I gave a clenched-teeth scream of frustration as he lowered me to the bed and reared, snatching up a condom and ripping it open. He was sheathed and coming over me a heartbeat later, but it was too long. I had no patience. I caught him in the cage of my arms and legs, pulling him to me, lifting to him.

He allowed me to drag him down, his palms flat on the bed by my shoulders, his biceps thick and hard. He reached between us with one hand, fisting his penis and stroking the wide crest through my slickness. I gasped and his eyes darkened, his cheeks flushing as he notched into the grasping opening to my sex.

“Jax,” I growled in warning.

He thrust hard, sinking deep in one lunge, wrenching a cry from me as I fell hard into orgasm. Neck arched and eyes squeezed shut, I lay taut as the pleasure pulsed through me, my core tightening on the powerfully thick cock inside me.

“Fuck, yeah,” he groaned, grabbing fistfuls of the sheets and pumping that long, rigid column of flesh into my quaking body. The climax grew, spurred by the rhythmic blows of his pelvis into my clit...the feel of his erection plunging relentlessly.

I writhed, helpless, lost to him, struggling to hang on to the part of my soul that wanted to surrender.

“That’s it, baby.” Jax’s lips were at my ear, his breath hot and quick. “Dig those claws into me.”

My nails were grasping at his sweat-slicked back, feeling the muscles flex as his body worked to service mine. His buttocks tensed and released beneath my calves, his thighs bunching and powering the drives of his hips.

His teeth sank into my earlobe and he groaned, his rock-hard abs contracting against my stomach, his sweat and mine sealing us together.

“Those noises you make,” he gasped. “God...they make me so hard.”

And he was. Like stone.

“So g-good.” I swallowed past a dry throat. “Jax...it’s so good.”

“You were made for me,” he said fiercely. “No one else, Gia. You’re mine.”

He drove the point home with every plunge, fucking me so thoroughly I couldn’t think beyond the need to come again.

My body was no longer my own.

Jax was the only one who could do this to me...make me mindless...an animal. I wasn’t me when I was in bed with him; I was his. Willing and ready to do whatever he wanted, to take whatever he chose to give me, knowing he would make me come again and again...

I whimpered, feeling his grip tighten, his muscles gathering as his own pleasure grew.

He nuzzled his damp face against me. “So tight and hot...Gia.”

I realized then that he was clinging to me as desperately as I was to him, that urgency laced every breath, every touch. He was screwing me as if he’d die if he stopped, as if it were possible to fuck me hard enough to delve even deeper beneath my skin.

My eyes stung with tears when the orgasm hit, stealing my breath and causing spots to blur my vision. A low noise poured out of me, unrecognizable as mine.

“Ah, sweetheart.” He kissed me, absorbing the sound, slowing until he was just circling his hips, stirring his raging erection inside me. “I love that sound you make when you come. It tells me how good you feel, how much you love my cock...my mouth...my hands.”

How much I loved him.

I was sprawled beneath him, wide open and possessed, while he felt like a dream. Something I’d conjured.

“Feel me,” he breathed, pushing up to look down at me. His eyes were so dark, his face flushed, the skin stretched tight with lust over the sculpted angles of his face. “Inside you—” he rolled his hips, then caught my hand, lifting it to his slick chest “—and you inside me.”

“Jax—”

He took my mouth, kissing me deeply, his tongue rubbing along mine. His hips circled slowly, making me feel every throbbing inch of him. The leisurely, deliberate stroking over tender nerves kept me hot and edgy. He remembered me well, knew just how to keep me revved and needy.

“I missed you, Gia,” he whispered into the kiss. “Did you ache for me, too?”

When I didn’t reply, he brushed the wet tendrils of my hair away from my face and searched for the answer.

My sex rippled along his length. His eyes closed and his lips parted, his body tightening. “Not yet. I’m not coming yet.”

“Please...” I was begging and I didn’t care. I just wanted him to come. I wanted it more than my next breath.

“I’m not rushing this.” He reached behind him to grab my wrist, bringing my right arm up and over my head. His other hand pushed beneath my buttock, lifting me into a smooth, easy thrust. “Umm...perfect. It’s always been perfect.”

I wanted to tease him, to play the game as coolly as he was, but I couldn’t.

“Stop thinking and feel, baby,” he murmured, nibbling on the corner of my mouth. “Let me make you feel good. That’s all I want. To make you feel good.”

Turning my head, I caught his lips and let him.

* * *

NICO EYED ME as I slid onto a bar stool at Rossi’s after closing and I knew he saw my makeupless state, which betrayed the shower I’d taken just a half hour before. He had been cleaning up the bar, but he stopped and pulled out a beer, popping off the top before sliding the bottle over to me.

“Forgot how much I like Jax,” he said conversationally.

I nodded. I liked Jax, too. Thing was, I didn’t know which Jax was the real one.

“You two going to work it out?”

“No, it’s temporary. But this time, I know the rules.”

“Maybe I don’t like him so much.” Nico popped open a second beer and took a long pull. “He’s in love with you, you know.”

“He’s in lust,” I countered drily, picking at the label on the bottle. “And that’s okay, I can live with that. It’s the other stuff—the way he talks to me sometimes, as if there’s more, and the head trip I’m on about why he left and came back—that’s hard for me to deal with.”

“My offer to knock some sense into him still stands.”

I smiled. “Might be easier and more effective to knock sense into me.”

“Can do that, too.” He tapped his bottle against mine. “But you’ve got plenty of sense. You know what you’re doing. You just wish you weren’t doing it. He obviously doesn’t have a clue or else he wouldn’t risk letting you get away. He’ll never find better.”

“Ah, God, don’t get sappy on me now. I can’t take it.” I wasn’t entirely kidding. I felt weepy and emotional. Sex with Jax did that to me.

Nico grinned. “Fine. Get off your ass and help me clean up so we can get the hell out of here.”

With a sigh, I slid off the bar stool. “Shit. I should’ve stuck with sappy instead.”

* * *

AN INSISTENT POUNDING on Nico’s door woke me Sunday morning. I rolled off the couch with a curse, stumbling over with the intention of bitching out whoever it was.

When I blinked wearily through the peephole, however, I saw beloved faces.

Pulling off the security chain and turning the dead bolt, I opened the door to my brothers and Denise. “What the hell?” I groused.

“Yeah. What the fuck?” Nico wandered in from the bedroom wearing sweatpants that barely clung to his hips. Brother or not, I could still appreciate what a good-looking man he was. “You know what time it is?”

Vincent came in first. “Time to get up.”

Angelo followed Denise in, holding her hand in his. “You put Gianna on the couch? Seriously?”

“I offered her the bed.” Nico crossed his arms. “She wouldn’t take it.”

“Don’t blame her,” Vincent said. “If that bed could talk, it’d have its own reality show.”

“Don’t be jealous,” Nico returned. “I’m sure your bed will see some action eventually. Despite everything, you’re still a Rossi.”

“What are you doing here?” I interjected. I was really happy to see them. Having my family around brought back normalcy I’d lost the night before in Jax’s bed. I was back to feeling like Gianna Rossi—and not absolutely sure I was the writhing, moaning, clawing woman who’d enjoyed a half-dozen orgasms in a matter of hours. It was as if I were two different people.