I wanted more of him. No, strike that, I needed more of him. I put my hands to his body, and the feel of all that smooth skin, soft to the touch, hard underneath rocked through me so thoroughly it felt like it started in my hair and ended at my toenails.

And that was so huge I needed even more.

So I took it, arching up, pushing him to his back and climbing on. I put my mouth to him, his neck, his throat, collarbone, chest, nipples, my lips moving, my tongue tasting, as my hands roamed. While I was exploring, Shy’s fingers went to the hook of my bra and, with a flick, it came loose.

I only stopped long enough to lift up, pull it off, and toss it aside.

Then I went right back.

I didn’t take my time. I was desperate, needing to get in as much as I could as fast as I could like he’d go up in a puff of smoke any second.

I got down to the waistband of his jeans, my tongue licking a line along the edge as my fingers undid the buttons, when Shy suddenly hauled me up his body, took my mouth in another devastating, wet, hard, hot kiss, and rolled me to my back.

Within seconds, my jeans were undone, he broke the kiss, and then they were gone. The sensation of the fabric sliding down my legs caused another bolt of desire and hunger to shoot through me.

Shy moved away but only to lift me up and rearrange me in the bed so my head was on the pillows. He pulled my legs apart and positioned himself on his knees between them.

I stared up at him, my breaths rapid and shallow.

He was staring down at me, his face dark with the same hunger I felt slinking through my body, and his hands were moving down the outsides of my thighs until they stopped behind my bent knees.

“You,” he growled, the sound of his rumbling, deep, harsh voice like a touch. “In my bed,” he finished and my heart flipped.

Four words.

Four words that said everything.

He wanted me there.

He’d wanted me there for a while.

From the look on his face, the sound of his voice, he even needed me there like I needed to be there.

“Shy,” I whispered but he jerked up my legs and bent forward, his mouth hitting me at my midriff, it moved down fast until it closed over my panties between my legs.

My back arched, my legs jolted, and my mouth opened in a silent moan.

Paradise.

As soon as I had him, I lost him and my head shot up, but he only moved to pull my panties down my legs. When they were gone, he rolled right back between my legs, tossing them over his shoulders, and then I had him, just his mouth against me with nothing in between.

I was wrong.

This was paradise.

In minutes, Shy nearly took me there, and just as my orgasm was about to tear through me, his mouth was gone.

My head shot up again. “Shy,” I breathed and there it was again, need dripping from my voice.

“The first time I make you come for me, you do it with me inside you,” he rumbled, and I nearly came just from his words.

One thing I knew in my crazy world, I was down with that.

He shifted his torso, reaching toward the nightstand, and I sat up, putting my mouth to his skin as my hands undid the buttons of his jeans. When I got enough undone, I yanked them down his hips and felt an electric shock starting between my legs and emanating outward.

He was beautiful everywhere.

He came back with a condom and took over but I kept my mouth on him, his belly, his ribs, my hands on him everywhere I could touch, but I kept looking down to watch his hands work, getting more and more turned on simply by watching him roll a condom on.

A nanosecond after Shy got it in place, he had an arm around my waist, his other one curved under my bottom and I was up. My arms and legs circling him, Shy moved forward two paces on his knees, my back hit headboard, and Shy slid inside.

My eyes closed, my head sagged back then forward, my forehead hitting his shoulder.

Beautiful.

This was what I’d been waiting for.

Not for months.

For years.

To be right here, right like this.

With Shy.

“Gorgeous, baby, you… feel… fuckin’… gorgeous,” he groaned into my neck before he started moving.

It must be said, he felt the same way.

My limbs clenched around him and his arm around my bottom moved, drifting up my side, up my arm, pulling it away from him until he had my hand. He shoved his thumb in the palm, curled his fingers around the back and pressed our hands to the wall.

My head fell back, hit wall and Shy’s came up. I saw instantly his eyes mirrored how I felt.

Loved.

Right.

Therefore I knew it was safe to share what was in my heart.

“I missed you,” I whispered, as he moved, building it further, going deep, sweet, slow.

We’d never had this, not this, but what I said was true. I missed him.

At my words, he closed his eyes, dropped his head to rest his forehead against mine, and kept moving, faster, sweeter, deeper.

He opened his eyes but didn’t lift his head even as the power of his hips increased, the burn built, and his hand in mine clenched hard.

“Missed you too, honey.”

Oh God.

He missed me.

I loved that.

He went faster, the build sharpened, the burn increased and I gasped, “Shy.”

“Wait for me, Tabby,” he growled.

Faster, deeper.

Oh God.

God!

“I don’t know—” I started.

“Hold on, baby. I’m close,” he ordered, his voice thick.

“I don’t know if I—”

Faster, so deep. So, so deep.

“Let go,” he commanded, his voice gruff.

I let go. Twisting my head and shoving my face into Shy’s neck, I moaned against his skin at the same time I felt his groan vibrating against my neck as it crashed over both of us, the wave taking us under, drowning us in a way neither of us was going to fight.

I held him close and Shy stayed buried deep, his hand holding mine tight, his breath heavy against my skin, mine the same against his.

Surfacing from under the wave, it struck me that I was wrong both times before.

Shy this close, buried deep, holding my hand, his breath against my skin… this was paradise.

