And I stared. Gawked, actually. His shoulders were broad, muscles sculpting their perfect curves, the barest whispers of black ink peeking over from his back, and I wanted to see them, know them, the designs he’d had stamped on him forever. At one time, I’d known his body intimately, and now it was like looking at a totally different person.

He reached for me, his arms flexing as he tugged me by the hips until I was pressed against the front of him. I couldn’t stop myself and ran my hands over his skin, tracing those glimpses of ink … the dips of his sculpted muscles … Feeling under my fingers the body I’d dreamed about for so long.

If I hadn’t been touching him with my own hands, I wouldn’t have believed it was happening. After five years, after countless dreams, he was standing in front of me, a different man from the one he’d been, absolutely. And yet even with all those differences, he was still Riley.

Suddenly, he reached for my tank top, tugging it up and off, and I didn’t have time to blink before he bent down and captured a nipple in his mouth. He sucked hard before he pulled back, swirling his tongue around the peak, then repeating it all over again. And I wanted to cry and scream and praise every deity in the world that he’d remembered what turned me on, what got me off. After all these years, he’d remembered exactly what I liked.

He gripped my other breast in his hand, taking turns pinching my nipple and swirling his thumb around it. And then he switched positions, placing his mouth where his hand was, and went to work on my breasts in reverse. I gripped his hair, loving that I finally had something to hold on to while he was doing this to me, something to keep him exactly where I wanted him.

When his teeth scraped against me, and he captured my nipple between them and tugged, I moaned. “God, Riley.”

The look he shot me—one part arrogance, one part satisfaction, all parts man—nearly sent me to my knees. He pulled back long enough to say, “I remember what you like, baby. You wanna see?”

I could only nod, my lips parted and breaths heavy. He dropped to his knees, tugging my underwear down my legs until I could kick them off and to the side. Then his mouth was right against the place I was aching for it, his breaths sweeping across where I was wet and needy for him, and I couldn’t breathe.

He pulled away and tapped his fingers on my inner thighs. “If you want this, you gotta spread these legs more. C’mon, let me see that pretty pussy again.”

I breathed out a moan and leaned forward, resting my hands against the harsh bricks of the wall, my forehead pressed against the back of my hand. And then I watched. Riley was sitting with his back to the wall, his legs extended out on the floor between mine, and I couldn’t look away as he gripped my ass and tugged me forward to his mouth.

He licked a line up where my thigh met my body, then he moved in, sweeping against my outer lips. The brushes of his tongue were light, feathery … nothing like what I needed right then. He was teasing, taunting, and it was everything I hated.

“Thought you remembered what I liked,” I said between panting breaths. “Teasing isn’t it.”

I felt his chuckle against me in puffs of air, and then his thumbs were holding me apart, baring me to him completely, and there wasn’t any teasing at all. He licked up the length of my slit, his tongue flicking against my clit, before he sucked it into his mouth with a moan of approval, and I almost shot off right there. I breathed out a curse, and Riley lifted his eyes to connect with mine, hunger and determination in his gaze, and I had to close my eyes to block it out. Stop looking at him, because if I didn’t, if I kept staring into those ocean eyes, I’d come, and I wanted to ride this out. I wanted to bask in the feeling of his lips on me, his tongue stroking me, because it’d been so long. So long since I’d felt this connection with anyone. Too long.

If I could, I’d make this last all night.

Riley had other plans, though, and didn’t let me draw it out as long as I’d wanted to. He swept one hand down my slit, playing, touching me everywhere while his tongue was relentless against my clit. And then he slid two fingers into me, curling them toward where his tongue was and stroking the place inside me that got me off immediately every single time. This was no different, and I clamped down on his fingers, nonsense falling from my lips as he threw me off the cliff, giving me my first non-self-induced orgasm in over a year.

I’d forgotten how good it felt, letting someone else get me there, and I wanted him to do it again. And again. And again, again, again. I wanted him to make me come until I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything but crave more of his touch. Because that’d always been how it was with him. The want, the need, the constant craving, those brief, powerful moments when all thought fled and all I could do was feel. And I’d missed it more than anything. I’d missed it more than I’d ever let myself remember or acknowledge.

There was no stopping it now, though.

I was barely cognizant, still trying to catch my breath, still trying to reconcile what this meant that he’d awakened this within me after I’d tried for so long to suppress it. I didn’t know how long I stood there, eyes closed, my forehead pressed into my hand while I panted against the wall. I didn’t know how long Riley had been gone from between my legs before I felt him standing behind me, his bare skin pressed against mine. He ran the tip of his cock up and down against my slit, and I couldn’t utter a word of protest before he found my entrance and pushed in. I was so wet, all it took was one smooth stroke, and he was fully inside me. Our joined moans mixed in the otherwise quiet loft.

Except this wasn’t how it was supposed to be. I didn’t like it like this, with him behind me, me pressed into the wall, and he knew it. I didn’t like him—or anyone—behind me or over me at all. All I ever felt was trapped. Out of control. I hated all of it, especially during sex, and if he’d remembered how I liked my nipples played with, then he sure as shit remembered this.

“Riley, no, not like this.”

He shifted his hips, bending his knees and tilting my ass up, and then he slid in even deeper, and we both moaned. He didn’t move then, just sat deep inside me, his cock pulsing. Then he leaned forward, his lips brushing my shoulder. “You sure? Feel how deep I am. You’ve got all of me in you like this, baby.”

He pulled back the barest fraction and pushed inside again, and I sobbed out a breath.

“Evie, tell me. Okay?” His voice was strained, barely controlled, his hands shaking as they gripped me. All that power restrained once again for me.

It helped to know he was as far gone as I was.

I closed my eyes at the feel of him behind me—both terrifying and arousing—the feel of him inside me, owning me, and I couldn’t bring myself to tell him to pull away. Couldn’t bring myself to do anything but breathe, “More…”

“Like this?” he asked as he pulled out and slid back in. Slowly, so slowly, he pumped in and out of me, letting me feel every single inch of him, the head of his cock dragging against that spot inside me that sent me spinning, but it wasn’t fast enough. Wasn’t hard enough. Wasn’t anything but torment.

I reached back, dug my nails into his thighs. “Don’t be an ass. Fuck me, don’t tease me.”

He growled, then gripped my hips, pulling me back to him as he drove deep, and I moaned loudly, curses falling from my lips. Over and over and over again, he thrust into me, fucking me exactly how I wanted it. He reached up, wrapped my ponytail around his hand, clutching it in his fist and tugged, pulling my head back and to the side, and I choked out a moan, closing my eyes at the sensory overload. And then his teeth were on me, tugging on my earlobe, scraping the column of my neck, pressing into the juncture of my shoulder, and I pulsed around him, my second orgasm breathing down my neck.