His flesh was hot and hard in her hand. He closed his eyes, his head falling back as she used both hands, one then the other, to glide over him from base to tip. He was already damp with his pre-come, and it thrilled her that she did this to him. At the feel of his girth in her hands, her own moisture had doubled so that the inside of her thighs felt dewy. The empty ache in her womb intensified, and she tried to adjust herself to take him. He lifted her higher, shifted his hips and teased her clit with the head of his cock, sawing it back and forth so that her bud tightened and pulsed.

“Oh, God!” she cried. She fisted his shirt in her hands until she almost ripped it.

“Not yet,” he murmured, halting his motions amid her cries of protest. Those cries stopped abruptly when he plunged into her, because for a moment, she completely ceased to be. Every cell in her body imploded with agonized pleasure. Every ensuing thrust drove a cry from her throat, and she tried to meet them, to give back to him, but her movements were pathetic echoes of his. Everywhere she was weak and helpless, he was strong and rigid and straining.

Wrong, wrong, this has to be wrong…

“Don’t leave me,” he murmured, looking into her unfocused, barely seeing eyes. She recognized her own words from last night.

“I’m right here,” she said, more of a whimper than a declaration.

“Do you know how good you feel?”

“I hope…as good as…you feel… Oh, Evan…”

His lips encircled her nipple through her black halter top, the moisture soaking through to her flesh. She’d foregone a bra tonight, as well.

“Should’ve taken this f**king thing off,” he growled, and even through the pleasure wreaking havoc on her thoughts, she laughed. Then his teeth grazed her nipple through her shirt and she lost all capacity to make any sound beyond cavewoman grunts.

Evan slowed his movements and adjusted her weight so that he could pull her away from the wall. She clung to him as he walked their entangled bodies over to the couch, then toppled them over on it.

“Put your foot on the floor,” he whispered, and she did, opening herself up wide to him. He grasped her other calf and lifted it against the back of the couch, holding it in place with his arm braced on the back. “Pull up your shirt.” She did, slowly, running her hands over both br**sts as she went. Her cheeks burned hot as fire, her breath came in wild pants. If she didn’t get a grasp on it, she feared passing out.

“Jesus,” he murmured. “Keep doing that.” As she caressed herself, shuddering beneath him, he watched her hands move before lowering his lips to one pink, distended nipple peeking between her fingers. His tongue flickered over it, grazing her knuckles along with her pebbled flesh, soft and wet. She moved her fingers underneath the swell to give him easier access, and he responded by sucking it until she thought it would burst. But he held his hips torturously still, surely staving off his own orgasm. Thinking of her first. That knowledge sweetened her, but she was still desperate for him to move again, to f**k her like this. She waited on him, sobbing her impatience. He was still thick and pulsing inside her. Oh, if he didn’t move soon she would have to…

“I’m finding it difficult,” he said suddenly, “to deal with the knowledge that you get even tighter just before you come.”

The words jarred loose her desperation for him. “Please, Evan.”

He drew a deep breath and kissed her, his mouth playing gently across first her top lip and then her bottom, tender caresses she tried to capture, to pull in, because she wanted his tongue in her mouth. He evaded her, even when she tried to raise her head, a wicked little grin curving the corners of his lips. Almost imperceptibly, he began withdrawing his shaft from her, slow as the moon crawled across the sky outside. She tossed her head on the arm of the couch. She needed it back, and faster, she needed it faster…

“I love seeing you this way too much,” he confessed. “I never thought I’d be here. I don’t want it to end, honey.”

Kelsey didn’t either, truth be known. She wanted to be here with him, like this, from now on. Never having to face the world. These moments were precious, too precious to rush, even for the promise of earth-shattering pleasure hovering just beyond her reach. It would be over too soon.

Would it all be over?

The thought of going home in a few days was sobering, but Evan began to move inside her, and her thoughts splintered and shattered. His lips swirled around hers once and then claimed them fully, his tongue sinking past her teeth. He tasted warm and spicy and as intoxicating as the wine he’d drunk. She went liquid, clutching him, the pleasure centers in her brain delighting in every place the two of them touched, joined. He was like a drug in her system.

His thrusts grew stronger in increments. Her legs ached from being spread so wide, but it was a small price to pay for the thick, gliding shaft working her to ecstasy between them. The heat reached a fever pitch, and she turned her face away, not wanting him to see the emotions that crossed her face. She was going to lose her mind, absolutely lose it…

“Sweetheart, don’t,” he whispered. She’d forgotten. He’d called her out on that last night, too. It was so hard to let go while he watched. Even though he seemed to take most of her control away from her, she still tried to grasp a little piece of it with her bare fingernails, to safeguard her heart. When he wrenched it away, stripped her bare like this, she was defenseless.

“Evan…”

“Don’t hide from me. You know me. I won’t hurt you.”

Oh, but he could. He held all the power in the universe to crush her heart into oblivion, and she was giving it to him willingly. She let him in anyway, turning her face up to him for a reassuring kiss as she felt the overwhelming tightening of all her muscles, of her body clenching around him, sucking at the pleasure he poured into her. It all swirled into one blazing hot pinpoint and exploded. Her foot came off the floor and she wrapped her leg around him, enfolding him fully in her arms so that he couldn’t have extricated himself had he wanted to. She wanted every drop of him.

Somehow, in the midst of it all, it occurred to her just how unconvincing all her fake orgasms had been with her ex. She hadn’t screamed then, she hadn’t gone stiff and tight all over nor had she produced these fluttering contractions deep inside her womb—she didn’t think any amount of theatrics could fabricate those. They were from him, from what he did to her body. As he came with a burning rush inside her and a groan that wrenched her heart, she held him tight and shuddered through it with him.

Kelsey didn’t know how long they lay like that, still and silent with her cradling him beside her as her muscles dissolved into bliss. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was close, and it was what she needed. He stroked her face and hair and body until he dozed, and she slipped into unconsciousness only to awaken to him carrying her to bed. They made slow, sleepy love in utter darkness and collapsed for the rest of the night, Evan holding her just as he had all those years ago, curling her body against his warmth, his breath near her ear.

Chapter Nine

The rain poured down in a thick, gray curtain. Evan watched it from his seat on their private lanai, where he was sheltered from the deluge by the floor several feet above his head. He was still getting splashed a bit, but it felt good. He propped his bare feet up on the wet railing and sipped his coffee. Kelsey thought he was insane that he liked to go outside in the rain so much, yet he thought it wouldn’t take much persuasion to get her to join him sometime. His favorite place in the world to be—besides here, right now—was on his front porch, watching a storm. He certainly wouldn’t mind being warm in bed with Kelsey, but he hadn’t talked to his mother all week, so he’d walked out here to call and check in with her.