Qasim couldn’t argue with such staunch bravery, such formidable belief. “Very well.”

* * *

Mac was, without a doubt, the sexiest man alive.

His smell, that uniquely Mac smell, was a constant in her nose as she fought to catch her breath. Mac and sex. It was decadent. And as he lay beside her, propped up on one elbow, the breadth of his shoulders overwhelmed her. The hair on his chest delighted her. And the angry red thrust of his once more fully erect penis sent a frisson of awareness zinging across her nerve endings.

She’d just had two unbelievably hard orgasms. But looking at him—at his corrugated stomach muscles, at his long, long legs, at the sweat making the dark hair near his temples curl boyishly—she knew two wasn’t going to be enough. Not nearly enough. Hell, two hundred wouldn’t be enough. Not when it came to this man. The man she…loved…

Her thoughts stopped on a dime. She fancied she could hear the errrrtttt of squealing tires inside her head.

Loved him? She loved him? Was that true?

She searched inside herself, inside her heart, and saw that it was.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! What in the world had she been thinking? Had she really believed that once she had him, she’d stop wanting him? Had she really believed that her heart wasn’t already involved?

She was a fool. A goddamned self-deluding fool! And, oh, holy shit, this was going to hurt.

“What is it?” Mac asked as he ran his thumb along the ridge of her collarbone, gently, studiously, as if he’d never touched a woman there before.

She forcibly smoothed the frown from her brow, swallowed the tears burning at the back of her throat. It was either that or ruin everything. And she wouldn’t do that. If she only had this day, this one brief moment in time to hold the man she loved in her arms, then she was going to revel in it, luxuriate in the opportunity to take pleasure from him and to give pleasure in return. She’d lost too many people she cared about not to treasure each moment for what it was, not to rejoice in those precious, few instances that brought her sheer happiness. Like now.

“Nothing,” she assured him, smiling, loving the play of light in his eyes when his gaze searched her face. Loving…him. “Just ready for round two.”

A sexy little smile curved those wickedly skilled lips of his. “Good,” he rumbled, bending forward to lick her nipples, pulling back to blow air over them.

Oh, for Heaven’s sake… The tips of her breasts tightened until the sensation was just this side of pain. But he didn’t stop there. He continued to pluck and suck, to lick and flick the tips with his tongue until she was writhing, nearly coming from that alone.

“Not yet,” he growled when her mewling and squirming alerted him to the fact that she was close to the edge. “The next time you come, it’s gonna be in my mouth.”

And if that wasn’t the sexiest, naughtiest, most delicious thing a man ever said to a woman, she didn’t know what was.

“Mac. Oh, God, that feels good.” She speared her fingers into his hair as he slowly kissed his way down her body, stopping to swirl his hot tongue into the hollow of her bellybutton. And she’d never noticed it, never seen it on any of her biology class diagrams, but there was obviously a nerve that ran from the navel straight to the clitoris. Her toes curled into the sheets, her hips lifted from the mattress.

She wanted his mouth on her, his tongue in her. She wanted to feel his beard stubble rasp against her most private parts. In the simplest terms, she wanted sex. All of it. Every which way. Until she couldn’t think. Until she couldn’t lament that this time, this one time, would be all she had…

“I love the way you smell,” he told her, kneeling between her legs, his broad shoulders forcing her thighs wide. “I love the way you look.” His eyes were on her. Drinking her in. “And,” he said, palming the globes of her ass in his warm, rough hands, lifting her hips, pressing one all-too-brief kiss to her heated core, “I love the way you taste.”

“Mac…” His name was sigh, a prayer, a curse… But then all thought escaped her. Because his tongue lapped up the length of her, tapping against the distended bud of nerves at the top of her sex, and her center pulsed, becoming a throbbing void of yearning. Of hunger. And then…

Oh…he wrapped his lips around her clitoris and started flicking his tongue in a rhythm that drove her straight to the edge. Two fingers filled her, pumping, rubbing. His growls of triumph and pleasure echoed in her ears.

She strained. Strained toward release and away from it at the same time. She wanted an end to the glorious misery. And yet she wanted it to go on for eternity. Stretching out to infinity.

