“Watch out, Nancy,” he said hoarsely. “If you start something now, there’s no stopping it.”

She stroked him again, deeper, tighter, a slow caress that wrung a keening gasp from his throat. “I know,” she said. “I know.”

He reached out, a little awkwardly and clasped his arms around her shoulders. He stared into her eyes as if expecting her to bolt.

He pulled her close, enfolding her in his warmth, his power.

Suddenly, they were kissing. She had no idea who had kissed whom. The kiss was desperate, achingly sweet. Not a power struggle, not a matter of talent or skill, just a hunger to get as close as two humans could be. He held her like he was afraid she’d be torn away from her.

She tugged his shirt up, and he wrenched it off. She almost purred when she saw him half naked. His skin was pale, and his lean, sinewy muscles were sharply defined in the dim light that dangled over the kitchen stove. So hot. He smelled like soap, sweat. Then he pulled her tight T off, and she was just as exposed as he was, blinking through her mane of tangled hair. She was goose-pimpled by the chill that hit her skin, scorched by his eyes, his roving hands. Her nipples tingled where they touched his chest.

Shyness gripped her, but it was nothing like her usual cold feeling when the iron-plated doors slammed shut in the distance, shutting her lover out and her own small, numb self deep in. No, this was altogether different. She wasn’t numb. She was shaking apart. About to fly into a million pieces. It was marvelous and unbearable. She crossed her arms over her chest, eyes squeezed shut. “Can we turn off the light?”

He froze for a few seconds. “Don’t hide from me,” he said.

“Oh, I won’t, I’m not,” she assured him, through trembling lips. “It’s just that I’m…it would be easier for me.”

He started to speak, and she cut him off before he could ruin it. “I don’t want to stop, I swear,” she said forcefully. “Just the light.”

He hesitated, as if trying to read some secret language in her face.

“It’s because I really care about this,” she blurted. “I’m trying to…I’ll use every trick I can think of not to shut down with you.”

Ooh. Smooth move, Nance. Big turnoff, laying out her sexual problems to a prospective lover before she even made him come.

But Liam didn’t look put off. “All right,” he said. “First, let’s put down the bed, though. I don’t want to do that in the dark.”

Oh. She’d forgotten that detail. A few deft tugs and wrenches with Liam’s big muscles, and her rickety old futon bed was flat and ready for business. The mattress was already dressed with a sheet beneath the couch cover, which he tossed away. Then he went to the stove and yanked the string. The room was plunged into a million shades of gray.

The darkness hid nothing. The grays took on subtle meanings, shaded nuances, and he was a fulcrum of deeper gray in the midst of them, an enormous, brooding presence. Every hair prickled on her body at his proximity, every sense was attenuated to its limit: eyes straining in the dark, lungs pulling in deep breaths for his scent, ears attentive to the pad of his bare feet. Hungry to touch his skin, to taste his salt.

He unbuckled his belt, kicked off his shoes, shucked pants and briefs and socks with quick businesslike movements that the darkness loaded with pure eroticism.

She stared at his body, the curves and angles and contours in the shadows, the jut of his big penis. She shoved down her own jeans, peeled them off her ankles, and waited for him, her legs shaking.

She sensed him moving closer, but it was still a shock when his arms circled her. She convulsed with delicious shivers. His chest pressed to her breasts, the stroke of his hand trailed down the curve of her back, the swell of her hip, fitting her against him.

His cock prodded her leg. She could hardly breathe.

He bent his head, kissing where her neck met her shoulder. “You’re not going to shut down,” he said, part command, part triumph.

“No,” she replied, astonished to realize that it was true. She wasn’t. In spite of the terror they’d just been through and her tedious list of hang-ups. Usually, the harder a lover pounded at her stone walls demanding to be let in, the thicker her walls became. With Liam, there was no wall. Or there might be, but it didn’t matter, because he was miles inside, and driving her ever deeper into her own self, deeper than she’d ever been. Every sensation, every emotion was a revelation. The thrill of leaping into a star-studded nowhere and the pleasure of coming back to a home she’d never known she had, all at once.

He pulled her down onto the bed and arranged her so she was wrapped around him, perched on his thighs, arms looped around his shoulders. Her nose buried in his sweat-stiffened thick, spiky hair. His cock pressed against her belly, his arms were tense and shaking.

Tenderness for him melted her inside, a hot shimmer around her heart that just got brighter and hotter. She slid her hand down between them and curled her fingers around his cock. She stroked, greedily exploring, teasing, milking him.

“Slow down,” he whispered. “I don’t want to come yet.”

She let up her grip, just slightly. “When, then?”

“You first.” He slid his hand down, tracing the divide of her bottom and stroking the wet, exquisitely sensitive places with an unerring fingertip while he situated her just…so…so that his penis was rubbing against her clit, while his fingers delved tenderly inside, and that slow, throbbing pressure, that slick, swirling caress turned her inside out, making her shudder with rapture. She almost fainted.

Liam hung on to her, lungs hitching. Trying not to let his fingers dig in too hard, leaving marks on her perfect skin. So soft. A marvel of nature, every detail graceful and perfect. Naked in his arms.

She was the most perfect creature he’d ever seen. That climax, a small supernova, right in his arms. He wanted to kneel at her feet, suck her toes, lick her arches, kiss her ankles. Thank her for existing. Make the whole world bow low whenever she walked by.

He rolled her slowly down onto her back, his finger still deep inside her clinging pussy. He folded her legs wide. She gazed up at him, with those huge, fathomless eyes, her hair a swirling mass against the sheet. So responsive, gasping and sighing at every caress. His finger was in ecstasy in the hot, clinging vortex. She was lifting herself, shoving against his delving hand, silently begging for more, deeper, harder.

His cock ached. She did a swirl twist of her fingers around him, and pulled. Ah. “I won’t be able to wait if you do that again,” he warned.

Her lips curved in a smile so lovely, it made his heart hurt. “Who asked you to wait?” she said.

He panted, his existence measured by heartbeats throbbing in his cock. “I wanted to make you come about ten times first,” he told her.

She shook with breathless giggles. “That sounds like fun, but I’m too wound up for anything lazy and drawn out. I just want you.”

Praise God, they were on the same page. He took her at her word and groped on the corner of the bed, where he’d laid a condom. He ripped it open, rolled the thing on, and leaned over her, balancing on one hand while he carefully nudged his cock into her slick opening.

What followed were the most excruciatingly wonderful moments of his life. He was big, she was tight and small. Her pussy hugged him. She arched, offered herself, wiggling to accommodate him. Damn. He should have insisted, gone for the ten orgasms. Gone down on her for an hour or so.

But with each shove, he slid deeper, felt her relax around him, her nails digging into his shoulders. He was dazzled at her alabaster pale body, so fragrant and smooth. Her arms, clutching him. Those perfect breasts, with the puckered dark nipples that he hadn’t even had a chance to properly feast on. No time. So much to do with her.