He doesn’t look at me as he continues fastening the belt. “I am now.” He grins; his gaze darkens when our eyes meet.

“Why me?” I swallow.

“For the same reason you’re here with me,” he says softly.

“What’s the reason? I really am here only because I’ve lost my mind.”

“I lost that years ago.” He smiles, his eyes shining again. For a moment I believe he’ll tell me something tender, about our past. He doesn’t. “I’m here because you give me a hard-on the kind I’ve never had in my fucking life. And I enjoy my hard-ons.” He smiles, and then looks at me. “You look sexy like this.”

“Thank you. Seeing as I don’t have a mirror to check how I look, I’ll have to trust you on that.”

“You’ll have to trust me with many things by the time we’re through.”

He bends his head, seizing me by the cheeks, looking into my eyes. “What’s the rule on kissing.”

“Kissing is…” I hesitate. “A must.”

He’s laughing at me with his eyes. “I thought so.”

My attention falls to his lips even as I feel his attention drift down to my lips too. I start salivating at the mere idea—my pulse skipping in anticipation of his kisses. His delicious kisses.

He holds my jaw, and now that my arms and ankles are fastened, he has his hands free to run them down along the inside of my arm, caress the sides of my breasts.

I’m breathing hard, my breasts suddenly in his hands, his breath touching the peaks of my nipples as he tugs my shirt down and pops them out of my bra.

I watch his dirty-blond head as he ducks, and I feel so full of wanting and waiting.

“I’m falling for you, Christos,” I gasp.

He stops, his lips parting for a second as he raises his head.

The flash of raw emotion in his eyes nearly unravels me. I suppose it’s a good thing I’m tied up, all around him, because that’s all that keeps me in place as he strokes his knuckles down my cheek and curls one hand around the back of my neck, bending to tease my lips with a languorous brush of his.

“I could not be happier about that. What I feel for you is so fucking real and true, bit.” He holds the back of my neck in his warm hand, meeting my eyes for a long moment.

He unfastens his pants, sheaths himself, and fills me, and as he does, he growls against my lips. I let go a noise, part hum, part groan, against his fiercely hot kisses as he holds me tied and wrapped around him. “Finally, I got you, girl. Finally, every intoxicating bit of you is mine…”

The heated possessiveness and the blatant tenderness shining in his eyes takes me to the edge—and his next thrusts takes me over it. He thrusts again, as if he knows exactly how to move, how to take me, fill me, so that there’s no other thought but him, so that it’s hard to believe he wasn’t made to fill me…made just for me.

Bryn

Mrs. Ford wants to go to Central Park with Milly on Saturday. It’s a sunny but windy day, and we take a car up to the lake, then spend the afternoon by a bench, playing with Milly. She asks if I don’t mind if her grandson meets us here. “It’s such a lovely afternoon, I don’t want to go home yet and he’s visiting.”

“Sure.” I glance at the time. “Though it’s getting late, do you mind if Sara joins you to help with Milly? I have a date tonight.” I flush.

“A date. Oh goodness, go!”

“I will, once Sara’s here to help you.” I text Sara our location, all while Mrs. Ford grills me about my date.

“Who is he? Is it serious?”

“He’s a boy I knew in high school. We recently met again and we’ve been going out for two weeks.” I pause a moment, then admit, “It’s serious. It’s the most serious relationship I’ve ever had.”

Her hand feels warm as she gives me a gentle pat on the cheek. “Don’t let that one go, if he’s the One. You hear?”

“I won’t. I won’t let him go,” I promise.

I’m smiling, but then I shift in my seat, because all of a sudden it’s embarrassing to admit that out loud—I suppose we’re not used to expressing the feelings we feel deep inside. Not in a way that’s comfortable. “You have a grandson?” I then say, switching subjects.

Her gaze instantly acquires a new, dreamlike warmth. “Yes, I do. But I really never see him. He’s been in the middle of an ugly divorce and you know how those things are. Though you’re very, very young, so maybe you don’t?” she asks me, then rambles on with a growing frown on her face. “He stays away from the city as much as possible, and goes out on business to avoid seeing her.” She says “her” like she’d say the most loathed word in the dictionary, and I instantly feel bad for her grandson.

“So he lives in Manhattan?”

“Yes, but he’s currently quite homeless, dear,” she says, sighing sadly, still looking angry and worried. “I asked him to move in with me, but he likes his space and stays at a hotel when he’s in town. Seems unfair he’s stuck in a hotel when his soon-to-be ex-wife has his gorgeous apartment up in West End.” She purses her lips tightly and reaches down to stroke Milly in a move that seems more like petting Milly gives Mrs. Ford more comfort, almost, than the pet gives Milly.

“You know,” she says, straightening slowly, “as you age, you realize how much you wish your offspring to have it better than you did, and it’s rather frustrating when they don’t.” A new little glower wrinkles her face and sparks up her eyes. “I’m an old-fashioned woman, I was born in Kansas! I’d have liked to see him happily married before I go.”