With only that thought in mind, he tore his mouth from hers and trailed his lips along her jaw, licked his way down to the base of her throat where her pulse beat strong and steady. She moaned softly and sifted her hands through his wet hair, twisted the too-long strands around her fingers and guided his mouth lower, to the firm swells of her breasts. He followed willingly, giving her what she wanted and what he so desperately needed.

He drew a taut nipple into his mouth, flicked the rigid tip with his tongue, and sucked her deep and hard. With his hand he squeezed and kneaded her other breast, traced lazy circles around her areola with his thumb before lightly pinching and rolling the firm, aroused nipple between his fingers. She gave a helpless, impatient whimper, the restless sound urging him to venture toward more forbidden territory.

With his large hands, he traced the dip of her waist and the flare of her hips, then dragged his thumbs over her belly before sliding his hands around to the base of her spine and down her perfect ass to the backs of her thighs. The feel of her smooth, sleek skin against his palms was a luxury he'd denied himself for too long, and he memorized every sensual curve of her body, along with the sweet, uninhibited sighs that accompanied his bold exploration.

If he thought touching her was pure bliss, then allowing his mouth to follow in the same direction as his hands and tasting her warm, wet skin was like experiencing a slice of heaven. He licked and gently bit his way down to her stomach, and dipped and swirled his tongue in her navel. Another erotic moan echoed in the shower stall, and the slender fingers still wrapped in his hair tugged him lower still.

Instinctively, he dropped to his knees in front of her, his heart racing a mile a minute as a heady surge of desire tore through him. Knowing what she wanted, what she needed, he took one of her hands and wrapped her fingers around the small metal bar built into the shower to help her keep herself steady and balanced, then draped one of her legs over his shoulder to give him better access to her.

The water poured down on both of them, and curls of steam immersed them in a sultry warmth as he leaned forward and laved the inside of her thighs, slowly, leisurely, until he reached the very heart of her femininity. Her sex was soft and swollen, and he parted the plump folds of flesh with a slick caress of his tongue that had her arching her hips against his mouth, seeking and silently begging for release.

He closed his eyes and groaned, doubling his efforts to give her exactly that. He drew her clit into his mouth, used his tongue to stroke and caress and increase her pleasure. Her fingers knotted tighter in his hair and a soft mewling sound escaped her lips. In response, his balls drew up hard and his cock jutted painfully toward his belly, aching with the need to be buried to the hilt inside her, to feel her convulse around him as she came.

Knowing that wasn't going to happen, he entered her with his tongue instead. Deeply. Relentlessly. With heat and possessive intent.

She inhaled sharply, jolted against him in shock, then gave herself over to his erotic assault. Before long, he felt her thighs quiver, felt her legs buckle as her orgasm crested, heard her lusty moan as she tumbled headlong into that powerful rush of sensation rippling through her. He kept her from completely collapsing with a strong hand pressed to her stomach, and when he was certain he'd given her every last bit of pleasure he could, he stood back up and braced his hands on the wall on either side of her head, not trusting himself to touch her when he was harder than granite and there wasn't much left of his self-control.

He lifted his head and looked into her face, expecting to see a languid, sated expression. Instead, her eyes were bright with a desire that didn't bode well for his good intentions. Neither was the way she slid her hands around to his backside and slipped her fingers beneath the elastic band of his boxer briefs. She grasped his buttocks and pulled his hips to hers, so that his confined erection nestled right at the crux of her thighs. Right where she was hot and slick and ready for him.

She leaned into his chest and pressed her lips against the side of his neck. "Joel," she whispered as she twined one leg around his, aligning them even more intimately. "I want you inside of me."

There was so much longing in her voice, the kind that could easily chip away at his resolve if he let it. He curled his hands into tight fists against the wall. "Lora-"

Whatever he'd been about to say went up in smoke as her fingers followed the waistband of his briefs back to the front, then dipped inside and wrapped around his erection. She stroked once, twice, and glided her thumb over the swollen head of his dick. His heart hammered in his chest and the muscles in his stomach clenched as he resisted the urge to thrust into her snug grasp.

