While she had been floating down, he had removed his jeans. He nudged her abdomen with his penis and growled, “We’re not done yet.”

“Oh, good.”

He tried to smile, but it was strained, and his eyes were dark with intensity. “Take me. Guide me in.”

She reached between their bodies and wrapped her hand around him. Her eyes widened in appreciation of his ampleness, which made him groan around another half smile. It turned into a grimace of pleasure as she stroked her way up, back down, up again.

Then she caressed the tip. It was full and taut, and already slick. The slow revolutions her thumb made to spread the moisture caused him to hiss and squeeze his eyes shut. “Damn, Arden. Now.”

She did as asked and guided him. He pushed into her, but drew in a sharp breath over her tightness. “Jesus. Are you sure you—”

“Yes.” She clutched his butt and tilted her hips up.

A profanity escaped on an expulsion of breath as he began to press and retreat in increments that stole her breath and accelerated his. When he was fully in, he paused as though to savor being imbedded in her, then the mating impulse overcame him.

He angled himself up so that every stroke was perfectly placed and brought her closer to another climax. When it washed over her, she hugged him tightly to her, chanting his name.

He buried his face in her neck, grinding against her and maintaining that sublime friction until it became too much for him, too.

Arden was left breathless, boneless. In the aftermath, she surrendered to a delicious lethargy and settled deeper into the bed, loving the feel of him, his weight, his body heat, securing her there.

Eventually, he got up and went into the master bathroom. He washed himself and then brought a wet washcloth back to the bed. He bathed her stomach with it. “I should have gotten a condom.”

“I wouldn’t have welcomed the timeout.”

“Me neither. That’s why I didn’t.”

“I wasn’t sure if that final growl was from ecstasy or frustration.”

“Definitely ecstasy. Also a bit of frustration.”

“I’m back on the pill.”

“I didn’t know that, and you’re not supposed to risk another pregnancy for a couple more months. I read up on it.”

She looked at him with surprise. “You read up on it?”

“Just in case I got lucky.”

“You didn’t get lucky. I practically begged you.”

“Whatever. You did it good.”

After cleaning her, he folded the cloth and set it on the nightstand, then placed his hand on the other side of her, bracing himself so that his arm bridged her torso.

He’d left the bathroom door ajar. There was enough light for him to see her in detail, but it wasn’t so bright that it detracted. Rather, it was just enough to illuminate her skin and make it glow. He was even more entranced by the parts of her that were shadowed.

He used his free hand to explore. Her hair was a tangle on the pillow. The curls tried to ensnare his fingers. He pulled them free to trace the shape of her ear, to tug gently on the velvety lobe, outline her lips, and skate along the delicate ridge of her collarbone. He cupped her breast in his palm and lightly pinched her nipple. Its immediate response roused his resting cock.

Her hand found it and began a languorous caress.

And though her stroking caused a fever to spread through him, he continued his exploration of her in the same unrushed manner, venturing to even more seductive terrain that he didn’t want to underappreciate because of haste.

She purred when he brushed his fingers through the hair between her thighs. They were relaxed and slightly separated. He noticed on the inside of one what he thought at first was a birthmark. Then he realized what it was.

“Oh, hell. I’m sorry. I didn’t know that kiss was so rough.”

“It wasn’t rough, it was ardent,” she said softly.

“Does it hurt?”

“Did or do you hear me complaining?”

In the deepest, darkest, basest part of his masculine soul, he was glad he had marked her, even if it was temporary. He rubbed the red spot with the pad of his thumb. “Arden?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m no poet, so I’ll just say it.”

“I’m listening.”

“I like you naked and looking well fucked.”

She laughed. “I like it, too.”

She put one hand behind her head and lay there, studying him. “On some elemental plane, I think I knew it from the moment I saw you.”

“Knew what?”

“That we, this, was bound to happen. When you turned around and pushed the safety goggles up to your forehead, I…It was like a quickening. Here.” She laid her hand on her stomach. “In spite of your being surly and trying to intimidate me.”

“I wasn’t—”

“You were.”

He admitted it with a rueful nod.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because my ‘quickening’ took place a little lower than yours.”

“Here?” Her fingers tightened around him.

He squeezed his eyes shut and breathed out. “Yeah, there. I’d seen you, yeah, but I wasn’t ready for the stretchy t-shirt and blue jean skirt. I got instantly drive-a-nail hard. Scared the hell out of me.”

“So your rudeness was a defense mechanism against the sudden attraction?”

“Not the attraction itself, but the unlikelihood that anything could come of it.”

“If nothing was to come of it, you decided not even to bother being polite, but to act like a jerk instead.”

“Something like that, I guess.”

Pensively, she said, “That makes sense, because it didn’t take me long to recognize in you something I’ve often been cursed with.”

“What’s that?”

“Loneliness,” she whispered. “Your macho posturing made me mad. But I also came away thinking that underneath the tough-guy veneer, you were a lonely person, and that possibly your loneliness was self-imposed. I believe my intuition was right.”

She removed her hand from his cock and placed it on his thigh, just above his knee, and rubbed it tenderly. And somehow that caress was ten times more intimate than the other. She was comforting and consoling him.

Which God knew he didn’t deserve, and which she wouldn’t be doing if she knew how badly he was deceiving her. He couldn’t allow it. He lifted her hand from his leg and kissed the palm of it.