Turning me to my back, he knelt between my thighs and propped them up so my knees were bent. He kissed my ankle, my calf, working his way upward. I bit my lips and writhed as the kisses crept closer to the juncture of my thigh and groin. “Don’t —” I began to protest, right before I felt a hot glassy stroke across my twitching flesh. I couldn’t escape the firm wet tug of his mouth. I began to sob, my defenses breaking down beneath the weight of pleasure.

He was unrelenting, concentrating on the shivery-hot place with his tongue, the caresses acquiring a rhythm that guided every impulse and sensation and heartbeat into a single focused current. My legs spread out and I was making sounds like I’d been hurt as the blinding release began. Too much to bear, too intense, my body seized with violent quivers.

Joe spent long minutes drawing out the afterglow even after I quieted, his mouth caressing me with diabolical gentleness. Eventually his head lifted and he kissed my stomach. I was so decimated that I barely registered when he rolled away for a moment and reached for something on the nightstand. He levered himself fully over my body, nudging my legs apart, and I reached up for him with weak arms. Entering me in a demanding drive, he pulled back just enough to thrust again, the deliberate measure of each lunge forcing me deliciously open, my hips lifted with each stroke.

Sometimes the rhythm was teasing and slow, sometimes fast and deep. He paid attention to every response, no matter how subtle, learning what excited me, what gave me pleasure. Joe was making love to me as no one ever had, and although the experience was unfamiliar, I could recognize it for what it was. Devastated, I closed my eyes as he ground into me with a steady circling. Whimpers broke from my throat. There was no holding anything back, no modesty, no control. More racking spasms, my pleasure feeding his. Joe growled in his chest and throat and began to shudder in my arms. I held him, kissing the side of his neck, loving the weight of him on me.

Eventually he turned and pulled me halfway over him, and we lay entangled for a long time afterward. I was in a stupor, random thoughts hovering just out of reach. The smells of sweat and sex mingled in an erotic fragrance, infusing every breath. Beneath my head, Joe’s chest lifted and fell in a relaxed pattern. One of his hands wandered over me, stroking gently.

I kissed his shoulder. “I going to take a shower now,” I said, my voice husky. “Don’t try and stop me.”

He smiled and turned to his side, watching me leave the bed.

I went into the bathroom on unsteady legs and started the shower. My throat was tight with the effort to hold back tears. It was difficult to feel so defenseless… unguarded… and yet at the same time, there was an unspeakable relief in it.

Before the water had heated sufficiently for me to step in, Joe entered the room. His acute gaze caught every nuance of my expression before I could manage to hide it. Reaching a hand into the shower spray, he tested the temperature. He went with me into the glass-fronted stall. Blindly I turned my face into the water.

Joe slicked his hands with soap and began to wash me, his touch tender rather than sexual. I leaned against him passively, making no protest even when his soapy fingers slid between my legs and parted the soft folds for the rinse of hot water. He turned me so the spray was at my back, and I was pressed all along the wet, muscled surface of his front.

“Too soon?” I heard him ask.

I shook my head, arms locked around his waist. “No… But it was different from the first time.”

“I told you it would be.”

“Yes, but I… I’m not sure why.”

He murmured close to my ear, “Because it means something now.”

I could respond only with a shaken nod.

After a quick breakfast of coffee and toast, Joe had to leave. He would rush home to change his clothes before meeting with one of the directors of the Travis charitable giving foundation, to discuss the latest initiatives the family had agreed to focus on. “After everything that happened last night,” Joe said, “I may be the only Travis who shows up.” He stole a quick kiss. “Dinner tonight?” Another kiss before I could answer. “At seven?” One more kiss. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

I stood there with an idiotic grin on my face as he left.

A little while later, while I was drinking a second cup of coffee, Sofia came downstairs in a pink robe and matching bunny slippers. “Is Joe still here?” she asked in a whisper.

“No, he’s gone.”

“How was last night?”

I smiled wryly. “Eventful. We spent most of it in a waiting room at Garner Hospital.” As we sat next to each other at the counter, I told Sofia all about Haven’s pregnancy complications, and the baby’s birth, and how the Travises had interacted.

“It was sort of eye-opening,” I said. “I’ve seen families celebrating together, and families on the verge of brawling over incredibly stupid stuff. But I’ve never actually seen a family, up close, in a situation like that. The way they supported each other…” I paused, finding it difficult to put into words. “Well, it surprised me that Gage, who’s had problems with Hardy in the past, would be the one to sit with him and comfort him, and Hardy let him, and it was because of the family bond, this… this weird connection that’s so important to all of them.”

“It’s not weird,” Sofia said. “That’s what a family is.”

“Yes, I know what a family is, but I’ve never seen what a family does. Not like that.” I paused, frowning. “I’ve never been part of an extended family. I’m not sure I’d like it. They all seem to know each other so well. Too well. There wouldn’t be enough privacy for me.”