Between us, he was so hard his whole body was tense, hands shaking at the sides of my face. “Look at me.”

I shivered, unable to break my attention from where his cock arched straight up between us.

“Look at me,” he ground out.

I blinked up to him and he slid his thumb deeper into my mouth, pressing down against my tongue. He groaned quietly, watching as he slowly withdrew his digit; I bit down so his skin dragged against my teeth.

A calm silence settled between us. Bennett’s expression straightened and he simply stared down at me, studying every part of my face as he swept the wet pad of his thumb back and forth across my bottom lip.

“Married,” he said quietly, as if only to himself.

I loved his honest, expressive hazel eyes, his smart mouth, and his carved, stubborn jaw. I loved his tousled hair and the heavy dip of his Adam’s apple when he swallowed. I loved his broad chest, sculpted arms, and the world’s best naughty fingers. I loved his abdomen, his hips, and every long, thick inch of him pressing urgently between us.

But more than any of that, I loved his intelligence, his composure, his loyalty, his sense of humor. And I loved how he loved me.

Tilting his head, he asked, “What are you thinking, Mrs. Ryan?”

“I’m thinking how it’s a good thing I love your body so much that I can put up with your disappointing brain.”

He spread his hands around my waist and lifted me, tossing me onto the mattress.

“If you think I’m going to put up with that smart mouth of yours now that we’re married . . .” he began, crawling up the bed and hovering over me.

“Then I’m right?” I finished for him, reaching to wrap my hand around the back of his neck.

He bent to kiss me, giving me a lopsided smile. “Yeah, actually.”

I’d often had this feeling when I was alone with Bennett that time somehow melted and the entire world outside simply dissolved into nothing. I’d been nervous with the anticipation of tonight, but once his weight settled over me—and his mouth moved to my neck, my shoulders, my breasts—instinct took over. I slid my palms up his back and over his shoulders and gasped as he returned to me, his tongue touching mine, pushing and demanding. The sounds of his excitement vibrated inside my mouth and down my neck as he grew wilder, needing to kiss and taste everything, all at once.

I suspected I knew this man better than I knew my own mind. I knew how to touch him, how to love him, how to get him to do anything and everything to my body. And so when his hands spread my thighs apart, thumbs circling and meeting in the middle to glide over my clit, and his eyes focused on my face as his lips clamped over the peak of my breast—studying, commanding, hungry for my pleasure—I lost any sense of anxiety over the night and knew we would forever be the fevered combination of Bennett and Chloe. Mr. Ryan and Miss Mills. Mr. Mills and Mrs. Ryan. Husband and wife. Bastard and bitch.

Kneeling between my legs, his hands framed my hips and he watched as he slid over my wet skin, before resting the head of his cock on my navel. I could feel my pulse thundering in my throat, and I lifted my hips, suddenly impatient for this, wanting to feel his weight on top of me, hear his desperate sounds in my ear.

“Should I say something profound before we begin?” he asked, smiling down at me.

“You can try,” I said, scratching down his stomach. “But I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.”

With a light pinch to my nipple, he bent low, nipping at my jaw. “I love you anyway.”

As he slid into me, I shook, crying out sharply at the relief before gasping, “I love you anyway, too.”

“It feels so fucking good.”

“I know.”

I pressed my palms to his ass, feeling the contracting muscles, pulling him deeper into me and rising to meet his every push. Bennett’s lips moved across my cheeks, aimless, to my ears and my mouth. Down my chin to my neck. His words came out broken and desperate.

So much

Oh, God, Chlo, I don’t

Let me hear

Let me hear you

Tell me what you’re feeling, tell me

Tell me what you want

I sucked at his neck, watching his shoulders bunch as he moved and moved and moved over me. “I want faster. Closer. More. Please.”

He pushed up onto his knees between my legs, gripping my thigh and pushing my legs farther apart. “Fucking hell, Chloe, you’re so beautiful.”

I groaned, feeling the heavy drag of him sliding inside me; the pleasure was amplified by the way his eyes seemed to caress my skin.

“Reach down,” he whispered. “Feel where I move in you.”

I did what he asked, letting his cock move over my fingertip as he slid in and out.

He bent low. “Tell me what you feel.”

