My knees shake and tremble, and I’m forced to hold on to his shoulders for balance, for support, lest my legs give way and I fall. There’s no teasing, no playing—only his pursuit of my pleasure. He follows the clues of my gasps, the way I arch my back when he uses his tongue this way, flicks his fingers inside me that way, or when he speeds up or slows down. He builds me up and drives me to the edge and in the seconds before I lose all control, he looks up at me, pausing ever so briefly. Smiles, and then resumes.

  I explode, crying out and nearly ripping out his hair, writhing against his mouth.

  My legs do give out, then, and I collapse.

  Into his waiting arms.

  He lifts me, carries me to my bed, lays me down with chivalrous gentility. As if I weigh nothing. I’m still trembling and whimpering when he crawls up from the foot of the bed, spreading my thighs wide with his broad shoulders—I drape my knees over his shoulders and bite my lip as he stares up at me. There’s no need for words, then, just the need in his eyes and the erotic glisten of my essence on his beard and lips, nothing but the ravenous way he laps at me, French-kissing my core with all the dizzying fury he kisses my mouth, all lips and tongue, delving and demanding. I writhe and gasp, and ride his mouth, grinding against him and reaching back to clutch my pillow, and scrabble at my headboard. My spine arches off the bed and I can’t help but scream through a second climax.

  He shows no sign of pausing, but I can’t take any more. He’s nuzzling my thighs and licking greedily at my pussy when I tug at his beard, haul him by his hair and his shoulders up to me. I wipe at his face with my hands, and then bring his mouth to mine.

  “You taste like me,” I whisper, grinning.

  He braces his weight with one fist and caresses my breasts with the other. “I love the taste of you. I love the sounds you make, and the way you try not to scream.”

  He begins to slide back down, but I catch at him. “No, James. No more.”

  He smirks. “I want more.”

  I reach down between us and fumble at his dress pants. “And believe me, you can have all you want, whenever you want. But right now, I need this.” I manage to rip open the button and zipper, dipping my hand under his underwear, grasping his erection.

  He growls. “I feel like I owe you a couple more. The scales aren’t even.”

  I stroke his length. “Who’s keeping track?”

  “I am.”

  “Well, I’m not.” I caress him, twisting my fist around the plump round head, and then plunging down to the root. “I just want you. I don’t care if I come once or a hundred times—I just want you inside me. I need you, James. That’s all I care about.”

  He huffs, growls, bowing his spine upward and flexing his hips to push into my hands, and then yanking away. He flops onto his back and fights to get his pants off, but he’s impatient and clumsy, and he still has his shoes and socks on.

  I laugh, and roll to lean over him. I take his big beautiful cock in one hand and untie his shoes with the other, slide them off, tug his socks off, and then his pants and his underwear—and then, finally, we’re naked together, and he’s groaning at my touch.

  He grabs at my wrist. “Stop, Nova—you have to stop for a second.”

  I laugh. “Getting close, are you?”

  He huffs. “Fucking right I am. The way you touch me, it feels so fuckin’ good I won’t last another goddamn second if you don’t give me a chance to get control.”

  “I don’t want control, James,” I snap impatiently. “I want the opposite.”

  He laughs. “I just mean I’m not about to let go before I get a chance to be inside you, so you gotta back off a second. I’m out of practice and don’t last as long as I used to.”

  “Oh.” I frown at him. “I couldn’t care less how long you last. I just need you inside me, now.”

  He moves to his knees. “Condoms?”

  I point at the middle drawer of my bedside table. “In there.”

  He takes out the box, opens it, and rips open a square. Levered up on one elbow, I watch as he rolls it on. His eyes lock on mine, and my breath catches.

  It’s a wild, fraught moment—I was caught up in the sexuality of it all, momentarily distracted by chemical need, by physiological desire. In that moment, I remember what this is all about—us.

