Which he gives to me…now.

  Ohhh god. Oh god, I can’t breathe. I’m dizzy.

  His thumb slides over my bare flesh, gliding over the outside of my pussy, and then down the seam. He groans, and I know he’s as affected by this as I am—as affected by touching me as I am by being touched.

  His thumb slicks upward, and then, dragging through my lips, through the wetness of my desire. I don’t breathe and neither does he, as his thumb slides through my core and upward, to the center. To my center. Where I ache most. Where his touch sizzles, sears, thrills.

  I whimper.

  God, his thumb feels so big, so hard, pressed against my clit, and I whimper again, a breathless sound of desperate need. He’s so gentle—so utterly gentle. His touch is featherlight. Rasping in slow, meandering, teasing circles.

  More, more.

  I bite down on my lip and try to remember to breathe, but his touch is too much, and my lungs won’t work, don’t work.

  I can’t help it. I need—I’m so needy; I need his touch, and I need to touch.

  I rip open his fly. Yank the zipper apart.

  Cotton bulges through the opening, and my fingers, acting with a hungry mind of their own, curl into the elastic of his underwear. Pause for a split-second, and then I can’t wait another heartbeat. I pull the elastic away and tug down, and he grunts in surprise as I push his jeans and underwear down past his butt, baring him. I look, and I gulp.

  The answer is, yes, he’s as massively endowed as my dirty middle-of-the-night-fantasies suggested. As huge as filthy-minded Audra has suggested more than once.

  He—is—enormous.

  Thick as my wrist and more inches long than I care to guess, a fat, shiny, bulbous pink head, purple veins and so much tan flesh. A thatch of curly black hair around the base trimmed but not shaved.

  I glance at James’s eyes, see his need, but see also conflict.

  His thumb continues its slow circuit around my clitoris.

  My gut flips, my core throbs, my pulse pounds. I am afire with need—excruciating arousal slams through me, cranked higher and higher with each circle of the pad of his thumb.

  And now, ohhhh god, now I have his cock in my hand. A huge, thick, soft, warm, iron-hard cock. A beautiful, perfect cock.

  God, I love the way he feels, filling my hands.

  I stroke him. Slowly. A sweet, achingly slow, greedy, needy caress of his length with both of my hands.

  He gasps, a surprisingly quiet sound, and then he growls, a quintessentially James sound, a primal, bearlike rumble. His thumb moves, and my hips move with it. His right hand leaves my breast, travels downward to the waist of my thin cotton shorts, gathers fabric, and he yanks them down, roughly. Both hands, then, roughly, demandingly yanking my shorts down. I cling to his neck with one arm—refusing to completely relinquish my grasp of his cock—and I use his shoulders to lift my ass off the counter so he can yank my shorts down; I tug one foot free and wrap my leg around his buttocks, and he slips the bunched wad of shorts and panties off my other foot and now I’m utterly naked, totally naked, sitting on the cold laminate counter, and he’s touching me, a long thick middle finger dipping inside me, sliding easily through my wet lips and into my squeezing channel. His other hand is busily smearing in slow circles around my clit, and with a finger inside me and two fingers on my spasming clit.

  I have him in my hands, both fists wrapped around him, sliding up his length and squeezing around the plump tip and twisting down, and I watch my hands, stare at the beautiful sight of a perfect male cock in my hands—for the first time in so long; and I want it and need it so much, feel such deep, cutting, ripping, fiery need, a desperation I haven’t felt in so, so long. Not since…

  No.

  NO.

  I will not, cannot, shall not think of Craig, not now.

  I focus on James, putting thoughts of anything else—anyone else out of my mind. I look at James, at his conflicted, hungry, aroused eyes.

  I realize his conflict—he’s struggling with thoughts of someone else, too, and fighting to remain in the moment with me.

  I gulp and writhe as he speeds his touch, and I change my own touch—one hand caressing in slow short strokes around his head, the other driving up and down the base in longer, faster glides.

  His hips drive forward into my touch, and my own grind hard into the curling sliding movement of his finger and quick, slickly circling thumb. I stroke, he circles.

  He grunts, I whimper.

