In seconds, he’d crawled up her and was straddling her. “Unzip my pants,” he growled, and she fumbled at the zipper. Somehow in this drugged-out, blissed-out state she was able to work it down, and his beautiful cock sprang free.

  “Suck me. Like you did the morning after we met,” he told her, guiding his thick erection to her mouth. She remembered exactly what he meant, and grabbed his hips. She opened her mouth wide, and he stroked his dick into her lips, lowering himself into her mouth. She drew him in, licking and loving his cock, and then she reached her hands through his legs, playing with his balls. A deep groan rumbled up through his chest. “Is this how you came alone in bed that morning?”

  She nodded as she lapped him up from stem to stern.

  “That’s how I like it. You know how I like it. But that’s all I’m going to take for now,” he told her, then moved from the bed to strip off the rest of his clothes.

  He returned, and handed her the lube. “Put some on me,” he said.

  She nodded, and rubbed some onto his thick shaft, thrilling at the way his eyes floated closed and he grunted from her slightest touch. He wanted her as much as she wanted him.

  He sighed, a deep satisfied sound. Then he gently laid his body on hers, and kissed her, softly at first, then more deeply, as if he needed to connect with her this way. He pulled apart from her, and moved down her body to her hips, shifting her onto her stomach.

  She felt so exposed even though she’d been naked with him countless times. But this time was different. It was a first, and she felt virginal. But not for long. He tugged her up by her hips. “On your elbows,” he said, and she did as told.

  He ran a hand down her back. “God, you’re perfect,” he said, stopping at her ass, spreading her cheeks apart. “You’re so fucking perfect, and so ready.”

  She turned her neck to meet his gaze. “I want to watch,” she said, surprised at the words that had just come out of her mouth. She hadn’t thought about watching. But she found she desperately wanted to. Keeping her eyes open kept her in the moment.

  “Watch everything,” he told her as he rubbed his thumb on her opening. “So ready,” he murmured, lowering his head to flick his tongue against her bottom.

  She drew a sharp breath from the sweet intensity of his tongue, then he rubbed the head of his cock against her. Tension rolled through her bones as some deep part of her instinctual nature warned her against the potential pain. But she pushed it out of her mind as he slowly, carefully eased into her.

  She curled her shoulders forward in reaction from the pressure inside her rear. Like a deep, far stretching of her whole body, of every muscle and fiber in her being. He was barely in, maybe only an inch, and she had no clue how he was going to fit any more of himself in her.

  “Does it hurt?” he asked, stilling.

  “Yes,” she answered truthfully. “But I still want it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She nodded, taking a deep breath, and on an exhale, she said, “More.”

  He pushed in further, and it was like being stretched in directions she didn’t know she had. She gritted her teeth. She felt as if she might burst, and she wasn’t sure if it felt good or bad. Or just weird. But she didn’t look away. She kept her gaze on him the whole time.

  “You’re so open for me,” he murmured, tearing his eyes away from her face to stare at her ass. “So beautiful and so open,” he said, and the words were like some kind of ode. Tender and dirty. Just like this man. Maybe that’s why she finally was able to relax into this new sensation—because it was him. Because he wanted her in ways no one else ever had. Because he was as possessed by her as she was by him.

  At that point it was all mental. Her body was ready to receive him. He’d prepped her well. She raised her ass higher, lowered herself further on her elbows, and invited him in all the way. Her sex throbbed. Her clit ached. She was dying to be touched all over.

  He sank in. The sheer pressure spread in waves, radiating across her back, her belly, her breasts, up to her face, even. Like ripples of pleasure, coupled with this sensation of being full as she brought him inside her.

  “It’s better than I dreamed about,” he said, and his voice was the very sound of ecstasy.

  “How much did you think about this?”

  “So much,” he said huskily as he began to move in her, in time to the music, the sexy, seductive music that helped relax her even more. “Since I met you. Since that time on the Met Life Tower when I saw how beautiful you looked with your ass spread for me. I wanted to then,” he said, holding onto her hip with one hand, dropping the other between her legs to start rubbing her clit.

  She nearly screamed in pleasure from the relief. “I could tell you wanted it then,” she managed to say.

  “I love being in you,” he said on a moan, and began stroking her clit. He thrust deeper, and at one point he was so far inside her she was sure he might rip her in two, but even through all the strange and new sensations, one feeling remained true—it felt absolutely fantastic to give herself to him like this. She wanted him in every way, and she loved how he wanted her. How he never held back. How he demanded every inch of her body, and then commanded every ounce of her pleasure. And now as he drove deeper into the darkest part of her, she felt as if her body was an instrument, being played by a virtuoso who knew what notes to hit and when. He was hitting them all, and he consumed her. He stroked her throbbing clit until she could feel the crest of an orgasm, that delicious build in her belly and between her legs. She lowered herself further, her face hitting the bed now as she cried out her orgasm alert to the sound of the orchestra building towards the towering crescendo.

  She shouted his name as the cymbals crashed at the end of the piece, sending her out in a blaze of sensory glory.

