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Pleasure arrives first.

I’m aware of warmth. Wet heat and devastating pressure between my legs. My hips go upward of their own accord, chasing something my brain hasn’t even identified yet, and then?—

“Ah!”

My eyes fly open as Lukas’s tongue drags a torturous path through my folds. The sound that escapes me is not dignified in the least. It’s somewhere between a moan and a sob, coming out as something along the lines of “OhmygodLukaswhatareyoudoingpleasedon’tstop.”

I blink my eyes enough to see his hands are pinning my hips to the mattress. I’m writhing against his mouth like a woman possessed, fingers scrabbling for purchase in the tangled sheets. That’s not enough to keep me grounded, though, so I latch onto his head instead.

He hums against me in approval—or maybe in warning for what’s about to happen—and the vibration sends sparks shooting up my spine. His tongue circles my clit, then dips lower.

“Lukas—” I gasp, tugging at his hair in a way that has to hurt, though he shows no sign of it. “Lukas, I’m gonna?—”

He responds by sucking my clit into his mouth and sliding two fingers inside me.

I goboom.

One second, I’m drooling on my pillow, and the next, I’m arching off the bed with a broken cry, clenching around his fingers while I come so hard that I… drool on my pillow. Mythighs try to close around his head, but he bumps them apart and keeps going, drawing out every last tremor until I’m a quivering, gasping mess.

When my vision finally clears, he’s propped up on his elbows between my thighs, watching me with a proud smirk.

His beard is wet. “Good morning,” he says.

I stare at him. My brain is offline, so the best I can do by way of a response is: “You— That’s— You can’t just?—”

“Can’t just what?” He turns his head to press a kiss to the inside of my thigh. “Wake you up properly?”

Properly.As if there’s an instruction manual for whatever the hell my life has become.

We spent all day yesterday alternating between having sex and sleeping, like whatever was coming out of our bodies was taking its toll on the way. At some point, Lukas sent out for clothes and food for the two of us. I don’t know what app billionaires have at their disposal for delivery of that nature and I didn’t bother asking.Uber for Week-Long Sex Marathon Suppliesis a very promising niche, though. Some entrepreneur ought to hop on that.

Every time I tried to talk about the outside world, Lukas shut me up with a kiss on the mouth—or something elseinthe mouth. He is clearly ignoring his problems. I feel complicit in that, but Lukas Lazarev isn’t exactly an easy guy to talk out of something once he’s got his mind set. So, after a few feeble attempts to discuss it, I drop the subject.

It’s easier this way.Let me handle things my way,he keeps saying, and isn’t that what I’ve spent my whole life dreaming of?I can’t exactly look this gift horse in the mouth now that it’s right here and naked in front of me.

Now that I’m a feeble, oozing mess, Lukas moves up my body. He kisses as he goes, leaving no stone unturned. Every inch gets bathed with attention. When his lips finally meet mine, I taste myself on him, salt and sticky desire.

He breaks off the kiss, but he doesn’t go far. He’s propping himself up over me so his face is all that I can see. He’s so ruggedly handsome, like if a lumberjack took up international finance. His beard is a little unruly after a couple days without a trim, but I kind of like it this way. More to run my fingertips through. Like I’m doing right now.

“I want to tell you something,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

I blink. “For waking me up with your tongue between my legs? Because I feel like that’s the opposite of something you should apologize for.”

“Not for this,” he says, shaking his head. “For the other night. In the car. When I…”

Oh.That.I mean, I could see how an apology might be justified there.

“I used you like you were nothing,” he continues. “Then I drove away as if you were meaningless to me. Like you were just another—” He stops. Swallows. “You weren’t. You aren’t. And I’m sorry.”

I… don’t know what to say.

But he’s not done.

“I was trying to make you hate me,” he explains. “I thought if I was cruel enough, cold enough, you’d finally see what I am and run.”

He takes my hand and brings it to his lips, then kisses each knuckle in turn. One. Two. Three. Four.

“If I could see you as nothing but an object and you could see me as nothing but a bastard, then it would’ve been so easy for this all to come to the end it should’ve come to a long time ago. That was the plan, at least.” He chuckles darkly. “It didn’t work.”