"I need you."

"You've got me."

"I need-I need you inside me."

"You want my c.o.c.k?"

"I want your c.o.c.k."

No man in the history of the world had ever gotten a condom on faster. He practically leapt off the bed to retrieve it from his pants and then tore the package open with his teeth, rolling the condom on at lightning speed. He was about to push into her when he caught the look in her eyes and stopped.

"Cudgel," she said.

"Right. Baby, I promise, I'm not going to hurt you."

"I know. I need you. I'm just scared."

"We'll go slow."

He went as slow as he could bear, nudging his crown inside her on the first thrust and sinking deeper slowly, slowly, until he was shaking with it and she was rubbing her hands up and down his arms.

"Oh, wow. Tony. Wow."

He sank deeper, gritting his teeth. "You like that?"

When he finally got all the way in, she was clamped so tight around him, he thought he might die from it.

"It's incredible."

"Tell me how it feels."

"Huge."

He laughed, collapsing on top of her so his face was buried in her wet, flowery-smelling hair. "You're good for my ego, honey."

She was smiling, too, beaming at him when he propped himself up on his elbows again. "It feels good. I mean ... I want you to do something with it, but I like having you ... inside me."

"You love my giant c.o.c.k."

He said it as a joke, and she laughed and wrapped her hands around the back of his neck to pull his forehead right up against hers. She kissed him on the mouth, soft and sweet. "Yes. I love your giant c.o.c.k."

"Can I move now?"

"Please."

So he rocked against her, and pleasure fanned over her face. He withdrew a few inches and thrust. She closed her eyes, inhaling through her nose.

On the third thrust, the iron bedstead banged into the wall, and Amber said, "Oh!"

"You want me to get the bed away from the wall?"

She shook her head. "Are you kidding me? Do that again."

He did it again. Then again. Bang. Again. Bang.

After that, Tony kind of lost the thread.

She felt so f.u.c.king good. Tight and hot, crazy-wet, soft and welcoming and just ... just so real. No fake fingernails or fake bravado or fake sighs to make him think he was doing anything to her that he wasn't. Just her body, the smell of s.e.x on her skin, the way she closed her eyes when he made her feel something new but then opened them again and focused on his face as though she didn't want to miss anything.

He didn't want to miss anything, either, and he wasn't used to being this tuned in. He had no experience with a woman who watched him with wide eyes that seemed to see everything, to see right inside him.

Even as he reveled in the scary strangeness of it, part of him knew better.

He would pay for this.

But his hands smoothed her hair off her face, his mouth kissed her forehead and her eyelids, and he moved as deep as he could get inside her. He couldn't stop himself from clinging to this sc.r.a.p of sweetness, from thrusting deeper, harder, when she wrapped her legs around him and encouraged him with little moans and whimpers, saying his name in his ear, making him feel like the biggest f.u.c.king thing in the whole universe.

"Amber," he said. Like an experiment, an acknowledgment that she was who he was with, the woman he wanted more than he wanted to be smart.

"Oh my G.o.d."

"Amber."

And then he had to kiss her again, because he wanted to say it a dozen more times.

"Holy s.h.i.t, Tony."

"You like it."

"Don't stop. Ever. I'll kill you if you stop."

"Can you come from this?"

"I don't know. Maybe. Yes. No. Don't stop."

Tony groaned. All the tension and heat gathered in his b.a.l.l.s was pulling tighter. He couldn't make this last much longer, couldn't think about box office scores or whatever the f.u.c.k he was supposed to be thinking about to keep from coming because Amber was wrapped around him, and she was the only thing in the world that mattered.

He worked his hand between them. When he found her c.l.i.t, she dug her nails into his arm so hard, he hissed. "Bad?"

"Good. Do that. Keep doing that."

So he did, clumsy until he got the thrusts timed against the pulses of his finger, and she raked her nails up his back, the bed creaking hard now, the headboard pounding into the wall.