  Her sounds of pleasure mingled with his as he stroked her clit furiously and fucked her ass lovingly, bringing out a shattering orgasm that made her feel as if the very world around her had been blasted apart and then stitched back together on her cries. It was bliss, it was sweet agony—it was exquisite, soul-shattering fucking.

  Even though somewhere in the dark reaches of her mind, the parts that she’d tried to shut down, she hoped that it was love. That even at its dirtiest and basest, it could be love.

  The physical didn’t lie. Even this kind of sex with Jack felt like love. She wished she could get that notion out of her head, but she didn’t want to let go of it, either. She wanted both. She wanted it all. She wanted everything with him. And she couldn’t deny that she felt the flicker of hope that he wanted it all too.

  “Oh God, I’m going to come, too,” he groaned. “Can I come in you?”

  “Yes,” she told him, loving that he asked her permission before he released himself into a new part of her body.

  * * *

  Some point later, after he’d cleaned her with the towel, he drew a warm bath. He carried her to the tub, then washed her all over, dried her and brought her back to bed.

  “Thank you,” he murmured as he kissed her neck.

  “Thank you?”

  “For giving me all of you,” he said, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close. Then he brushed her hair from her ear.

  She wished he were whispering in her ear right now. Telling her he felt the same way she did. God, it was so fucking pathetic to want to be loved this badly.

  But there was only silence. A silence she wanted to fill with all she felt for him.

  She could taste the words she wanted to say. She could feel them take shape on her tongue. They were longing to escape her lips.

  I want you to have all of me. I’m in love with you.

  She’d tried. She’d tried so fucking hard to put the genie back into the bottle. She’d worked so hard to treat this only as sex. But it was impossible. The heart wanted what the heart wanted, and that was him. All of him for all of her. She swallowed thickly, trying desperately to get rid of that lump in her throat. But then an errant tear slipped from the corner of her eye, landing on the sheets.

  He watched it fall, then kissed her eyelids. “Does it hurt?”

  “Yes,” she said, because it was true.

  She wished she could slide Jack back into the slot she’d reserved for him. But she’d fallen in love with a man who didn’t love her back. She had no one to blame but herself.

  Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice . . .

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Blunt

  He was a world-class asshole. He couldn’t do this to her. He was a ticking time-bomb, and he could explode at any minute. He didn’t trust himself. He didn’t trust his instincts.

  Awake since four in the morning, he sat parked on the couch, his head in his hands. He’d worked for a few hours, pounding out answers to emails, dealing with business issues with Casey. He’d gone for a walk, leaving behind a note that jet-lag had beaten him and he would be back with bread and croissants. He had them in a bag on the coffee table, and now he was waiting for her to finish her shower. She didn’t know he’d returned, and he didn’t know what he was going to say. But he had to tell her the truth. She’d opened up to him on everything, and he’d given her nothing.

  Soon, he heard the water stop running, then a few minutes later she emerged, her hair sleek and wet. A towel was wrapped around her body.

  She smiled the second she saw him, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “See? Two mornings in a row. I’m still not a dragon.”

  He could barely crack a grin in response. But he tried. For her. “And you still have ten toes.”

  She wiggled them. “Have you been up for a while?” she asked and joined him on the couch, tucking her feet underneath her.

  He shook his head, heaved a sigh, and bit the bullet. “Listen, Michelle,” he began, and she sat ramrod straight.

  “Listen, Michelle is never a good way to start a sentence.”

  “I don’t mean it like that,” he said quickly, trying to ease her concerns. He reached for her hand, clasping it between his, but she drew hers back. She pressed her lips tight together and motioned for him to keep talking.

  He had no choice. This was it. But hell, this was why he came to see her in the first place. He hadn’t been able to get the words out with Kana. They’d circled it and danced around it, but he’d never told her about the chain reaction his lack of love had set off. “I need to tell you the truth about Aubrey’s death,” he said as quickly as he could. This was the only way he could manage. Heave it up. No doubt it wouldn’t be the first time she’d heard someone toss his or her distorted emotions at her feet.

  Her eyes widened in shock, and her features froze. Oh, shit. She thought he did it? Well, he might as well have. She scooted away from him.

  “I didn’t kill her,” he said, backpedaling faster than he’d expected to.

  She jumped up from the couch, one hand clasping the ends of the towel. “I didn’t say you did. And I’m honestly not even sure why you would say that.”

  “Because of how you reacted,” he said, pointing at her retreating from him.

  “I’m going to get dressed,” she said crisply, and he understood the implication loud and clear. She was not going to let herself be vulnerable during this conversation.

  She moved to her suitcase and pulled on a bra and panties faster than he’d ever seen a woman slip on clothes.

  Fuck this. He wasn’t going to mince words. “I broke off the engagement fifteen minutes before she died,” he said blurting it out, and he wanted to scream from the pain. It was worse than ripping off a Band-Aid. It was like slamming his hand into a car door. Everything he’d held inside for more than a year was exposed, and it hurt like a motherfucker.

  “What?” she asked, blinking.

  Even with the ache all over, the open, bleeding wound, he had to keep going. Get it all out. “It was a week before the wedding,” he said, each word like gravel in his mouth. “I took her to the mountains for the weekend, thinking that would be the best place to tell her the news that I didn’t want to marry her.” The bitter sting of regret rose up again. How wrong had he been? He should have told Aubrey in her apartment. He should have told her at a park. Anyplace else.