  He rolls into me, and his arm curls under my neck—I let him take me to my back, and I wrap my arms around his neck, bury my hands in the hair at his nape and pull him closer. He kisses me—leaves me delirious as only he can, and we kiss and there’s no stopping, nothing between us, nothing holding us back.

  I breathe him, and feel him above me—a sheltering, powerful presence, his hard body pressed against mine, his shoulders blocking out the world, so there’s only him, only us. He kisses me, and I’m lost in it, my lungs and lips and brain and heart and soul fuse to his, wrap around him, tangle with him. His kiss, his murmur of need—I hear it and feel it all through me.

  We move together, writhing and tangling hands, touching, exploring. I whimper, and he echoes it with a groan. His arm is curled under my neck, supporting me—his bicep is my pillow; his other hand is all over me, scouring my flesh, my breasts, my core, cupping my hips and palming my breasts. I roam his shoulders and claw at his buttocks, and then reach between us and find his condom-sheathed length. I guide him to my opening as I cup his balls and caress them as he nudges between the tight, throbbing lips of my core.

  He moans my name, a whispered plea: “Nova…”

  I nip at his ear and breathe my response: “James—oh god, James, please.”

  I clasp his face between my breasts and cry out loud as he pushes into me, arching my back as he fills me. How can anything feel this good, this perfect? I didn’t know it could be like this—that this exquisite ache of accepting him inside me could feel so incredible, that I could burn and throb from the way his thick, pulsing erection splits me apart and stretches me; I cry out, not just a wail of pleasure, but an actual sob—his name, always his name on my lips.

  He coils over me, thrusting fully into me and curling his body down, contracting his torso, hands trailing down my breasts. His groan is a long, drawn-out snarl of relief, pleasure, and pent-up need.

  “Nova—” he murmurs, and withdraws.

  I hook my ankles around his flexed taut buttocks, draping my thighs open to take him deeper, pushing up against him as he begins to move. Slowly, dragging out of me and plundering back in, he leans over me to stutter his lips down my chest, tongue flicking with haphazard desperation against my nipples.

  “Oh fuck, Nova.” He groans, and I feel his abs tense. “God, Nova. My Nova.”

  I clutch at his face and nip at his earlobe, bite down on his shoulder as his slow, powerful thrusts wreck me, again and again and again, driving me to weakness, to gasps of burgeoning climax—within minutes. How long? No clue, and I couldn’t care any less how long, because each second is absolute heaven.

  He writhes with helpless desperation against me, his sighs becoming groans, his groans becoming growls, his growls becoming a chanted pleading of my name.

  “Nova—Nova—Nova…” He drags a kiss over my cheek, seeking my lips.

  I palm his face, take his mouth and show him what a kiss is—ragged and wild and manic. I sob into the kiss, because I’m lost, I’m on fire, I’m exploding.

  “I don’t want it to stop,” he whispers.

  “Me neither.”

  “But I can’t—god, goddammit, oh god, Nova—I can’t—I can’t stop. I can’t…” He bites down on my lip, hard, and I squeal in surprise, and then return the nip, the bite.

  “Don’t—don’t, James.” I breathe into his ear, urging him to move by clawing at his flexing buttocks, by driving against him, demanding more from him, begging for more every way I know how. “Don’t stop, don’t you fucking dare stop.”

  “I want it to last forever,” he pants, “it’s too soon, but I can’t fuckin’—oh god, oh fuck, Nova, god, my love…you feel too good, and I can’t help it.”

  I palm the hard-tensed round flexing muscle of his buttocks and move against him, panting in unison with him. “James, please—” I plead, my voice too broken for anything but a sobbed whisper. “Now, James. Come with me—I can’t wait.”

  And, indeed, I can’t. I don’t try. I explode around him, my core clamping down so hard I feel every inch of him as he throbs and thrusts inside me. I cry, I wail, I bury my face in his throat and let myself scream out loud, a half sob, half scream, a breathless shriek that deafens even me, an orgasm detonating deep inside me and spreading like wildfire, like an atomic bomb is rippling outward from my core.