"I'm going to. Don't you dare stop, I'm going to come."

Tighter. Harder. Higher.

He bent his head and sucked her nipple into his mouth, closed his teeth around it, and she clamped down so hard around him that he just about lost consciousness.

"Oh!"

She came like a firecracker, like a whole f.u.c.king chain of firecrackers exploding one after another, and there was no way on earth he could keep his s.h.i.t together, so he let go, let it rush up and overtake him.

He had to close his eyes when he came. G.o.d only knew what he said or what noises he made, his hand gripping tight around the iron bar of the bedstead just to keep him grounded in some kind of reality. The pleasure lasted so long that it felt like pain, and she was with him the whole time, clutching his back, holding him close. Saying his name.

When he collapsed on top of her, he barely had the presence of mind to keep his weight braced on one arm, he was so wrung out. Both of them were panting, their breaths lengthening out as they started to come down again, to settle back into their bodies, heavy and limp.

He rested his cheek beside her ear. "How'd I do?"

She exhaled and flung her arms out on the bed. "Motherf.u.c.ker," she said.

He laughed. For a long time, he couldn't stop. He laughed so hard his stomach hurt, and he made a mess with the condom on the bedspread, but she didn't seem to care. She just kept smiling, and when he finally got himself under control, he kissed her.

Chapter Ten.

Her phone rang, shrill and intrusive as a nosy parent.

Which was probably who was on the other end of the line.

"You gonna get that?"

Amber stretched. Every single cell in her body was singing with contentment. She didn't ever want to get up, and she didn't ever want Tony to move off her. "It's my mom."

"I thought you called her already."

"I did, but she probably wants to rehash the whole storm now. She's chatty."

Cool air met her skin as Tony shifted to the side. "She doesn't live downstairs, does she?"

"No, she lives above the office, right by the entrance."

"Good. That means she was too far away to hear the bed slamming into the wall."

Amber covered her eyes with her hand. She hadn't actually noticed the bed hitting the wall on a conscious level, but now that he mentioned it, yes. That had happened. There was probably a dent in the drywall. A dent that her father or her brother would fix, in the normal course of things.

Lord.

"I hope the downstairs tenant didn't call her."

Tony pitched his voice high. " Mrs. Clark, your daughter is having crazy ape s.e.x upstairs. Do something.' "

Amber's bark of laughter sounded too loud in the silent s.p.a.ce between rings.

"Why isn't your machine picking up?"

"Power's out, doofus." She shoved his shoulder, an excuse to get her hand back on the solid bulk of him.

She loved his shoulders and arms. They were even s.e.xier now that she'd seen them braced over her, bearing his weight as he thrust inside her and- "You did not just call me a doofus."

"I have a teenage sister. Sue me."

The phone fell silent.

"Is your mom coming over here now?"

"Almost definitely."

"You want me to meet her like this?"

"Not particularly."

He pushed one big hand under her shoulder, the other under her hip, and shoved her all the way over to the edge of the mattress. She had to grab on tight to keep from falling off the bed. "Go get on the phone, then, sunshine."

"I'm not sure my legs still work."

"No time like the present to find out."

She let them drop off the side of the bed, and when she put weight on them, she was surprised by how lovely they felt. Her quads twitched as if she'd just finished a seven-mile run on the trail. Replete in the best possible way.

She grabbed her robe from its hook in the closet and kicked her scattered clothes into a pile on her way to the phone in the living room. As she dialed, she heard Tony moving around in the bedroom, and then the bathroom door closed behind him.

"Hey, Mom," she said when her mother picked up.

"I just called you."

"I know, sorry. I'm home. Everything's fine."

"What took you so long? What's going on?"

"Nothing." Then Amber remembered her car. "Actually, there is something. My car is dead."

"Dead? What do you mean dead'?"

"That big oak tree fell on it."

"You just paid it off!"

"I know. It stinks."

"You should've called your father to come and look at it."