Tough Enough

Without thinking, I wind my fingers around his satiny length, reveling at the way it expands inside my grip. I see a drop of fluid appear on the crown and I lean forward to capture it with the tip of my tongue, wanting to taste him like he tasted me. When I hear the hiss of his breath, I look up in question.

“Maybe you should save that for later. This has been a long time coming.” His grin is crooked and charming and . . . Rogan. All Rogan.

Rogan moves so fast that he startles me, so I yip when he bends to scoop me up and throw me onto the bed. A laugh bubbles up in my throat and I set it free.

Rogan puts a knee on the end of the bed and crawls slowly up the mattress toward me. Like a predator. A beautiful, heart-stopping predator.

His lips are curved in a smile that makes my insides quiver. When he reaches me where I’m half-lying with my legs curled up toward me, he grabs my ankles and yanks gently, pulling me to him and spreading my thighs wide at the same time. I suppress the excited squeal and lie back to see what he does next.

His eyes are dark with passion. I’d never know they were green, they’re so smoky with what’s between us. “Now, where was I?” he asks me, his gaze boring hotly into mine before he bends his head to bury it between my legs.

With pressure from his hands, Rogan bends my knees and pushes them apart, exposing me fully to his ravenous mouth. He licks and strokes me with his tongue. He kisses and thrills me with his lips.

He brings one hand up, spreading me wide with his fingers so he can suck my clit into his mouth. I cry out in some feral sound that I’ve never made before. I can’t help myself. It’s a sensation like nothing I’ve ever felt before.

With my flesh in his mouth, Rogan flicks his tongue over it until my hips move against his face. I spiral upward, mindless and completely out of control.

As though he can sense how close I am to orgasm, he eases back just enough to make me want to scream. “God, you’ve got the most amazing pussy. I could drink come from you like wine. Sweet, creamy wine. But not this time. This time,” he explains, his voice gruff and sexy, “I wa

He gently rubs his soft lips back and forth over me as he rustles a wrapper. Somehow he manages to keep me poised right at the edge, but not quite able to reach it. It’s almost tantric in its torture.

When he’s sheathed with a condom, Rogan increases his pace, making quick Zs with his tongue until I feel like I might explode. Just before I do, he stops. Quickly, he kisses his way up my body until he’s covering me with his own. With his eyes on mine, he reaches down and hooks one arm under my knee, simultaneously tipping my hips up and widening my legs.

I can feel his engorged head hovering at my entrance, my body clutching at it. He remains still, green eyes melting into my blue. “You’re beautiful. Every inch of you. Do you hear me, Katie?” he asks insistently. “You’re more beautiful than anything I’ve ever seen.”

I don’t answer. I’m not sure I even can. But he wants me to.

“Tell me you hear me. Say it.” He’s panting now, his muscles trembling with his restraint.

“Yes. I hear you.”

“Good. Uhhh.” His fierce groan, forced through his gritted teeth, echoes the explosion of my heart as Rogan plunges into me.

My back arches in the pleasure-pain of his size as he stretches me in every direction. He pauses just long enough for me to relax around him and then he withdraws to thrust into me again, going all the way this time, so deep I gasp.

He grinds his hips into mine, his body hitting mine with the most delicious friction. I want to hold on. I want to enjoy this as long as I can. Forever. But it’s too late. It feels too good. I can’t wait one second longer, so it’s with his third thrust that I come apart.

All the buildup of the last several minutes hits me like a tsunami. Waves of intense bliss roll through me, all through me. It tingles in my legs, throbs in my belly, squeezes in my core. Blood and pleasure rush through me in a hot release, like the bursting of a dam.

As my body contracts around his, Rogan growls, dropping his face into the curve of my neck. “Holy mother of God you feel so fucccc— Uhhh!” He sounds savage. Out of control. And I love it.

He pulls out of me, returning quickly to thrust sharply into me. Hard. Deep. He tilts his hips, reinvigorating my body’s response to him. I wrap myself around him. I’ve never felt such powerful, consuming pleasure. My ears even ring with what’s happening inside me.

After a few seconds of more intense spasms, Rogan pushes back onto his haunches, ready to chase his own peak. He presses my legs up and out, leans back and pounds into me. It isn’t until he reaches between us and circles his fingers around the base of his cock that my eyes follow his. He’s touching both of us at the same time, his long, thick erection disappearing into me like a jackhammer. It’s shiny with my juices, the noises decadent and intimate.

When his eyes rise back to mine, I see in them what I’m feeling. Something hot and wild, something that makes me want to bite and lick and savor. I don’t know how, but I find myself climbing as we watch each other, our bodies still colliding with a nearly brutal force that’s the most delicious thing in the world.

Then I see his body tense, the muscles in his neck, in his chest, in his abdomen straining as he stiffens. His breath comes in several harsh gushes that sound like an animal getting ready to attack. Seconds later, he flexes against me and I feel the first pulse of his body inside mine. It’s as though he’s massaging me from within and without and it’s more than I can bear.

My second orgasm washes over me in a series of unexpected ripples. I milk him and he presses against my walls and we drag each other deeper.

Finally, Rogan collapses onto me, both of us drained and boneless. As my heartbeat quiets and the ringing in my ears subsides, I hear him whispering against the side of my neck. “Incredible. So incredible.”

Over and over and over, he vocalizes the feeling that roams on a circuit through my head.

“Don’t ever forget this,” he says. “Don’t ever forget how beautiful you are.”

I won’t tell him, but he need not worry about that. I will never forget this moment, this night.

Or this man.

•   •   •

I feel like myself, yet not at all like myself. Not at all like the woman I’ve come to know. I’m not the child born as Kathryn. I’m not the old Katie, known to her friends as Kat. I’m not even the Katie I’ve been for the last five years. Right at this moment, I feel like a new creature, like a melding of all the lives I’ve lived—so separate, so different, yet ones that have come together to make me whole for the first time since I was a girl. I feel like I’m finally at peace with who and what I am.

Rogan is asleep behind me, his front pressed to my back in the best kind of spoon. His warm breath is tickling the scarred side of my neck. It’s not as sensitive as the skin around it, but because I normally have the area covered with my long hair, it’s not stimulated very often either. For that reason, the sensation of having someone’s breath touch it is distinct. And liberating. And enough to keep me awake to enjoy it.

“What are you smiling about?” comes a rough yet soft voice from behind me. My smile grows.

“How do you know I’m smiling? You’re supposed to be asleep.”

“I am? You should’ve told me,” he teases, nuzzling me with his scratchy chin. I shrug my shoulder automatically because it tickles. “Please don’t hide from me like that.” His voice is audibly pained, like my action was a grave insult to him.

I turn to look back at him, reaching up to stroke his cheek, noting the worry in his eyes. The curve on my lips turns tender. “I’m ticklish. That’s all.”