I watch him carefully. I notice the pace of his breathing, the flex of his muscles, the sounds coming from those beautiful lips of his. It’s all a wonder to me…to have this time to savor the beauty of Alex. To be the one solely responsible for the orgasm that I’m going to give him.

The thought of bringing him to a slow completion turns me on greatly. I’m searching for release myself and I can tell Alex is getting closer by the way his muscles have stiffened along his jaw and neckline and the rawness of his breathing.

Tingles spark low in my belly as my own cl**ax starts to break free, and I have to make myself keep the pace slow. My own nature wants to propel me faster, because Alex and I are best when we are wildly out of control.

Yet this pace feels right too, and I want to prove that it will feel just as good when we come slowly…silently.

“Baby,” I whisper and Alex opens his eyes. They are dark, clouded with quiet passion and they take a moment to focus. “I want you to come hard for me.”

He groans at my request and his eyes squeeze shut again. He gives me no warning as his hands reach under my ass and he pushes me upward so suddenly that I have to grasp onto his biceps to steady myself. Then he pulls me down hard—so hard that he hits something deeper than I’ve ever felt before and I let out a curse of pleasure.

Then Alex just holds me in place and flexes his h*ps upward, holding his breath as he starts to come. Watching the extreme release of pleasure on his face is my undoing and my orgasm breaks free. Throwing my head back, my heart is filled with immense tenderness over this experience. I swallow the cry that wants to release because I don’t want to drown out the other quiet sensations we are experiencing together right now.

A low moan from Alex starts to work loose and my breath releases in an explosive gasp, both of our bodies shuddering so very quietly in relief.

I don’t collapse forward onto Alex even though my body is thoroughly exhausted. Instead, I stay sitting up ramrod straight, his c**k still hard inside of me, and I watch him.

His chest rises up and down in short bursts and his pulse is hammering at the base of his throat. His eyes open slowly and he stares at me, almost blankly, for a moment. Then my heart drops a little when I see a touch of fear glaze over him. He shares it with me for just a second, so briefly that perhaps I imagined it, but then his hands grip my h*ps and he lifts me off of him, rolling me to the side so that I’m lying on the mattress. He rolls right over the top of me and I think it’s a move so he can settle back in between my legs to kiss me, but he keeps on rolling, right off the bed.

“I need to use the bathroom,” he mutters and doesn’t look back at me as he steps out of my bedroom and into the hallway.

It’s contagious…fear.

It takes root in my heart and then zips outward through my veins and arteries, until I’m completely suffused with it. While Alex and I have always been intense in our passion, there has always—always—been cuddling after, usually followed by quiet talk. He’s never just left me so suddenly, so coldly.

Clearly this experience was moving to him in a way that was different from the way it was moving to me. It was possibly too intimate for him, or maybe my ability to give him a good orgasm just plain sucks. Maybe I imagined the tenderness of this experience, and Alex didn’t appreciate it. Self-doubt overwhelms me and I can feel tears prick at my eyes.

Swinging my legs out of bed, I lurch upward and out. I root around for my clothes and slip my underwear on—backward and inside out, I think—but I don’t stop. The slickness of Alex’s se**n trickles down the inside of my thighs and the thought of it almost makes me want to cry in loss, because I do think I’m losing him. I hastily pull on my T-shirt and reach down for my jeans, when Alex steps back into the room.

“What are you doing?”

As I glance at him over my shoulder, he looks stunning in the blue light of the moon coming through my windows. He is all hard angles and rolling valleys of muscle. His nakedness, while beautiful, makes me feel uncomfortable for some reason.

I don’t answer but bend over once again for my jeans. Just as I grasp them, I feel him behind me, pulling at my shoulders until I straighten up. Then I’m wrapped up in his arms, the heat of his skin almost burning in nature.

“Why are you getting dressed?” he murmurs in my ear, and his sexy tone causes a ripple of longing to run through me.

“I just…I thought maybe you were heading home,” I tell him, although I have no clue why I was getting dressed. Clearly there was a need for escape, because the emptiness he left behind in the bed was freaking me out.

“Home?” he asks in confusion. “Why would I do that?”

I shrug my shoulders in response, completely unwilling to tell him all of my insecurities.

He’s not accepting my silence. Turning me around so that I face him, he wraps both of his large hands around my neck and props his thumbs under my chin. Then he tilts my head up so I have to look at him.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, worry evident in his tone and expression.

My fear tells me to keep my mouth shut, that any confession of my feelings will send him scurrying. But the part of me that is still wise to the world and has handled things a lot scarier than this urges me to be honest.

“You bolted out of bed pretty quickly,” I tell him in a firm voice, even though my stomach is tightening with unease.

“I had to use the bathroom,” he enunciates emphatically, as if he’s talking to a child that needs reassurance, even as a hint of guilt flashes in his eyes.