He laughed, pushing his shorts down.

I gasped, my eyes widening when I got a good look at his jutting erection. I’d known he was big, I’d felt just how big, but just then it looked intimidating, it was so huge, nearly as thick as my wrist and arching up to his navel. I tried to reassure myself that it was just the lighting.

His mouth twisted ruefully when he saw the look on my face. “Don’t worry, we’ll fit.”

I nodded, but I wasn’t quite convinced.

He sprawled onto his back on the bed, folding his arms behind his head. “Your turn.”

I nodded again, eyes still wide on his thick length.

My hand darted out, my fingers wrapping around him before he could see my intent.

He sucked in a rough breath as I gripped him.

My fingers could just touch, which alleviated some of my tension. At least I could grip him with one hand.

I pumped at him once with my fist, and a spurt of pre-cum escaped from his tip.

He pushed my hand away, cursing. “That’s not in the plans tonight, Danika. My control is shot to hell as it is. Now, where’s my striptease?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I stood, sending him a wicked smile. I drew it out longer than he had, inching my shirt up slowly, teasingly uncovering my skin, inch by slow inch.

I tossed my shirt on the floor, cupping my breasts as I bared them. I was encouraged by the pained look on his face as I moved closer, my steps slow and sultry.

“You did say striptease,” I explained, biting my lip as I fondled myself, my expression taunting.

“I did,” he bit out. “But you still need to keep stripping.”

I did, pushing my tiny shorts down even more slowly than I’d peeled my top up.

“I love your body,” he told me as I inched the shorts just below my hipbones. “It’s perfect. You have the sexiest little hips in the world.”

I practically glowed at the praise. No one could do compliments like Tristan. He said things that put me on cloud nine for days, and I knew I’d remember those words long after this was over.

I gave one last teasing little shimmy before I let my shorts fall to the floor.

I moved to the bed, propping one foot up near where his feet were pointing. I touched myself, circling my clit, letting him see how wet he’d made me, when things like that usually embarrassed me. The usual shame associated with sex had disappeared for me, with Tristan.

“Come closer,” he growled. “I can do that for you.”

“I want to ride you first this time,” I told him, ignoring his request.

“Fine, if that’s what you want. Just get the fuck over here.”

I giggled. Being teased made him grumpy, and I kind of loved it.

“First things first. Do you have any condoms?”

He groaned. “You aren’t on the pill?” he asked, sounding annoyed, which annoyed me.

“I am, but you’re wrapping it up for me anyway.”

“Why? I’m clean, and I know you are.”

I didn’t feel like listing all of the flaws in his logic. “The fact that you don’t want to wear a condom tells me that I want you to. Now where are they?”

“Fuck. They’re in the side pocket of my duffle bag.”

I found one easily. He had plenty, thank God.

I held the packet in my teeth as I climbed over him.

“I never ever ride bareback, Danika, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

I decided not to point out that riding bareback was just what he was trying to do, which made it pretty unlikely that he never did it.

“Please, let’s not argue about it,” I told him when I’d moved to straddle his thighs, the packet falling from my mouth. “I’m not doing this without one. It’s not negotiable.”

He let out a noisy breath. “Okay. I’m sorry. I was being an ass. I just want us skin on skin so bad…”

I ignored that last part, opening the wrapper of the condom. I held the tip as I rolled it on, loving the feel of his hardness as it jumped in my hands. I stroked him a few times for good measure, before he waved my hands off.

“I’m not coming again until I’m buried inside of you,” he groaned.

I loved the sound of that.

I climbed up his long body, rubbing my wet sex along his cock, readying us both to ease him inside of me.

I rose high on my knees to position him at my entrance.

I circled my hips in a sultry display before I began to impale myself onto his length slowly. He shut his eyes, and the look on his face was beyond gratifying.

I eased myself onto him, one slow inch at a time. There was no other way to do it, considering his size. I was slick with moisture, but I still felt a nearly painful stretch as I bore down on his length, the last few inches very nearly too much for me. I didn’t let that stop me, though. I was intent on rocking his world, and a bit of discomfort wasn’t going to hold me back.

His breath came in hard pants as I started up a relentless rhythm, my eyes on his face. I bit my lip as I pushed down hard enough that it felt like I’d bruised my insides.

I was gratified when I saw how fast I was taking him over the edge.

His neck arched back, and he almost shouted with his release.

I kept moving, riding out each spasm of his pleasure. Watching him lose it was almost as good as losing it myself.

His hands moved to my hips, and he looked almost angry as he met my gaze.

“Okay, that’s not happening again.” His voice was low and almost mean.

