He slid deeper, pressed inside her slow and easy until the barrier of her virginity drew him to a halt once again.

Mocking amazement widened his eyes as he felt the shield of her virginity. “Why, Rogue, would you have lied to me?”

She shook her head quickly. She hadn’t lied. She really hadn’t.

“Don’t stop, Zeke. Please don’t stop.”

“You lied to me, sweetheart.” He glanced to where his erection was buried no more than an inch inside her. “What if I want to punish you for that?”

“Technicality,” she gasped, tightening around the flesh she held captive. “We’ll argue later, damn you. Fuck me, Zeke, before I die for it.”

She bucked against him again, her hips jerking against his hold enough that she was nearly free, that she felt a hard stab into the fragile barrier. But she felt pleasure as well.

Enough that it stole her breath, left her gasping and twisting in his arms in an attempt to experience more, to know where the sensations racing through her were threatening to take her.

Hard, calloused hands held her hips still as he moved against her. Slowly. His cock slipped back, then returned. Slow, easy, shallow thrusts that had adrenaline pumping through her system and hungry flames burning around her.

“Not enough,” she cried out, her hands clenched around the bars of the bed. “Not enough, Zeke. Please.”

Tears filled her eyes as perspiration dampened her body. She fought against his hold, twisting, surging against him, needing. Oh God, she needed. So bad.

He pulled back again, ignoring her tight, smothered scream. Pausing at the entrance to her pussy, he stilled for a moment, letting her work herself on the crest. Her juices coated the condom-covered flesh as she stared down at where they met.

She pushed closer, gasped, cried out as he buried deeper, then deeper yet as his hips surged forward, his cock tearing past that last veil of innocence.

Rogue stilled. Her eyes flashed to his face from where he was buried inside her. Burning heat and liquid pleasure seemed to enfold her. She felt as though she was drowning in the contradictory sensations as she stared into the hard, savagely honed features of his face.

“I told you,” he grimaced. “Mine. Deny it, damn you.”

Rogue shook her head. She wouldn’t deny it. She wouldn’t confirm it. She didn’t know what belonging meant, and she was certain he had no idea what it meant to own that part of her.

He could have this. This was exquisite. It was desperate. It was real. This need, this burning hunger, every part of it. This she understood.

“Damn you,” he cursed again, pulled back, and buried fully inside her in one hard, long stroke.

He buried into her entire being. Rogue felt a flash stroke of emotion that made no sense as he moved over her. The cuffs fell away from her hands and she was touching him, holding him.

Locking her arms around his shoulders, wrapping her legs around his hips, her head tilted back and a low, drawn-out cry left her lips. He was moving hard and fast inside her now. Once he breached the barrier of her virginity, he didn’t let up, he didn’t stop.

His fingers tangled in her hair, turned her head, and his lips were on the column of her neck. Hard, fierce kisses, the scrape of his teeth, a nip, and the quick, hard thrusts inside her were the catalyst. The explosion when it came destroyed her. She felt parts of herself dissolving, burning, turning to ash. She couldn’t scream, she could barely breathe.

Eyes wide open, staring blankly at the ceiling as a heated kiss was pressed to her neck, and she felt herself free-falling. She was lost to the sensations burning around her, through her. She was lost to Zeke, and she was very much afraid she just might truly belong to him in ways that might end up terrifying her later.

“Ah God!” A harsh exclamation left his lips, his thrusts became harder, ratcheting her release higher until she felt him shudder. Felt his kiss at her neck become more fierce, hotter. Marking her. He had marked her. Again.

Rogue tightened her hold on him, keeping him to her as she clenched through the final tremors of her release, and exhaustion began to claim her.

Her legs slid to the bed, but her arms remained around his neck. She didn’t want to let him go. She didn’t want to lose him tonight.

“Don’t leave yet,” she whispered, her voice slurring from the exertion and the pleasure.

“Not yet.”

“Not yet,” he agreed, his lips caressing her ear. “Not even soon.”

She wanted to whimper as he pulled back. Instead, she loosened her hold and let him move, watching as he straightened from the bed and headed to the bathroom.

She was surprised when she heard the shower running and disappointed for the few seconds it took before he returned to the bedroom.

“Come on, naughty baby.” He picked her up in his arms before she could protest and carried her to the bathroom. “We’ll shower and see if you won’t let me sleep a few minutes tonight.”

She cuddled against his chest rather than protesting that he was the one that was keeping her awake. She didn’t want to protest it, she loved it. Craved it. She wondered if she would ever have enough.

Zeke had a feeling he would never have enough of the fiery-haired little hellion he carried to the shower. Placing her on her feet, he crowded her into the glass stall before closing the door and letting the water fall over them.

She stared up at him, her expression slumberous, and he swore his chest clenched in response to it. When had any woman affected him as this one had? He had never showered with one before. He had never soaped a washcloth and cleaned another woman’s body as he was washing Rogue’s. And she had never been cared for in this fashion.

She was a virgin. Untouched. Untried. Unmolded. Her body would fit his alone now, she would always remember his touch, always know who had been the first.

Damn, pride swelled as hard and thick inside him as his dick swelled between his thighs. She had waited. He didn’t want to fool himself into believing that she had waited for him, there lay disaster. There lay a relationship that could end up destroying the balance he had found in his life.