"Please," she said huskily, her gaze soft and imploring. "I need to feel pleasure, not the terror and fear of tonight. I need you!"

A terror and fear he'd been responsible for, and it was that thought that made him want to do whatever possible to chase away those awful memories for her. Except… "I don't have any condoms," he rasped. He hadn't needed any lately, and he hadn't dared to buy any when Lora had presented such a temptation. It was the one thing, the last thing, that was keeping him from fulfilling her wish.

"I'm on the Pill." The knowledge snapped the last thin thread of his control, as did her next words. "Please don't tell me no. Not tonight."

He groaned as her tenacious grip on his shaft and the sluice of warm water created a slick, suctioning sensation that made him crazy-wild to come. With her. In her. Done resisting what he wanted so badly, he gave up the fight. Pushing all ten fingers into her wet hair, he crushed his mouth to hers.

There was nothing slow and sweet about the way he kissed her. Greedy and ravenous, he tilted her head for a better fit and let loose all the pent-up hunger, need, and lust clawing at him. Now he took without hesitation or reserve, then took some more, and she was right there with him, giving him her mouth, her tongue, and soon, her soft, willing body. A sense of urgency and impatience built between them, hotter and more vital than anything he'd ever experienced. It made his head spin and his erection throb and pulse.

He could have easily taken her right there, in the shower, pushed up against the tiled wall with her thighs riding his hips, but he wanted her beneath him. Wanted leverage to get as deep inside her as he could get.

With that in mind, he blindly reached out to shut off the shower and started to pull back, but she mewled in protest and clung to him. Undoubtedly she believed he was going to end things, and he sought to reassure her.

"Don't worry, sweetheart," he murmured against her lips. "I'm not done with you yet." He was beginning to wonder if he ever would be.

He silenced the answer to that question with another aggressive, soul-searing kiss and maneuvered them both out of the glass enclosure. The bed was much too far away, and he pushed her down to the thick, plush rug laid out on the floor. After quickly shucking his soaked boxer briefs, he joined her.

Nudging her legs wide apart, he settled between her sleek thighs and slid up and over her wet body. She splayed her palms on his chest, glided them up to his shoulders and around his neck as she arched against him and hooked her calves against the back of his thighs, urging him to complete the act. He drove into her in a seemingly endless stroke, and growled deep in his throat as she took every hard, solid inch of him. Until he didn't know where he ended and she began.

The pleasure of being inside Lora was so intense, so surreal, that he shuddered and tried to absorb the moment, how agonizingly perfect, how incredibly right, she felt beneath him. Hot, slick, tight. Bracing his forearms by her shoulders, he framed her face in his hands, grazed her plump bottom lip with his thumb, and watched as her gaze darkened with need.

Then she closed her eyes, whispered his name, and rolled her hips sinuously against his, beckoning him to finish what he'd started.

He wanted this to last. Wanted to linger and savor and watch her as she came again. His cock, however, refused to take the slow, leisurely route, and because his overly aroused body demanded he do so, he withdrew and surged back into her, again and again, long, hard strokes that increased in power and strength and depth.

She met him thrust for thrust, moving in perfect rhythm with him as he pumped into her. She slid her hands down the slope of his back, her fingers digging into muscle and flesh as she tried to drag him closer, deeper, with every fluid stroke. She bit his shoulder and writhed against him in wild, reckless abandon.

Their mating was raw and primitive, a culmination of every desire they'd suppressed, every seductive tease between them, every erotic fantasy he'd had of possessing her just like this. It didn't take long for the heat coiling low in his belly to spiral down to his groin. As if in sync with his body's impending release, her lashes fluttered back open, and she met his gaze, whimpering helplessly as she started to convulse around him.

Her orgasm triggered his own, and he followed her right over the edge with a rough, guttural groan. His climax was scorching hot, an unbridled surrender of body and soul that left him shaken and stretched across her limp, sated form, his face pressed against her damp neck as he struggled to come back to his senses.

And when he did, it was with the realization that if this one night was all he had of her, it would be enough. It would have to be.