  “You picked the mountains because she was a skier,” Michelle said softly, seeming to understand as she tugged on a skirt and a shirt. But even if his choice had made logical sense, it was the wrong choice.

  “The mountains were her favorite place,” he said, with a scoff directed at himself. “I wanted her to be near something she loved when I delivered the news. After I told her, she got on the slopes, tore down the hill, and hit a tree,” he said, getting the last part out as clinically as he could so he wouldn’t have to feel the fresh devastation of the moment he learned she died all over again.

  She sat down on the edge of the bed, waiting for him to speak more.

  “That part is all true,” he added, as he stood up and moved closer, but she held up a hand. This was as close as she wanted him to be. Damn. He knew this was how it would go. The second he’d opened his mouth around a woman and voiced the full truth, he’d caused more damage than he’d ever intended.

  “Okay. Go on,” she said, scrunching her eyebrows together. “What part isn’t true then? Why you didn’t want to marry her?”

  He shoved a hand through his hair, digging hard into his scalp. Is this what it would have been like to tell her in her office? As her patient? Maybe. He couldn’t know because he was someone else to her now. He was her lover who couldn’t even tell her how he felt. Frustration flowed thick in his veins. What he wouldn’t give to rid this guilt from his body. That was too much to ask, though. He sat on the edge of the table, and tore off more of the truth for her. “The image the media paints of me?”

  “The widower with the broken heart,” she supplied. “That image?”

  “Yeah,” he said, with the shame that the title brought surely evident in his features. “That image.”

  “That’s not true,” she said in a calm, comforting voice. He suspected it was her work voice, and that she’d segued into it. He only hoped she didn’t start viewing him as a project, as someone who needed fixing. He didn’t want to be that person with her. He wanted to be so much more, but he hardly knew how.

  “I cared about Aubrey deeply. I loved her as a friend. But I didn’t love her as a man loves a woman,” he said in a low voice, one he barely recognized as his own. Because he’d only said these words out loud to his sister, and to Nate. “I wasn’t in love with her.”

  “Oh,” she said on a long, loud sigh of understanding. It was all out in the open. She could see him for who he truly was. “But everyone believes you’re the person the media portrays you as. The grieving widower.” She crossed her arms, protecting herself from the man before her.

  A calloused jerk.

  He nodded. “Yes. Because that was the least I could do for her.”

  She tilted her head to the side. “How so?”

  “She died,” he said, practically shouting as the guilt charged back up through him, rearing its ugly head. “She fucking died, and it was my fault because I didn’t love her. I couldn’t be anything publicly but the grieving widower. I couldn’t go tell the world I didn’t love her. I couldn’t do that to a dead woman.”

  “I get that part,” she said, nodding several times, taking in what he was saying. Then she was quiet as she stood up, walked over to her purse and rooted around in it until she found a band for her hair. She twisted her wet hair up on her head and moved over to the couch near to him. A dangerous thing called hope dared to make an appearance. Maybe she’d forgive him. “But you think it was your fault she died?” she asked, continuing her questions. He couldn’t read her.

  “Well, yeah. I told her how I felt. She went for a run down the mountain. She was always incredibly safe, and that was the one time she was out of control. How could it be anything but my fault?”

  She didn’t speak at first. She steepled her hands together, and there was something about this side of Michelle that scared him. She’d retreated into her work mode, and she was excellent at it, but it wasn’t how he knew her and experienced her. She was methodical; she was assessing him. Even though he knew she didn’t judge her clients, he felt judged. He felt small. He felt stupid. He was all of those things and more. He deserved to feel this way.

  “Jack,” she began, her voice distant. “Why did you stay with her for so long if you didn’t love her?”

  Her question surprised him. He hadn’t expected that. He hadn’t asked himself that question. Ever. He’d only beaten himself up for not loving her. But he’d never delved into why he’d stayed with her so long.

  He parted his lips to speak, but no words came.

  She spoke for him. “You were together for a few years, and engaged for nearly a year? Why, if you didn’t love her?”

  He nodded, the hot shame rolling over him again. “I think I just felt as if we were supposed to be together. Everyone expected it. We were high school sweethearts, and then we got back together years later. It just seemed like it should have worked.”

  “But you knew you didn’t love her? How long did you know that?”

  “Several months,” he admitted, swallowing down a lump. That was the real rub.

  “What made you think you should marry someone you didn’t love? Why would you stay? That’s what I most want to understand,” she said gently.

  He answered her honestly, feeling completely exposed and naked as he bared the truth to her. That he was a man who was so disconnected from love that he stayed with someone he didn’t. “I really don’t know.”

  “Were your parents like that? Like you and Aubrey?” she asked, probing, as if she were on a fearless hunt for his truth.

  Her question echoed through the quiet room. It rattled through his head, like a top spinning wildly, then finally settling down. The light bulb went off. The buzzer dinged. And there it was. Something that made sense about his choices. An answer, maybe. A truth he could grasp. Was it that simple?