Holding back with her hadn’t been easy. He had freed just enough of the dominance inside of him that he could be easy with her now, gentle. But it wasn’t enough. He wanted so much more. He wanted her so wild she didn’t know her own name. He wanted her screaming out for him. He wanted her swearing she belonged to him, and to him alone.

And once she did, he asked himself, what then? Could he swear himself to her?

As he watched suds slide sensually from the slender line of her back, over the pale, full globes of her ass, the question taunted him. He had promised himself he would never vow his soul to another woman. He had done that with Elaina. With their marriage he had given her parts of himself he hadn’t been comfortable letting go of at the time. And over the years, he had learned to regret it.

He couldn’t let regret stain whatever was developing between him and Rogue. Ignoring his own needs wouldn’t work. As he watched the suds cover her rear, his teeth clenched at the needs that began to fill him again.

He couldn’t let her go. Not yet. And he knew whatever this was between them, it would be nothing as it had been with past lovers. He wouldn’t be leaving Rogue’s bed when dawn broke. He’d be lucky if he managed to get to work on time. Because he was hungry. Because this need clawing at his guts warned him he wouldn’t know a measure of satiation for many hours yet.

Pushing her hair farther over her shoulder he laid his lips at her neck, stroked the soapy rag over her ass before hanging it on the shower rack and catching her wrists.

He heard the breathy little catch as he flattened her hands against the shower wall and pressed her legs apart with his foot.

“I want you again.” He had to have her again.

Bending his knees, he gripped the stalk of his cock, eased it against the swollen lips of her pussy, and tested her readiness.

He had to clench his teeth to hold back a yell of pleasure. Fuck, she was tight, hot. So damned good. With slow, easy thrusts this time he pushed inside her until she gripped him to the hilt.

Without the condom, the heat of her pussy was electrifying. It sizzled around his cock, caused his balls to tighten with the need for release, and sent a shock wave of pleasure tearing up his spine and back down again.

Have mercy. She was killing him with pleasure. She moved against him, rolling her hips, stroking her slick, hot flesh over his erection, working him in deeper, easing away from him, then teasing him to thrust hard and deep inside her.

Gripping her hips, Zeke held her still, plunged inside her, and lost himself. He couldn’t hold back, he couldn’t take her slow and easy, not yet. Not until the hunger ripping him to shreds had eased a bit more. He needed her fast and hard, desperate and screaming.

“Zeke!” she screamed, her voice hoarse, fierce. She was coming apart in his arms, clenching around his cock, exploding around him with a force that left him fighting back his release long enough to jerk free of her.

With one hand he pumped the hard flesh until his semen spilled to her back. The other slid up her hip, to her breasts. He rubbed her nipples, cupped a breast, and lowered his head to the shower wall above hers. His emotions felt jumbled, sharp. He couldn’t get a handle on them, he could only let them free, let them flow with the same jagged sensations he felt as his semen pumped from his cock.

“Fuck. You make me crazy,” he growled, jerking at the pleasure that tore at the fragile bonds of control.

“Not yet,” she said, her breathing heavy, almost a gasp as she rubbed her head against his chin. “Give me a day or two, then I’ll really show you crazy.”

He almost smiled, because he had a feeling it could definitely get worse. It could definitely become addictive. Rogue was his weakness, and he had known it for years.

Zeke wasn’t certain exactly what he thought about having a weakness. But he knew what he thought about having Rogue. And that might be the part that really worried him.

TWELVE

Rogue had never slept with a man. Hell, she hadnever slept with anyone, and she hadn’t expected to fall asleep after they returned to the bed. But Zeke was as inexhaustible as he was rumored to be with his lovers. As though the same wildness that tortured her filled him as well, and the only way for him to extinguish it was in sex.

Which was fine with Rogue. By the time he had her the third time, she was exhausted and slipped easily into his arms and into sleep, never imagining he would still be there when she awoke the next morning.

She wasn’t a dawn kinda girl. The morning sun was high in the sky before wakefulness had begun intruding on the heated, comfortable slumber she was enjoying.

Her pillow wasn’t too hard, it wasn’t too soft. Evidently she had managed to ball her blankets up in front of her again, something to hold on to through the night, because her arm was resting across something.

Something that moved slow and easy. Something that breathed. It wasn’t her blanket.

Memories of the night rushed through her then, flushing her face as she remembered how tirelessly Zeke had taken her, and how she had met each thrust. At times she had been forced to bite her tongue to hold back the pleas for something more. Something . . .

just more.

It wasn’t that she didn’t orgasm. Oh boy, had she orgasmed. Satisfaction had definitely not been a problem. But there was an underlying restlessness she still hadn’t managed to figure out.

“Wake up, sleepyhead.” Zeke’s voice was scratchy, still a little drowsy.

“Not time yet.” She almost smiled. “I don’t go to work until tonight.”

He grunted at that. “Yeah, Janey’s still glaring at me and Alex is laughing his ass off because he caught me waiting on you the other night. I should spank you for that, Rogue.”

Her buttocks clenched involuntarily at the threat. Okay, so she had well fantasized about Zeke spanking her more than once. One of those erotic little spankings she had read about a time or two. She had a lot of fantasies where Zeke was concerned.