And as the oxygen rushed from his lungs, something that felt like gratitude swept in to expand them. Yes, gratitude. For this moment. For this second chance. For this woman.

She’d owned half his heart for so long that the full, frenzied pounding of it was as foreign a sensation as the completeness of life that he only felt with her, had only ever felt with her. Thea made a noise, a soothing murmur as if she understood, as if she were feeling it all too.

She glided her hand along his jaw and parted her lips against his throat, her breath to his pulse. They moved. They touched. They spoke only through feathered lips to fevered skin.

It was, Gavin realized with a shuddered inhale, the most important moment of his life.

Gavin lifted his face enough to look in her eyes. Her chest shuddered with an inhale.

“Talk to me,” he whispered.

She smiled through tears. “Will you stay and read?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Thea woke up naked.

They hadn’t made love—or tried to—again, but Gavin spent the night in her bed, and they’d made the unspoken agreement that clothing was optional.

Gavin made a sleepy sound behind her. “I can hear you thinking.” His arm tightened and tugged her closer. “Sleep OK?”

“Mmm.”

“Tell me wh-wh-what you’re thinking about,” Gavin said, burrowing his face deeper into the crook of her neck and murmuring against her ear.

Oh, you know. Nothing much. Just sex.

Hot sex.

Sloppy sex.

Scrape my fingernails down your back sex.

I can’t believe it’s not an orgasm sex.

Ugh.

He teased her earlobe with his lips. “Know wh-what I’m thinking about?”

“Sex?” she blurted.

His bark of laughter jiggled her boobs. “That goes without saying.” He slid his hand up her body and captured her hand with his. “But I was actually going to say bacon.”

Thea turned her head to look over her shoulder. “Is that a euphemism?”

“You have no idea.” Gavin rose up on an elbow and gazed down at her in that sexy, tired way of his. “Morning.”

Thea rolled onto her back so she could see him better. “Good morning.”

“Want me to make the pancakes?”

Oh, yeah. It was Saturday.

“Sure. Not yet, though. It’s early. The girls aren’t even up yet.”

He raised an eyebrow. “What shall we do with our stolen time in the d-dark?”

She laughed, and it became a shriek when he whipped the comforter over both their heads, hiding them in a dark cocoon. They stilled at the same time. Soaked in the moment. Catalogued all the places where the hard parts of him pressed against the soft parts of her.

Thea captured his bottom lip in both of hers and tugged.

That’s all it took. Gavin made a noise low in his throat and slanted his mouth over hers. He pressed her into the mattress as his lips nibbled and massaged, cherished and explored. He kissed her like they had all the time in the world, but when she slid one of her legs up along his, dragging her toes across his calf, something changed. He changed. He curled his free hand along the curve of her jaw and changed the angle of his kiss, taking it deeper, harder, his tongue sweeping inside her mouth.

Thea wrapped her arms around him. Her fingers explored the finely honed muscles of his torso, every ripple, every ridge, every swell of sinew. Her exploration seemed to fuel his fire, because a groan came from deep in his chest and he shifted his hips to grind into the parts of her that now throbbed with need. She wanted to crawl inside his skin. She wanted to kiss every inch of him.

She just wanted.

Wanted to feel his sweaty weight on top of her. Wanted to pump her hips beneath him. Wanted to moan and writhe and gasp.

She wanted his hands on her skin, his lips on her breasts. She wanted to feel him hard and long and thick thrusting deep inside her. She wanted to find that place again where heat and sparks and tornados lived. And then she wanted to curl against his side, trail her fingers down his damp chest, and place hot, sloppy kisses on his stomach.

She wanted.

She wanted him.

“Gavin,” she rasped. “Can I ask you something?”

He licked a spot beneath her ear. She sucked in a gasp. Oh, she liked that. She fought for air. “How did you know that night?”

“Know what?” He sucked on her earlobe.

“That I had an orgasm.”

“At first, it was the noises you made.” He sucked on the tender place where her pulse pounded in her throat. “I’d never heard you make a noise like that, like a wh-whine or a whimper.”

Thea shifted beneath him. The growing pressure between her legs sought the hard length between his.

“And you started moving against me.” Gavin tilted his hips into her. Thea gripped his shoulders.

“You started saying my name,” he rasped, his breath hot against her neck. “Over and over. Until you couldn’t actually say it.”