  As I come, James roars, thrusting into me with wild, rough, careless, ravaging power, and I take it all and meet him thrust for thrust. I feel him come. I’m clenching around him in wave after wave of climax, and with each clench I feel him throb thicker and harder, and I feel him push deep, feel him tense, falter, and then his forehead rests against mine and his voice is breaking, hoarse as he grunts through clenched teeth.

  There is not a single vestige of control left in him, now, and I treasure down to my very molecules the crazed abandon in the way he moves with me; we meet each other in climax, his snarls matching my screams, his slamming grinding slapping thrusts mirroring my furiously gyrating hips. There is only us, only this, our voices and our bodies and our love become something neither of us knew could be possible.

  Finally, after a singularly too-brief eternity, we both go still, sweating, gasping.

  James collapses against me, and I cradle him to my breast, both of us panting in unison.

  Buried inside me, slackening, his breath on my chest, his hair tickling my nose, he tries to move off me.

  I cling tight. “Don’t you dare move, James Bod.”

  He laughs. “I’ll crush you.”

  “Then I’ll die a happy woman.” I scratch his back, his buttocks, and his shoulders. “There’s nowhere I’d rather be than under you.”

  He lifts his head up, grins down at me. “What about on top of me?”

  I squeeze around him. “Get hard again and I’ll show you.”

  A few minutes of blissful, companionable silence later, I let him roll off me, and he goes into the bathroom, cleans up, and returns. “I gotta make this master suite happen,” he says.

  I laugh. “No kidding.”

  He flops to the bed beside me and extends his arm. I eagerly nuzzle into the crook of his arm, and we drowse in sated silence for a while.

  “I love having you here,” I say. “It’s only ever been just me in this house, and I…I just like you here. In my home, in my bed.” James’s silence is oddly tense, and I wait through it uncomfortably. Finally, I crane my neck to look up at him. “What? You don’t like being here with me?”

  He frowns down at me, wrinkling his nose. “What? No. That’s stupid—of course I do.”

  I trace patterns in the dusting of chest hair. “Then what? I tell you I love having you here, and you clam up.”

  He chuckles. “You just assumed the opposite. I guess I love being here with you more than I…more than I should, probably.”

  I frown even harder at that. “More than you should? Now who’s being stupid? We just consummated our relationship with mind-blowing sex, or, rather, lovemaking, I should say, because even though that’s a cliché and a sorta cringey term, it’s the truth. I love you, James, and I love having you here.” I rest my head back on his chest and continue idly tracing designs in his chest hair. “I want you here all the time, if I’m being honest. If I could have my way, I’d never let you leave.”

  “Nova, I—”

  “I know, I know. You have your own home, and it’s the girls’ home, too. That’s an element of this whole thing we’re going to have to sort out, eventually, because at some point we’re going to want to live together, but I love my home and we’re just now getting it to where I super sparkly hearts love it, and I don’t think I’ll want to sell it anytime soon, but I know you and the girls have your home, where they—where you—” I tear up abruptly, my emotions running at high octane from the intensity of what we just shared. “Sorry. I’m being stupid. I just—”

  He shuts me up with a kiss, curling his arm to crowd me up against him, lips fusing to mine tongue slicing away my words, and my breath. “Yeah, you are being stupid.” He laughs. “You didn’t let me finish.”

  I don’t bother trying to stem the tears—which aren’t sadness, I’m just…overwhelmed by the suddenness and intensity of all this. “Okay. So finish.”

  “The reason I feel like I love being here more than I should is because I don’t want to have to leave either. And this is your home. And this thing between us is, like, brand new. And I don’t get to invite myself here, or become too fully involved in your life before you’re ready.”

  I scoff at that. “I’m in your life, James. I’m in it as fully as I can be.”

  “The girls are a lot to consider. They’ll be confused at first.”

  I laugh. “Oh, I don’t know. I think they’ll welcome the idea of us.”