“Wet,” I answered, looking up at him. “Hard.”

His gaze burned and he stared down at my fingers on him. When he smiled, he looked dangerous, and it made my heart slam into my chest.

“I know,” he said. He took in my tangled hair, picked up one of my dirty feet, and slid my ankle up his hip. “You’re a mess, you greedy fucking girl.”

He slowed, pulling almost all the way out until I panicked and wrapped my legs around his waist. It felt like a match had been lit inside my belly and it burned, spreading like wildfire down between my legs, serving only to increase the impatient need I felt.

As if sensing how close I was, Bennett pushed back into me, focused now on getting me there. He was sweaty, his hair damp from exertion, and a drop fell from his forehead onto my chest, and then another.

“Tell me how good it is,” he said, his voice low and commanding.

“I . . . I . . .”

With a sharp jab of his hips, he thrust harder into me. “Tell me, Chloe, how good the fucking is.”

I couldn’t answer, already starting to dissolve. He was wild: rough touches and punishing thrusts, flipping me on the bed and taking, taking, taking. My eyes closed, my cheek resting against the cool blankets when his hands fisted in my hair, forcing my head back as his mouth found my neck, each labored exhale sending waves of warm breath across my dampened skin. He kissed along my shoulders, his tongue reaching out to taste me, his teeth nipping and dragging along my skin. I arched my back, angling my hips to meet each push of his hips. My arms reached out, hands twisting in the sheets, my entire body shaking with the need to let go.

But he didn’t give me what I needed. Instead, he teased and took, and took some more, and then finally, with a determined set to his jaw, and more desperate need in his eyes than I’d seen in days, leaned in close, circling over me and giving—giving, giving—me an orgasm so intense it left me shaking and near tears in his arms. What had built in my belly to a low, heavy ache exploded up my spine and spilled like liquid heat into my limbs until my toes were curling. Fuck, it had been so long since I’d felt that: my body coming around him, trying to draw him in, greedy for every commanding inch. I worried my heart might smash through my ribs with how hard it was beating.

The relief in the epiphany—he wouldn’t change, he could only ever be this greedy, demanding Bastard—was such intense relief that I finally did give in to my emotions, shaking in his arms, clutching him until I caught my breath. But when I asked him what he wanted, and he groaned, “I want you to take over. I want you to wreck me,” I smiled, slowly climbing on top of him.

He was sweaty, hair dripping onto the pillow beneath him, and muscles bunched and coiled beneath smooth, tan skin. His eyes saw nothing in the room but me, flaring hotly at the anticipation of what I’d do. I looked him over: freshly fucked hair, blazing hazel eyes, lips so wrecked from my mouth and skin they were red and chafed. His pulse hammered in his neck, and I dragged one finger down the sweaty center of his chest, over the vulnerability of his solar plexus, down to his belly button, and then followed the trail of hair leading to his cock, still wet from me, still hard and perfect and practically pulsing for my touch.

“No,” I said, running my hands back up his torso, reveling in the feel of him. It really wasn’t fair. In a perfect world, Bennett Ryan would be a manwhore so that more women would get to appreciate this body.

But let’s be honest: Fuck that.

“‘No’?” He repeated, eyes narrowing.

“You wore me out,” I said, shrugging. “I’m tired.”

“Chloe. Put the fucking dick in your mouth.”

“You’d like that?”

His nostrils flared, hips arching up into me seeming without intention on his part. “Now, Chloe.”

“Say please.”

Sitting up beneath me abruptly, he growled, “Chloe, please choke on my dick.”

I burst out laughing, curling into him and sliding my hands into that mess of sweaty, amazing hair. Leaning forward, I covered his mouth with mine, sucking and wet, hungry for the taste of him, the feel of his sounds. I kissed him for making me laugh, for making me scream. I kissed him for being the only person who truly understood me, for being so impossibly like me in some ways it was a wonder we ever agreed on anything. I kissed him for being Bennett Ryan, my Beautiful Bastard.

Against my lips, I felt him smiling, heard the quiet vibration of his laugh, muffled by my mouth. “I love you,” he said.

Pulling back, I nodded, whispering, “Me, too. I love you a scary amount.”

“Then seriously, Mrs. Ryan,” he said. “Put my dick in your mouth.”