She wiggled a little on top of me as I brought up the topic I knew she didn’t want me to broach. She dropped her head so that her cheek was on her hands and I was looking at the crown of her head. “You know what I meant, Zeb.”

I grunted and gave the tight ass cheek I was fondling a smack. She yelped and jerked her head back up so that we were eye-to-eye in the dimly lit room.

“No, Sayer, I don’t know what you mean. I’m with you even though you refuse to admit it, so I am not some single guy. I’m not fucking anyone else, have no desire to fuck anyone else, so you are it. This is it.” I was annoyed and she could tell because I could see the war waging between what she thought she should say to that declaration and what she was actually feeling. Terror and joy did battle and crashed like angry waves in her eyes as she gazed down at me.

“I . . . I’m not sure what to say.” Well, at least she wasn’t trying to litigate her way into some bullshit response about how we could screw each other’s brains out but not be anything more because she was scared of hurting me. That would’ve really pissed me off.

“Just admit that neither one of us is single at the moment, Say. That’s all I want to hear.”

She gave a breathy little sigh and closed her eyes. “Neither one of us is single, Zeb.”

It was a small victory, but one I would gladly take, and since I was gaining ground I figured I would go for the gusto. “And since neither one of us is single and neither one of us is fucking anyone else, how about we work something out so that I don’t have to buy stock in Trojan?”

That startled a laugh out of her and I wanted to pound on my chest in primitive pride. She cuddled back into me and her hair slithered all around me in an erotic caress that had my dick tightening up and twitching underneath her.

“I have an IUD, so we’re good.” She said it so offhandedly, so blasé like she hadn’t just given me the keys to the only kingdom I wanted to get inside without a suit of armor for protection.

Her declaration made me and my impatient cock very happy. I slipped my hands all the way under the covers and between her legs. She jolted a little and peered up at me curiously as I dipped my fingers inside her soft opening. She wasn’t protesting, but she wasn’t spreading her legs to let me in any farther either.

“Really?” She sounded dumbfounded. I had been all over her for hours, but she just gave me the green light to go in bare and that was like dropping a lit match into a puddle of kerosene.

I rolled her under me for the second time that night and rubbed my aching dick between her plump folds until I felt them start to warm up and her body start to react to the gentle ministrations.

“You just told me I could have you raw, uncovered, and you didn’t think that meant I was going in? I told you, Say . . . I want inside and I want to leave parts of myself there so you can’t shake me loose.”

Her mouth rounded in a little “oh” and her hands curled around my arms as I sank into her heat and let her burn all along me. It was sweet as heaven and hot as hell. It was everything and more. It was a place that was all mine and that I was never going to let anyone else anywhere near.

I started to move, slower, more deliberate than I usually did when I was inside of her. I wanted to savor every drag, every pull of flesh against flesh. I wanted to memorize every squeeze, every tiny tremble of pleasure. I wanted to remember every pulse and throb as I retreated and invaded over and over again. I wanted to leave a mark and I wanted to leave with marks of my own, our straining bodies imprinted on one another and linked in intimate ways no one else could see.

This wasn’t me fucking her or her fucking me, this was making love. This was coming together. This was the kind of sex that made lovers fall in love. This was the kind of sex that neither one of us was going to be able to live without once we tasted how intense and profound it could be.

I came before she did this time . . . I mean, give a guy a break. I was inside her with nothing between us, she felt like she was made just for me, and I had ridden her hard and merciless before this bout of lazy lovemaking. She whimpered when I filled her in a hot rush and I watched as she turned her head to the side and squeezed her eyes shut. There was a lot of emotion welling up there and I knew it was easier for her to hide from it than to face it.

I grabbed her chin in my hand and forced her to look at me as I rocked into her one last time with a languid glide of my hips. “Sayer . . .” Just her name. That was all it took. Her name spoken like it was everything to me because it was. She broke apart under me in rippling waves.

I knew she was going to be spent both physically and emotionally after she came down from her orgasm, so I wrapped her in my arms and turned to the side so that her back was to my front and I was surrounding her.

I kissed her on the back of the head and muttered a soft “thank you.” What else was there to say? What she had given me felt like a gift.

She breathed out and my heart kicked hard when she gently put her hand over the top of mine where it was possessively curled around one of her breasts.

“Tell Hyde, Zeb. You’re going to be an amazing father and he deserves every minute of that.”

We were both quiet after that and eventually I felt her go lax and knew she was asleep. All I could think while I held her was that there was no falling in love with this woman, there was only being in love with her. She had owned me from the very start; now I just needed her to take possession and keep me forever.

“YOU ARE SUCH a coward.” I threw a handful of the little pellets I bought Hyde to feed the giraffes with at Beryl and laughed when she smacked my arm in retaliation. Fall was rushing headlong into the colder winter weather, so I had a heavy canvas coat on over my shirt and barely felt the blow.

“I’m not the one with the secret boyfriend that’s too afraid to introduce him to the family.” I watched as Joss took Hyde’s hand and practically dragged him across the walkway toward where the wolf enclosure was. It wasn’t the first time my niece had been to the big city zoo in the center of City Park, but it was Hyde’s. His little face was alight with wonder and he couldn’t seem to take it all in as Joss delighted in showing him all her favorite animals. Both the kids were bundled up, and even though he was five years younger than her, Hyde was almost as tall as my energetic niece. He really did take right after me.

Beryl snorted and tapped her fingers on the white Starbucks cup she clutched in her hands. “Wes actually really wants to meet you and Mom. He sort of gave me an ultimatum the other day.”