It was too good, she thought as her legs began to tremble. It was too much and yet not enough. Without thinking, she cupped his hands in hers and pushed so that he held the fullness of her curves. Then she leaned forward and kissed him.

This time they joined in a frenzy of need and wanting. As he plunged into her mouth, she fumbled with the hem of his T-shirt. She thrust her hands up under the fabric so she could rub against his hard chest.

He took a step back, drawing her with him.

She explored the width of his back and the broadness of his shoulders. With each step, they moved farther into the shadows. She had a sense of their destination, and with that realization came impatience. She reached for the button at the waistband of his jeans.

The fabric was soft from dozens of washings. The button yielded easily enough, but the zipper was another matter. He was so hard, he pushed against the metal teeth and made it difficult for her to draw down the tab. Nor did he seem inclined to help her.

When they came to a stop by the stairs in the corner, he dropped his hand and took her left nipple in his mouth. The combination of lips and tongue, wet heat and unquenchable desire, made her cry out. She gave up on the zipper and clutched his head to hold him in place. She wanted his mouth there for hours, if not days.

When he shifted to her other breast, then sensations grew even more intense. As he sucked, need spiraled directly from there to the dampness between her legs. Then she felt his hands on her jeans. Unlike him, she was happy to help. She pushed him away and quickly popped open the button, then jerked down the zipper. After kicking off her sandals, she pushed down both jeans and panties, leaving herself completely exposed.

But she wasn’t in this alone. While she’d removed her clothing, Nic had pulled off his T-shirt, stepped out of his shoes, and was in the process of removing his jeans and briefs.

When they were both naked, they stopped. It was unplanned and completely spontaneous, yet as in sync as if it had been choreographed a dozen times. As it had been, she remembered. They’d both loved to look at each other’s bodies. She’d explored the powerful length of his legs, his narrow hips and waist, the muscles across his shoulders. He’d followed every dip and curve until he’d known her body as well as his own.

Now she started at his feet and worked her way up, looking for the changes in him she hadn’t had time to notice the last time they’d made love. He seemed more muscled, a little more filled out. When her gaze met his, he raised an eyebrow as if asking her opinion.

By way of an answer, she reached between them and grasped his penis. With a practiced move designed to humble him, she wrapped her fingers tightly around him and stroked from base to head. As she reached the top, she brushed her thumb against the opening, along the seam, then circled around.

His breath caught, then came out in a slow hiss. She started a second stroke. He responded by reaching between her legs. One finger moved deeply within her, searching through the swollen dampness until settling on that one engorged place of pleasure. They moved together. She moved up and down while he circled her. In a matter of minutes they were both breathing hard.

When Nic pulled away, she did the same. Arousal pulsed within her. His eyes were dilated and she didn’t doubt hers were the same. A flush spread across her chest. She felt the heat, along with the growing need for release.

“Over here,” he said, drawing her to the stairs leading to the loft.

He bent down and picked up his shirt, then set it on the fourth stair. She sat down and spread her legs.

He moved between them, but not to enter her. Not yet. Instead he knelt on the first stair and pressed a kiss to the inside of her knee. Tension coiled within her. He kissed his way up her thigh. As he got closer, she reached down and parted herself for him.

She knew exactly how it was going to feel. She knew that the first touch of his mouth would send her spiraling into another time dimension and that she would quickly lose control. She knew once they started, her orgasms would take on a life of their own with Nic as their master, making them return again and again as he bid them. She braced herself both physically and emotionally.

Even so, she was unprepared for the impact of his soft, wet, openmouthed kiss.

The feel of tongue and lips swirling together against her most sensitive, intimate place made her toes curl. She pulled her legs back even more. Her entire body arched into his caress. He licked all of her, then sucked on her swollen center, all the while flicking the very tip with his tongue. At the same time he slid two fingers into her and slipped them back out. On the second thrust, she came.

Her orgasm rocked her very being. Shudders originated from between her legs, flowing outward until every muscle had clenched and released dozens of times. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but feel the pleasure sweeping through her.

And Nic…he didn’t stop. Just when she’d slowed and started to relax, he plunged into her again. At the same time, he used his mouth to push her back to the place of unbearable tension. He knew exactly how hard, how fast, how everything.

She came over and over until she could only gasp for breath and whisper his name.

Finally he raised his head. She opened her eyes and saw him looking at her. She tried to relax, but it was too late. She was within his sexual power, and please God, may it never stop.

He continued to move his fingers inside of her. She told herself it wasn’t enough, but of course it was. Tension seized her again and she found herself convulsing around him. She felt the spasm of her release, and from his expression of satisfaction, knew he did, too.

He watched her climax at least half a dozen more times, then he moved up a step or two so that when he pulled out his fingers, he pushed in his erection.

She screamed with her release. The sound of her pleasure filled the old building. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer. She went willingly. Despite the tremors rippling through her body, she managed to draw her legs around his hips.