I was caught off guard. “What do you mean? Didn’t you enjoy it?”

“Of course I did. You saw that. But that isn’t happening again. I’d rather not get off at all than have you suffer through it, more concerned with impressing me, than enjoying this. It’s not a fucking competition, Danika.”

That threw me for a loop, and I found myself blushing hotly.

“Okay, new ground rules,” he growled, dislodging me with two firm hands on my hips.

“New ground rules?” I repeated. “What do you mean?”

“No over-thinking this, first of all.”

I knew exactly what he meant. I had been more in my head than in the moment, and whether we were dancing, swimming, or having sex, he could always seem to tell.

“Okay. Fine. What else?” I squared my jaw as I said it.

“I’m in charge.”

“Excuse me?”

“Because I don’t want this to be calculated for you.”

“What do you want, then?”

“I want you to let go. I want you to submit. I want to make you lose your mind. I want you to be so far gone that the only word left in your vocabulary is my name.”

A shot of pure heat ran through me. I licked my lips. “How are you going to do that?”

He rolled me onto my back, looming over me. His brow was furrowed, as though in deep thought. “It’s really too bad we don’t have any restraints around.”

My eyes widened. He liked to find new and interesting ways to surprise me.

“Do you have some sort of fetish? How did I miss this before? Aren’t there supposed to be warning signs for this sort of thing?”

He chuckled as he rose from the bed. My eyes stayed glued to him as he went into the bathroom, gloriously buck-ass naked.

“Are you going to find me some restraints, Master?” I called out.

“Oh, shush,” he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice.

I just lay there for the minutes it took him to clean up and join me again.

My eyes widened into huge saucers as he set more foil packets beside me on the bed.

“One. Two. Three. Four…” I counted, wondering if it was even possible we’d need them all.

He smiled, a flash of his straight white teeth. “I was being conservative. I can always get more out of my bag, when we come up for air.”

“Okay, now I know you’re shitting me.”

He laughed hard. “Such a pretty girl…such a dirty mouth.”

I stuck my tongue out at him, and his face turned serious as he bent down to kiss me.

“I was serious, Danika. I’ve wanted this from the moment I laid eyes on you, and we’re not stopping any time soon.”

I tried to process that, but my mind wasn’t working at top speed, as his mouth moved down to my neck, and his body slid hotly along mine. I could feel his sex, already rock hard again, rubbing hard into my thigh.

I snaked a hand down, wanting to touch him, but he stopped me with a firm hand on my wrist.

He pulled that arm up high above my head, then gave my second arm the same treatment. “I was serious about the restraints, too. If I had something here, you’d be tied to this bed already. You lost touching rights when you pulled that stunt back there.”

“It wasn’t a stunt—I was just trying to make it good for you—”

“You were keeping score, turning this into something ugly by taking your own pleasure out of the equation. That’s not happening again. I’ll be doing the touching from now on.”

“You did the same thing, yesterday. You took your own pleasure out of the equation, too.”

“You’re lying to yourself if you think I didn’t enjoy that just as much as you did, and I sure as hell wasn’t suffering through it.”

That shut me up, that and the fact that his mouth had wandered south.

Delicious shivers shot through me he made his way down my body with feather-light kisses.

“Are you going to let go for me, Danika?” he breathed against me.

“I’ll try my best,” I gasped.

“You don’t have to try, sweetheart, you just have to submit,” he murmured, right before he set to work on me in earnest. Somehow, his words had the intended effect, and I found myself relaxing into his hold. Even when his hands moved away from my wrists, I left my arms where he’d put them.

His mouth was relentless, his hands everywhere at once, rubbing, stroking, driving me wild, and making me weak.

I submitted to him, my restless mind went quiet and dark, and it was the sweetest feeling in the world to let him take control of it all.

Something inside of me, in the way I’d been shaped, made it so hard to change the way my mind worked, and the way it worked was twisted. I felt so much shame when things were out of my control, and that control had always included sex.

For the first time in my life, I trusted someone enough to take that control from me, I gave him that control willingly, and that trust healed something raw and aching deep inside of me.

He had me wet and quivering before he poised himself at my entrance, the heavy warmth of his body sliding over mine. He held my legs wide as he entered me, easing in much more easily than the last time.

“See,” he rasped into my ear, “we fit just right.”

“Yes,” I gasped.

He began to move, slow, heavy strokes that had my hands flying to his shoulders, scratching mindlessly.

“I swear to God, I’m finding something to tie you up next time,” he grunted, gripping my hands back above my head firmly, his chest rubbing mine as he thrust, grinding into me, harder, faster.

My legs wrapped around his waist, tightening as the pressure built.