  His eyes lock on mine, and mine are on his, and then our gazes break and we watch our hands, and his lips slash across mine for a kiss, but we’re too breathless, too caught up in this together to spare thought for even a kiss.

  Another deep whimper from my lips, a taut line stretching from my core to my lungs is pulled to such tightness that I cannot breathe, can only grind and writhe and gasp as his touch incites wilder and hotter fire.

  Another tense groan from James, his hips pushing his cock through my fists. I feel him—I feel how tense he is, every line of his body, every muscle taut.

  I no longer groan or whimper—My legs wrap around his waist and my forehead rests against his chest, my hands between our bodies stroking him faster and faster, his hands tangled between mine to circle my clit.

  I writhe. I’m helpless. I’m lost. I’m toppling wildly over the edge, and as I shudder to the shivering cusp of cracking, crashing, crackling, I cling to his beautiful thick hard cock and I plunder his length fast and fast and faster.

  “Oh fuck, James—” I groan, my voice hoarse, my breath locked in my throat, clenched behind my gritted teeth. “I’m coming, James. Please, please—oh god, please, James.”

  I arch my back, leaning away from him, head thrown backward, eyes closed—a delicious wet hot tugging sensation rockets through me, and my eyes rip open to see James bent over me, mouth latched onto my nipple, and I’m stretched apart by his fingers, two of them slicking thick into my spasming, tightening, squeezing channel, his thumb rubbing madly around my clit, and his mouth slides to my other nipple and back, again and again, suckling my nipples to stretched points. His mouth is so wet, so hot, and his tongue lashes and his lips pinch and he sucks, suckles, licks, and his teeth saw not quite gently but not painfully around my erect flesh.

  I come with a scream and a whimper, legs locked around his bare waist, my hands wrapped around his throbbing cock. I come so hard I weep, tears trickling down my cheeks, sob after sob ripping from me as I come and come and come and come, hoarsely sobbing.

  And then James’s hands leave my core and latch onto my breast and the back of my neck, and his hips thrust spasmodically, uncontrollably. He grunts, and then the grunt turns into a long, drawn-out groan. He arches forward over me, shoulders hunched and drawn in, head hanging. His eyes are closed. His breath comes in short sharp gasps, and he groans again as his hips begin undulating, grinding his cock through my hands. He’s close.

  I want it.

  I want his pleasure. His release.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck—” The first words he’s spoken in several minutes.

  I plunge my fists down around him, slick them back up. He’s dry—I release him with one hand and spit into my palm, smear my saliva around the head of his cock, and then slide my other fist around it, spreading the lubrication around him, and his groan now is hoarse and low and broken.

  He thrusts helplessly.

  I pull him closer to me, breathe in his ear, whisper his name, whisper encouragement to him, accepting his orgasm and relishing the vulnerability in this moment: “James, yes—come for me, James. Let me feel you come, James—yes, yes, yes.” I’m whispering this in his ear, so softly and quietly I can barely hear myself over his nonstop grunts as he reaches climax.

  I stroke him quickly, one fist above the other, and he’s so huge that with both fists plunged down around his base, there’s still at least a couple of inches of his beautiful organ sprouting out the top of my upper fist. I watch, rapt, as he tenses, goes utterly taut, jaw clenched around a curse:

  “Fuck—f-f-fuuuuuck—”

  He comes.

  Beautifully, raggedly, James orgasms. His seed spurts in a thick white stripe out of him and over my belly in a hot thick pool, and I stroke and grind and twist and plunge, and he groans again, comes more, adding to the pool of cum on my belly.

  He’s heaving breathlessly, and he thrusts helplessly into my fists, spurting another, smaller squirt onto me. So…much…cum.

  God, it’s beautiful. He’s beautiful. I’ve not felt this way—needed, wanted, desired—in so, so long. I’ve forgotten how it feels.

  I’m still slowly stroking his length, and he jerks, judders, and a bead of cum dribbles down one side, and he groans long and loud.

  “Ohhhh fuck. Fuck.” He growls in his chest. “Holy shit, Renée.”

  Chapter 6

  I freeze.

  He freezes.