Thea moaned and ground into him again.

“You became frantic,” he panted, sliding his erection against her cleft. She gasped and rocked back and forth against his length.

“And then your whole body tensed.” His fingers dug into her hips. “You called my name, and inside you. Christ, Thea, inside you . . .”

His hands slipped between them and found the source of her ache. His fingers began to explore. She groaned and threw her head back.

“I could feel it, Thea. Your orgasm.” He slipped two fingers inside her, and she cried out.

“Your muscles squeezed around me and, God . . .” Gavin dropped his head against her shoulder and pumped his fingers in a steady rhythm. “It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever felt, baby. And when I came, I’ve never come like that before.”

Thea covered his mouth with hers. They tongue-kissed like teenagers as she rode his hand. She rocked her hips, seeking that feeling, that pleasure.

He let out a moan. “I’ve been in agony since that night. I w-want to make you feel that way again. I want you, Thea. So bad.”

The bang of a tiny fist on the bedroom door made her eyes fly open. “Shit!”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Gavin groaned.

“Mommy!” It was Amelia.

“Just a minute, sweetie.” Thea pushed Gavin off her and grabbed the nearest item of clothing—a long T-shirt draped over the foot of the bed. Gavin rolled over with a dramatic flop. As Thea yanked her shirt over her head, Gavin threw an arm over his eyes.

“Just a sec, honey, I’m coming.”

“Not anymore, you’re not,” Gavin grumbled. Thea threw the covers over his lap as she rose to unlock the door.

Amelia shuffled in, dragging her blanket in one hand. Ava followed, clutching her duck.

“Daddy’s in here?” Amelia asked, her steps picking up.

“Yep. Come here and snuggle us.” The girls walked to Gavin’s side of the bed and waited for him to lift them up. They both laid down on top of the covers in the space between their parents.

“Daddy’s back doesn’t hurt anymore?” Ava asked. That was the reason they’d given for him sleeping in the guest room.

Thea dodged the question. “You’re up early,” she whispered, pressing a kiss to Amelia’s cheek. “Why don’t you go back to sleep for a while?”

The girls both closed their eyes. Thea rolled onto her side to spoon Amelia, and Gavin did the same with Ava. Above their daughters’ bodies, they locked eyes, and what she saw in Gavin’s made her throat thicken and her heart race.

The world turned on its axis again.

* * *

• • •

At ten o’clock that morning, Thea was cleaning up the kitchen when she got a text from Liv, who hadn’t come home last night.

She was staying at Alexis’s house for a few days and wouldn’t be able to watch the girls tonight.

Even just a few days ago, Thea would have immediately called her and tried to smooth things over. Not today. Not this time. Liv was behaving like a spoiled child.

Gavin hugged her from behind, a cup of coffee in one hand. “Liv?” he asked.

“She’s not going to watch the girls tonight.”

“She’ll get over it. We’ll figure something out for tonight.”

Thea turned in his arms, rose on tiptoe, and kissed him. Gavin made a noise low in his throat, set down his coffee, and hauled her tightly in his arms.

“We’ll figure out something for tonight,” he rasped. “If I have to spend twenty grand to fly my parents here, we will stay in that hotel.”

She lifted her mouth to kiss him again, but he held back with a wicked grin. “You know that thing I did with my hand this morning?”

“Yes,” she breathed.

“Next time I’m going to use my mouth.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

They didn’t have to spend twenty grand to fly his parents down.

Del and Nessa offered to let the twins stay at their house with Jo-Jo and a babysitter and then spend the night there. They’d apparently decided not to stay in the hotel because Nessa was still battling morning sickness.

“How long do we have to stay?” Thea asked as they pulled into the parking ramp of the ballpark, where the party was held. She tugged her pashmina around her shoulders.

“If you want to head straight to the hotel, I’m sure I can be persuaded,” Gavin said.

They’d been doing that all day. By unspoken agreement, the hotel had been the catch-all for what was actually going to happen there. As if saying the words out loud would jinx it all, like the superstition that you couldn’t say the words “no-hitter” when it became clear that a pitcher was headed for one.

Tonight, they would have sex again.

The question was: Would Thea be able to orgasm? And what would happen if she didn’t?

“I suppose we should make an appearance,” Thea joked.

Translation: I’m so nervous that I won’t even jump on the chance to avoid another run-in with my best friend, Rachel.