  He frowns at me. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because when Imogen had us all at the spa for the baby announcement shower thing, Nina told me she knew you liked me, and gave me permission to date you. She said she hoped that if we dated, it’d make you less cranky, because you’re a butt all the time, and, I quote, ‘it’s super annoying.’”

  James laughs. “She said that?”

  I nod. “And that was back when Imogen first knew she was pregnant. I’m sure she’s picked up on some of the, um, changes.”

  He sighs. “She’s a perceptive little devil, that one.”

  “It’s up to you how you introduce the idea of us to them, obviously. I just want you to know that you, and they, are welcome here. My home is yours, and theirs.” I swallow hard. “I’d love having you all here. I could turn the extra room into a girly paradise for them.”

  James groans, scrubbing his face with his free hand. “I want to say something, but I’m worried it’s too much too soon.”

  I drape my thigh over his and twist to look up at him. “No such thing, James.”

  He blinks down at me. “Fine.” He sighs. “Okay, so—even since before you and I started getting serious, I’ve been contemplating the idea of selling my place.”

  I’m floored. “You…what? Why?”

  “I guess it’s part of moving on. There are so many memories there, you know? Too many. Doc Rich said it may be worth thinking about, in the name of moving on. Renée and I picked that place together, you know? It’s where she and I built a life together. There’re good memories, obviously, but…painful ones, too. I just don’t want to yank them from the only home they’ve ever known willy-nilly, you know? If we move, I want it to be…for a reason. Somewhere specific, for a specific reason. And that place is cool, with the pool and the barn and the big yard and all that.”

  He’s angling at something that makes my heart thump so hard in my chest that it hurts. “James, what are you saying?”

  He won’t quite look at me, and I palm his cheek, using his beard to tug his face down so he has to look at me. “Just…that, um—I guess, that I do plan on moving, selling the place and…and moving somewhere. So, what you said, about us wanting to be together—it wouldn’t necessarily be that big of an issue. If you, um. If you were—”

  I can’t help the giddy, excited, happy grin from spreading across my face. “Say it, James. Don’t be shy.”

  He looks down at me and chuckles wryly. “You’re getting a kick out of this, aren’t you?”

  I nod. “Oh yeah.” I wriggle against him like an excited puppy. “I’m all in, James. I’ve been doing my damnedest to hold my emotions in check. To stay even a little objective. But, that day at your pool party, I—I fucking fell for you then. I was scared about how strongly I felt for you within seconds of just…seeing you. And then we kissed, and I…god, James, I knew.”

  “You knew?”

  I nod. “I was ready to go all in back then, except for being scared to death of falling in love again. It took this long just to accept that it was happening, that I couldn’t stop it—that there was not a damned thing I could do to stop myself from falling in love with you, totally and completely.” I sigh. “I was just in denial. The guilt of feeling like I was betraying Craig plus, the fact that I knew you were in no way ready to know how hard I was falling…it was all too much, and I sort of retreated from it, mentally and emotionally. Tried to bury it, hold it back, or—or pretend it wasn’t real, wasn’t there.”

  James is swallowing hard, eyes dancing as they search my face.

  “I can’t hold it back anymore, James.” I move astride him—it’s both sexual and something else: I need him, I want him, I need to be closer to him—as close as I can physically get, sexually and emotionally and physically and spiritually. “I just can’t. I hope you’re buckled up, baby, because I’m about to get super fucking clingy and needy and demanding.”

  He weaves his fingers into my hair, massaging my scalp, pulling my face to his. “How the fuck do I deserve you, Nova?”

  I shake my head. “There’s no deserving—that’s not a thing.”

  He swallows hard, and when he speaks his voice is cracked and hoarse. “I—I thought my heart was…dead. Broken. I thought I’d never—never feel this again. I didn’t think I wanted to. I didn’t think I could.” He shakes his head, too full of emotion to speak, for a moment. “I’m alive with you in a way I…in a way I thought was impossible.”