They clung to each other as they made love there on the stairs, surrounded by fermenting wine and echoes of the young couple who had matched their every move so many years before. Brenna found herself watching Nic as he watched her. She climaxed with nearly every thrust. They were naked and joined in the most intimate way possible. She should have felt embarrassed or awkward, but everything about this felt exactly right.

Suddenly he stiffened. He pulled her closer still, then shuddered. She felt the convulsion of his muscles as his body surged through its climax, and then they were still.

15

Reality returned in the form of stiff muscles and a growing sense of the cold. Brenna dropped her feet to the stairs and felt the first flicker of second thoughts. Could they really have done this again? She expected Nic to pull away, but he didn’t. Instead he brushed his fingers against her face, as he had when all this had started.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I will be when my heart rate returns to normal. Currently it’s in the active range for a hummingbird.”

“Let’s check out the damage.”

He slid out of her, then pushed to his feet. Brenna tried to straighten her legs, but she wasn’t used to being so pretzellike, and everything hurt.

Nic rubbed the small of his back. “Me, too,” he said. He held out a hand to her.

She took it and let him pull her to a standing position. They both hobbled for a couple of seconds, then Brenna started to laugh.

“We’re so old,” she said. “Ten years ago this was nothing. I can’t even remember all the positions we did it in.”

Nic started to look insulted, then he shook his head and chuckled. He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close. She snuggled against him. He kissed her forehead.

“Speak for yourself,” he said. “I’m not old.”

“Ha. You’re going to be limping tomorrow because of this.”

He glanced down at her. “So are you and not because your legs are stiff.”

She ignored the flush that heated her cheeks and his satisfied male “I pleased my woman” expression. “Go get my clothes.”

He handed over her bra and panties, then picked up her jeans and shirt. He pulled on his jeans but simply tossed his T-shirt over his shoulder.

They didn’t speak. By mutual agreement they walked out of the building together. She turned off the lights, and he closed the door. After wrapping his arm around her, he led her toward her car.

Once there, he brushed her hair off her face and kissed her. She clung to him as long as she dared, then sighed.

“I should go,” she said.

“Okay.”

She’d half hoped he would ask her to spend the night. A part of her wanted to go to sleep in his arms and then wake up in them. But even as the vision of how they would actually spend their night formed in her head, she knew it wasn’t possible. Her? Here? If her car wasn’t parked by the garage when the Grands woke up, they would call in the FBI.

Her mouth twisted. When exactly was she going to grow up enough not to care what her family thought of what she was doing?

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

“Just me. I think I need therapy.” She raised herself on tiptoe and kissed him. “I’m saying good night.”

“Me, too.”

She smiled, then got into her car. He stood watching her drive away. As she turned onto the highway, she glanced in the rearview mirror. He was still standing there, as if making sure she was safe. Or was that just wishful thinking on her part?

Lorenzo wrote slowly on the lined yellow pad in front of him. Since turning seventy, he’d endured the steady encroachment of arthritis, first in his knees, then his hips, and now in his hands. Brenna insisted a computer would be easier for him, that tapping the keys would hurt less than writing, but he had yet to find out. Despite the fact that a large, ugly machine had been installed in his office, and that his secretary turned it on for him every morning, Lorenzo hadn’t used it for more than a place to drape his jacket. He ignored the flashing cursor and the occasional clicks and whirs that drifted from the rectangular box on the floor. The new ways were not for him. He was too old to want to change so much.

Tessa, his wife of over fifty years, disagreed. She enjoyed new technology. When Mia was at her language school in Washington, Tessa had e-mailed her every day, then printed out the responses and read them to him before they went to bed.

Women dealt with change better than men, he acknowledged grudgingly. Perhaps because they were born knowing that time was liquid and always moving. They understood that the babies to come from their bodies would eventually grow and leave. Hearts were broken and then mended. For women, the world was shades of gray. Men saw only black and white.

He finished writing and carefully tore off the page. His secretary would type up his letter and send it out, but first she would remind him that even if he didn’t want to use the computer, he could simply dictate into a tape recorder. She would transcribe his words, saving him the pain of carefully forming each word. He did not bother to tell her that he’d used his tiny handheld recorder to prop up an unsteady table and that when Mia had later sat on the table, the small machine had been crushed.

He read over the letter, then dropped it into his out basket. Now that he was finished, he slowly flexed his aching hands, then opened the top drawer and reached for the pain medicine he kept there. At his age, pills were tangible markers of time. Each hour or two meant another medication, another glass of water, another aftertaste left on his tongue. Whenever he complained, Tessa reminded him that the alternative was no pills, no bitter taste, only darkness and the earth reclaiming his body. Then she would pull the rosary from her pocket and take a quick trip around the beads to ward off any inadvertent invitation of death brought on by their conversation.

He smiled at the thought of his wife. He was an old man, and yet he loved her more today than on the day they married. God had blessed him in many ways. His son, his grandchildren, the bounty of the earth.