the massive throbbing shaft. The moment feels achingly sweet. The yearning to be totally filled is white hot. At a torturous snail’s pace I allow his thick hardness to pierce into the wet heat between my legs and stretch me as I’ve never been before.

I stop the slow glide and hold myself suspended above him to accustom myself to his girth.

‘An inch too far?’ he growls.

‘No, I can take it all. I know I can.’ And I push myself down. Whoa! A shocked sound escapes and he smiles with satisfaction. As if it gives him pleasure to ruin me for all other men.

Our flesh slaps with a dull, wet sound while I impale myself on him over and over again. The faster I drop my sweat-slicked body over his shaft, the more heat collects between my legs.

‘Harder,’ he spurs me on, and lifts my body to speed me up.

My sex feels plump and tender with the pounding he is giving it. ‘Damn your devil penis magic. I won’t be able to walk for a week,’ I gasp.

With muscles clenched, and the very devil in his eyes, he climaxes. Fascinated, I stare at him. He is a magnificent sight of pure maleness. He digs his fingers into my hips and, grabbing handfuls of flesh, he slides me on his body, agitating my clit until my juices flow over his cock and pool between us, and I break apart for the third time.

This orgasm is like brute force. It slams into me and I howl like a lunatic banshee.

When I return, breathless and with my hands gripping the sides of his chest, I see a fierce look shining in his eyes. I attempt to get off his body, but he holds on to me tightly.

‘Not yet,’ he says.

‘No?’

‘No,’ he confirms, his eyes so hot and intense that heat crawls up my back and neck. I hope to hell he can’t see it in the dark. To hide, I resort to being flippant. ‘Say hello to the world’s first ever dick warmer,’ I croak.

He drags his thumb over my lower lip. ‘Your lips are the color of ripe peaches, Savage.’

I lick my lips self-consciously. ‘You’re full of shit, Eden.’

He laughs. ‘And your skin shimmers in the dark … like pearls.’

‘OK, now you’re really taking the piss.’

He smiles. There is a new softness and a languor to his face that makes him so damn foxy I want to eat him with a spoon, but I don’t. The earlier cold shoulder from him still kinda hurts.

Still, it’s not too long before he has me on my hands and knees. Gripping my buttocks hard he plunges into me all over again.

I drive into her like a man possessed. The room loses its solidity, and drifts away like a cloud. There is only her and me suspended in nothing. My mind spins and old magic circles around us. I lose all sense of time as her essence rushes through me, merging with me and revitalizing everything dead and diseased in my body.

Freezing cold waves still crash around me, but I do not feel the pain. I tighten my hold on her hips and roar like a beast. I know the pain will come back—its retreat is momentary—but the scale of the relief I experience is impossible to describe.

ELEVEN

You can forget so many evenings of sadness

For a morning of tenderness.

                        —Je sais, Jean Gabin

I wake up on my back with my cheek pressed against Dom’s chest, his big palm resting on my belly, my feet entangled with his, a raging thirst, bursting for a pee, and a twenty-four carat bitch of a headache. My head is pounding so hard it hurts to even breathe.

Never again, I swear.

Gingerly, I lift his hand and, easing myself away from his heavy, warm bulk, I sit up at the edge of the bed. Separated from his body I immediately feel cold and hollow. Just the air conditioning turned up too high, I tell myself. I swing my legs to the cold ground. Ouch, my head. In the blue glow of the night light I make my way to the bathroom. Ohhhh … Peeing hurts, too. With a long sigh I go into the kitchen in search of a glass of water. On the island top I see a black napkin with two painkillers neatly laid out next to a glass of water.

For a second I stare blankly at the sight.

He put it out for me!

I scratch my head. Ouch. I shuffle over to the napkin, pop the pills, down the water, and head back to bed. Very, very gently, because my head has now started throbbing hard enough to break, I slide back under the covers. A powerful arm circles my waist and a sleepy, warm voice murmurs in my hair, ‘Sleep, sweet Ella. You’ll feel better in the morning.’

Unable to speak, I close my eyes, and after a while I fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.