Her head thrashed on the pillow. She plucked at her own nipples. Mac bit her, ever so gently, catching the nerve-bundle between his teeth. And that was it. She exploded. Her orgasm hitting her with the force of a runaway train.

She screamed…something. She didn’t know. She didn’t care.

Divinity. She’d heard the word. Knew what it meant. But never had she experienced it until this moment. The sensations Mac pressed on her as he continued to coax more and more from her were divine. Mystical. Spiritual.

This was making love. This was what it was supposed to be like. She never knew. Oh, God, she never knew…

“Again,” Mac told her when the last pulse of orgasm ran through her. He pressed up on his knees, grabbing his shaft by its thick base and angling his plump head toward her entrance. “Do it again just like that. With me inside you.”

* * *

Mac had lost his mind. His body was in control now. And it wanted to devour Delilah, claim her, mate her, leave its mark on her until she’d never be able to look at herself in the mirror without thinking of him. Of them. Of this time together when their two bodies became one in what had to be one of the most phenomenal, cosmic couplings since the beginning of time.

He was so hard he could barely bend himself enough to press into her tight channel. With a growl, he adjusted his position, letting go of his shaft in order to plant his palms beside her head. He used his knees to spread her thighs wider. Ducking his chin, he thrust forward, watching the raging head of his cock separate her silky folds. Watching himself grow shiny with the evidence of her passion. But just when he gathered himself, tensed his hip muscles in readiness to flex forward, she tilted her hips, changing the angle.

He moaned. In frustration. In unspeakable, horny delight when she grabbed him, rubbing herself against him before pressing the head of him tight against her throbbing little clit. He was nearly cross-eyed, but he could still see her mouth fall open on a gasp of pleasure when he pulsed against her.

“You like that, don’t you?” he asked, rocking back slightly, supporting himself with one arm so he could grab his shaft and tap his tip forcefully against the hard bundle of nerves guaranteed to send her to the moon. She sighed blissfully, her knees falling to the sides. He kept up the motion until he thought he’d come, until he thought she’d come. Then, in one smooth stroke, he plunged home.

Delilah climaxed instantly, writhing against him, scratching his back, neck arched in a lovely bow. With gritted teeth, he held on until she finally quieted. Then he began to move. Slowly, steadily, the tension in his balls, the pleasure along his shaft building with each glorious glide.

“I want you to come again,” he told her, pressing kisses into the damp hair along her brow, breathing in the scent of her. “And this time,” he reached down between them so he could rub her tiny nub with the pad of his thumb, “I want you to take me with you.”

“Yes,” she breathed, fisting her hands in his hair, claiming his mouth as she drew her thighs higher along his sweating flanks. “Yes, Mac. Oh, oh, yes.”

He rode her then. Drove into her over and over again. Staked his claim. Marked her. And when she began to shatter, he went with her, holding himself deep, flooding her with his passion.

When it was over, he lay atop her, body spasming, breath sawing from him and ruffling the ends of her fiery hair fanned out beneath his face on the pillow. Finally, he gathered enough strength to pull back, and he choked out a laugh.

Delilah…was asleep. Eyes closed. Lids fluttering every so often. A soft little snore grumbling from between her lovely, kiss-swollen lips.

Holy smokes, he’d screwed her unconscious. And if he wasn’t such an evolved guy, he might just slap himself a high five.

Then it hit him. Just how exhausted she must be. How scared. How…vulnerable.

Shit. Had he taken advantage? Had he made a mistake?

Slowly, with infinite care, he rolled off her. She murmured her dislike of his sudden absence, the desertion of his heat, shivering slightly when the air from the window AC unit raised goose bumps all over her body. Her nipples tightened and, in response, his spent cock jerked with interest.

With a frown, he admonished Little Mac for being a witless wonder. Then he pulled her close, brushing strands of fragrant hair away from her temple so he could press a kiss there. Brave Delilah. Strong Delilah. Wonderful Delilah…

He didn’t want her to regret this. Didn’t want her to hurt because of him.

Daring Delilah. Charming Delilah. Beautiful Delilah…

She was the kind of woman to make a good dog break his leash. And she made Mac wish everything was different. She made him wish he was different. A man with fewer emotional scars, a man who didn’t know better than to lay it all on the line and give it a go. Sweet Lord almighty, she just made him…wish.