What? Tonight? Forever? Elaborate, damn it! That definitely wasn’t a question, it was an order. I nod my head as I’m pulled back down and he mumbles incoherent words.

‘I need to hear the words, Ava.’ He circles his hips, penetrating me to the deepest part of my body.

‘Oh God, I will.’ I exhale around the scorching infiltration. My voice is quivering from pleasure and emotion as the forceful throb at my core takes over and I tremble in his hands.

‘You’re going to come.’ he pants.

‘Yes!’

‘Jesus, I love looking at you when you’re like this. Hold it, baby. Not yet.’

My arms start to buckle under me, prompting him to shift his grip to the middle of my back and pull me up so we’re front on front. I cry out as our chests collide and my new position has him penetrating me further. My hands fly up to grasp his back.

He searches my eyes. ‘You’re painfully beautiful and all mine. Kiss me.’

I obey, moving my palms to cup his handsome face and lowering my lips to his. He moans as I plunge my tongue into his mouth, his drives hardening into me.

‘Jesse,’ I plead. I’m going.

‘Control it, baby.’

‘I can’t.’ I pant into his mouth. I’m helpless to his invasion of my mind and body as I tense my thighs around him and shatter all over him. I cry out and trap his bottom lip between my teeth, biting down.

He shouts, rises to his knees, rears back and slams into me on his own release, clenching me to his chest and spilling himself inside of me. He thrusts up one last, powerful time. I cry out.

‘Jesus, Ava. What am I going to do with you?’

Keep me forever, PLEASE!

His face plummets into my neck as he pumps his hips slowly, back and forth, milking every ounce of pleasure from me. I’m dizzy, my head spinning wildly as his heavy, hot breath spreads across my neck and travels down my chest. Every internal muscle I possess grips him as he pulsates inside me. He’s shaking – proper trembling shakes. I wrap my arms around him and squeeze him to me.

‘You’re shaking.’ I mumble the words into his shoulder.

‘You make me so happy.’

Do I? ‘I thought I made you crazy?’

He pulls back and looks me in the eyes, his forehead shimmering in sweat. ‘You make me crazy happy,’ He kisses my nose and sweeps my hair away from my face. ‘You also make me crazy mad.’ He gives me an accusing look. I don’t know why. It’s his own unreasonable, neurotic behavior that makes him crazy mad, not me.

‘I prefer you when you’re crazy happy, you’re scary when you’re crazy mad.’

His lips twitch. ‘Then stop doing things to make me crazy mad.’

I gape at him, but he presses his lips to mine before I can challenge him on that accusation. The man is crazy deluded, on top of everything else.

He rests back down on his heels. ‘I would never hurt you intentionally, Ava. You know that, right?’ The uncertainty is clear in his voice as he brushes a stray hair away from my face.

Now, this I’m absolutely certain of. Well, in the physical sense. It’s the emotional sense that scares me to death. And the fact that he added intentionally should be cause for concern.

I look into the hazy, green pools of this beautiful man. ‘I know.’ I sigh, but I really don’t. And it scares me to death.

He swivels around onto his back, taking me with him, so I’m sprawled across his chest. I shift slightly so I can trace a figure of eight on his stomach, lingering longer over his scar than anywhere else.

It fascinates me in a morbid kind of way, and it’s another mystery behind this man. It’s definitely not a war wound from an operation and it’s not a puncture wound or a slice. It looks far more sinister than that. The thick, jagged wave looks like someone has, literally, plunged a knife into his lower stomach and dragged it all the way around to his side. I shudder. I wouldn’t have thought anyone could survive a wound like it. He must have lost a heap of blood. Dare I press him on this?

‘Were you in the army?’ I ask quietly. This could explain it, and I’ve not asked directly.

He pauses stroking my hair briefly but continues shortly after. ‘No.’ he answers. He doesn’t ask me why I would think that. He knows what I’m getting at. ‘Leave it, Ava.’ he says in that tone – the one that makes me writher on the spot. Yeah, I’m not arguing with that voice, and I certainly don’t want to spoil the moment.

‘Why did you disappear on me?’ I ask a little apprehensively. I need to know.

‘I told you, I was a mess.’

‘Why?’ I press. His answer explains nothing. I feel him tense beneath me.

‘You spark feelings in me.’ he answers softly, and I think I might be getting somewhere.

‘What sort of feeling?’ BOOM!

He sighs. I’ve pushed my luck. ‘All sorts, Ava.’ He sounds irritated by it.

‘Is that a bad thing?’

‘It is when you don’t know how to deal with them.’ He lets out a long, tired breath of air.

I stop with my strokes. He doesn’t know how to deal with the feelings he’s having, so he tries to control me? How will that help? All sorts of feelings? This man talks in code. What does that mean, and why does he sound so frustrated by it?

‘You think I belong to you.’ I start circling my finger again.

‘No, I know you do.’

‘When did you establish that?’

‘When I spent four days trying to get you out of my head.’ He still sounds irritated, while I’m delighted with this news.

‘It didn’t work?’

‘Well, no, I was even crazier. Go to sleep.’ he orders.

‘What were you doing to try and get me out of your head?’

‘It doesn’t matter. It didn’t work, end of. Go to sleep.’

I pout to myself. I think I’ve extracted as much information as I’m going to get. Crazier? I don’t think I ever want to meet that man. All sorts of feeling? That, I think, I like the sound of.

I continue with my swirling patterns over his chest, while he strokes my hair and drops a kiss every now and then. The silence is comfortable and my eyes are getting heavy.

I pull myself further into him, resting my leg over his thigh. ‘Tell me how old you are.’ I garble into his chest.

‘No.’ he replies flatly. I screw my face up in sleepy disgust. I didn’t even get a fake age. I doze off into a peaceful slumber, dreaming of all things crazy.

Chapter 30

I wake up feeling exposed and cold, and I know immediately why. Where is he? I sit up, blowing the hair from my face, to find Jesse on the chaise lounge, bending down.

‘What are you doing?’ My throat is hoarse, not yet broken in.

He looks up and dazzles me with his smile, reserved only for women. How come he’s all bright eyed and bushy tailed? ‘I’m going for a run.’ He bends back down, and I notice he’s tying his trainers.

When he’s finished, he stands up, the full six foot three inches of lean loveliness, all the more lovely in loose, black running shorts and a marl grey vest. I lick my lips and smile admiringly. He has stubble. I could eat him.