Before I could catch a thought, fully process how beautiful the moment was, Shy let my hand go and shifted, falling to his back, one arm wrapped around me, one hand cupped at the back of my head, our bodies still connected.

Okay, before, paradise, but lying on top of Shy’s warm hardness was far from shabby.

“Don’t ever leave me,” he rasped.

I blinked at the corded column of his throat with its kick-ass medallions attached to the thin, black bits of leather resting against his skin.

I tried to lift my head but his hand at the back kept it where it was and he repeated, “Promise me, Tab. Do not ever leave me.”

Oh my God.

What did I say?

I didn’t lie when he was moving inside me. I missed him when he was gone. Further, it wasn’t just sex we had. I didn’t have a lot of experience, but I knew enough to know that. It was more. It was a connection. A promise. And when he came to my place just over two hours ago being intense and bossy, not only was that hot, it was awesome. It was what I needed to stop denying all I was feeling and finally admit what he meant to me.

But this was too much.

Maybe not too much but definitely too soon.

“We have to talk,” I told him quietly, and his hand left my head so he could wrap his arm around my shoulders.

I lifted my head to see his chin ducked down so his startling green eyes could capture mine.

Okay, looking into those eyes, those beautiful eyes that looked sated and warm but intense and serious, all hot, all gorgeous, I thought maybe it wasn’t too soon.

“Yeah, Tab, we got a lot to talk about. You’re right. This is not gonna go easy.”

Uh-oh.

What did he mean by that?

He didn’t make me wait for an explanation. “We got a lot to sort through. I gotta tell you how I spent the two hours since I was at your place. We gotta work out how I lose my mind when you need to go into your head and freeze me out. We gotta work out why you freeze me out when you go into your head. And, baby”—his hand drifted up my shoulder to curl around the back of my neck—“I know you know and I’m also sure it isn’t lost on your dad or Cherry that I got a reputation. They find out we’re an us, I don’t see good things. Fuck, half the brothers in the Club are not gonna think good things. Pete’s already givin’ me looks and has been for a while. When we leave this apartment, you and me gotta be on the same page. But sayin’ that, sugar”—his voice dropped—“what just happened was somethin’ that was bigger than all that. It was bigger than everything. I had a taste of you four years ago that I could never get off my tongue. Now, I’ve tasted more of you with more than just my mouth and I know I wanna keep it in a way I don’t want to think of it bein’ done. Not in a few weeks. Not in a few months. Maybe not ever.”

Oh wow. It could be said all that was too soon too, but it also had to be said I liked it.

Like, really liked it.

So much I melted automatically into his body.

I slid a hand to his neck and whispered, “Shy.”

He kept going, “So promise me, right now, my dick still inside you, you naked on top of me in my bed, us sharing what we just shared, us having a taste of what it’s like apart and knowin’ we’re better together, you won’t leave me. You won’t go in your head and take off no matter what. You stick with me until there’s nothing to stick to, if that ever happens.”

I could promise that.

“Okay, darlin’. I promise,” I said quietly. His eyes closed slowly then they opened, his hand sifted into my hair and pulled my mouth to his.

He gave me a soft kiss then his fingers squeezed my head gently.

I got the message, pulled slightly away and he whispered, “Hate losin’ you but you gotta shift off me, honey. Need to get rid of this condom then we can talk about shit I don’t wanna talk about with you sittin’ on my dick.”

My lips twitched, I whispered, “Okay,” then I shifted off him, slowly, taking my time, not liking the feel of losing him but really liking the way his eyes got lazy as I slid him out of me.

Once I’d lost him, he rolled me to my back, bent and kissed my chest, then kissed the underside of my jaw and rolled off the bed.

I watched him hike up his jeans as he walked away, appreciating his ass as he did so. Then my eyes shifted to the Chaos tattoo that spanned his back, and I appreciated that too. All of this I appreciated while appreciating the loose-limbed way his lanky body moved before he disappeared though a door.

I moved my eyes to the ceiling and smiled.

He had the same thoughts I had, exactly. He knew we needed to talk and he knew what we needed to talk about. He was going to give me that.

I rolled toward the edge of the bed, reached out a hand, and nabbed my panties, and since Shy’s tee was close, I nabbed that as well. I shimmied my panties on while lying on my back, sat up, pulled his tee over my head, and my smile came back.

His shirt smelled of him.

Another piece of paradise.

Arranging myself cross-legged on the bed, I looked around and surprise hit me, tamping down (but not forcing out, nothing could do that except, perhaps, the end of the world) my happy mojo.

Shy lived in an apartment that was just that little bit older and more worn than mine. The carpet wasn’t great. The walls needed a new coat of paint, and they needed that coat about seven years ago. There were boxes all around and no personal touches at all. It was like he hadn’t actually moved in yet.

I’d never been to his place, and I knew he spent a lot of time at the Compound, but I also knew that he’d had his own place for a long time.

Maybe he’d recently moved, though if this was a step up, I wondered where he used to live.

I was in the living room and, weirdly, so was his bed. It was at the wall to the back of the room, but there were two doors on the side of the living room and I figured at least one must be a bedroom. There was a couch shoved up against the side wall, but it was covered in boxes. There was also an old TV on a stand about two feet from the foot of the bed. There was one nightstand with a lamp on it, a bunch of change, packets of condoms, and that was it. No other furniture. No dressers. No bookshelves.