  His eyes fly open and meet mine. “Nova—Nova.” His eyes are tortured, sorrowful, conflicted, pained. “Nova, fuck—I—I’m…” He backs away, stumbling as his jeans tangle around his knees. He jerks them up. “Goddammit—Nova, I’m sorry.”

  I can’t speak.

  It hurts. God, it hurts.

  Knowing how easily such things can happen, especially to those like James and me—well, that doesn’t help. It still hurts to hear another woman’s name fall from his lips.

  I have his cum cooling in a sticky pool on my belly.

  I feel tears welling, and I blink them away, but I’m too late, and not strong enough to suck them back in. Not now, not weak from orgasm, not weak from having just felt so…so wanted.

  I know, intellectually, that until the ultimate moment of release, he was fully present with me and aware he was with me.

  I know this.

  But he said her name.

  “Nova—”

  I swallow hard, shake my head. “It’s fine, James.”

  He leans past me to grab the roll of paper towel off the holder, rips a handful of sheets free, and cleans me up in a few quick, economical wipes, folding the wad and wiping until I’m clean.

  He throws the paper towel away and reaches for me, pulls me off the counter and sets me on my feet. His hands are so strong—he’s so strong. I shiver at his touch.

  I crouch and snag my clothing. “I…um. I’m gonna go get…get dressed.”

  I turn away and head for my bedroom, barely keeping it together. I make it to my bed, toss my clothing back onto the floor and collapse onto my bed, letting out the sobs.

  How anyone his size, weighing as much as he does in solid muscle, can move so silently, I don’t even know. I don’t hear a thing, so I’m startled when I feel my bed dip, and then a blanket covers me.

  I don’t look.

  I don’t want him to see me crying, which is stupid, but there it is.

  “Nova, I’m sorry.” His voice is so quiet, deep and gruff and sad. “I don’t know what else to say.”

  I roll to my side and bring the blanket up to my chin, peering at James through tear-blurred eyes. “Why are you still here?”

  “You want me to leave?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know. No. Yes. I don’t know.”

  “I’m here because I had to…say I’m sorry. You have to know I knew—the whole time, I knew I was with you. I wanted to be here with you.” He rubs the back of his neck—he’s still shirtless, his heavy muscles flexing and shifting as he moves. “I just…in that moment, I got…I want to say confused, but that’s not right. I don’t know how to put it.”

  I flop onto my back, heedless for a moment of the fact that the blanket doesn’t come with me, and my breasts poke out—I follow his gaze, and tug the blanket up. “James, I get it.”

  “You do?”

  I nod. “As much as I can, yes.”

  “I want to explain, but after what we just shared together, I don’t want to talk about—” He stops abruptly, shrugging.

  I press the blanket against my sternum and shimmy to a sitting position, and I wipe my eyes with my free hand. “Say her name, James.”

  “Nova, I—”

  If I know anything at all about James, it’s that the raw, brutal truth is always better than a pleasant fiction. “You said her name instead of mine as I made you come, James. You came on me, and you said your dead wife’s name.”

  He flinches. “I know, Nova. And I’m sorry.”

  I ignore his words. “So, if you want to explain, then explain. And don’t shy away from saying her name, James. It can’t hurt me any more than it already has.”

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he says.

  I offer a sort-of smile. Not quite forgiveness, or acceptance, but…understanding, perhaps. “I know. The problem is, we don’t have to mean or intend something for it hurt. It still hurts. You said her name instead of mine—it was an accident, and I understand. But it still hurts.”

  He sighs, long and slow. “Nova, I…” He wipes his face with a palm. His jeans are still undone, pulled up but unzipped; the gray cotton of his underwear is dotted with a spot where he leaked cum after pulling them up—or perhaps that was pre-cum from being aroused before I took him out. “There was only her. Ever.”

  I’ve heard bits and pieces and repeated parts of stories, but that’s not the same as hearing it from him. I stay quiet and keep my eyes on his. I wait.

  “I met her in elementary school, same year as I met Jesse, her brother. I liked her from the moment I saw her—she was wearing a denim overall skirt, red tights, little black shoes, and her hair was in two blond braids.”

  I laugh. “You remember what she was wearing the first time you met her, what, thirty-five years ago?”

  He shrugs. “Like I said, there was only ever her. We were friends until middle school. We antagonized each other in middle school and acted like we suddenly hated each other.”

  “As one does in middle school,” I say.

  He nods. “And then, the summer before ninth grade, we hung out together a lot, and then we kissed for the first time…” He stares at the ceiling, swallowing hard. “And that was it. After that first kiss, it was just the two of us, James and Renée. We were so inseparable we didn’t just get…what’s the term for combining a couples’ names?”

  “Shipping? Like Brangelina?”

  “Right, that. We didn’t just get shipped or whatever, our group of friends called us JR, as in James and Renée, like we were a single entity. If they wanted to know where one of us was, they’d ask, ‘Where’s JR?’”

  I laugh at that. “Wow. That’s relationship goals right there.”

  He shrugs, nods. “Yeah, I guess so.” A long pause. “So, when I say it was only ever her, I mean that in every way. She was my first kiss, my first everything—and not just my first…my only.” His eyes meet mine. “It has only ever been her.”

  “I get it, James.”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t know if you do.” He swallows hard again. “That time we kissed in my kitchen—that was the first time I’d ever, ever kissed a woman who wasn’t Renée.”

  “Oh,” I breathe. “Ohhh.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So…” I blink hard, trying to wrap my head around what he’s saying. “So us, just now?”

  “You are the only woman who has ever touched me, aside from her. And that was the first I’ve been touched by anyone since she…since Renée died.” His eyes mist, and he blinks hard, turns his head to one side, away from me.

  Somehow, his pain in this moment eclipses my own. I touch his cheek, turn his face to mine. “Don’t hide it, James.”

  He grumps, gruff, blinks, shakes his head. “I’m just being stupid.”

  I rub a thumb across his cheek, under his eye. “Quit acting macho. You’re allowed to feel the way you feel, James, and you’re no less a big, tough, strong, alpha male for shedding a few tears.”

  He stares at me. “After what we just did, and after what just happened, I expected you to kick me out, not let me whine about my stupid sob story.”

  I shake my head. “Now you’re being stupid, James.” I scoff, my own throat thick. “My story isn’t quite like yours, but I do understand, to a degree.”

  He tilts his head to one side. “What do you mean?”

  I’d told my story to Laurel and then to Imogen, and thus somehow just assumed James heard about it.

  A long silence extends between us, as James waits for my answer.

  “I lost someone I loved, too,” I say. “Craig. We weren’t childhood friends, or high school sweethearts like you and Renée, but…we were together for several years, and I truly, deeply loved him. I thought we’d get married. I was waiting for him to propose and was half planning our wedding while I waited. I thought it would be coming any day, you know?” I sniffle. “Then he started to get aloof and weird and secretive, and I assumed he was cheating, because that’s been my experience when men act that way.”

  “He wasn’t?”

  “No,” I say. “He had cancer. Terminal, inoperable cancer.”

  “Shit.”

  I nod. “Yeah.”

  “So, instead of a ring and wedding, you got a funeral.”

  I nod. I hesitate, and then just let instinct guide me. I slide off the bed, initially taking the blanket with me, and then I half laugh, half scoff. “Why am I hiding from you? You’ve already seen me naked.” I toss the blanket back onto the bed and cross my bedroom naked, trying to feel confident and only partially succeeding.

  On my dresser is a small wooden box, hand carved from cedar, with delicate scrollwork—a gift from Craig, made by him. I slide the top off—inside is a pair of diamond teardrop earrings set in platinum, a carat each, the only expensive thing my parents gave me that I’ve kept. Also in there is a delicate pearl necklace that belonged to Craig’s great-grandmother, another gift from him, on our five-year anniversary; and a single ring, half a carat, plain gold band, solitaire setting. The ring. I take it from the box and hold it in my palm, go back to the bed and sit down, cover my lap with the blanket but remain topless.

  I show James the ring. “He, um. He intended to propose. He had the ring, and was planning to propose, and then he found out he was sick, and he couldn’t. I think he thought he could push me away so I wouldn’t have to deal with his death if I dumped him.”