“Casey.”

“Too much?”

“No. Not at all.”

“Can I take your pants off?”

She hesitated. “I feel a little weird about my body. It’s so different, since the baby. I’m not saying no, just—”

“Would you feel better if we got under the covers, maybe?”

She considered it, nodded. “Yeah.”

They wrestled their way beneath the blanket, and she did feel more secure, more protected, as they pulled it up to their armpits.

Casey got his jeans kicked away, and when his hands went to her waistband, her fly, she didn’t stop him. Let him ease her corduroys down her thighs, then pushed them the rest of the way off with her toes. She was okay with her legs, but the tee was staying on. Even in the dark, even under the covers, even with this man . . . she wasn’t there yet. Maybe especially with this man. The stakes hadn’t ever felt so high with a guy before.

You’ve never been with one who treats you like this one does. Who treated her like a grown woman, instead of some lost girl in need of rescue or exploitation.

He got above her, planting his knees between her legs. “Okay?”

All she could do was nod. It took her breath away, this feeling—shocked her, like a full-body memory. To be spread open like this, and to feel a man’s excitement there, with the safety of their underwear still in place. She could handle this blunt and muted contact better than the explicit, focused attention of his fingers or mouth. She didn’t want to be mastered or taught by a lover anymore. She wanted this. Exploring and experimenting, trying things out, seeing what felt good.

And this felt wonderful. A deeper desire was stirring, a first taste of that aggressive, almost angry sensation between her legs. The urgency of sexual need. But even more intoxicating than that was the promise of what it meant—that she could still feel these things, things she’d set aside for months. For nearly a year of her life, after having been a highly sexual person for so long.

He was braced on straight arms, and she stroked the muscles there, memorizing the shapes of his biceps and forearms and shoulders. She hugged his hips with her thighs and urged him to move. When he did, she shut her eyes and fantasized.

Images flashed, the sorts of thoughts she hadn’t entertained so vividly in so long. How a man looked, during sex. The way his hips flexed and his chest muscles tightened, the way his arms and face strained as his cock rushed in and out, again and again. The way his lips parted, and the dark shadows that marked the joining of two bodies. Not romance—biology. More pornography than valentine, and so exactly what she’d been needing to take back, to reclaim.

Her softer feelings for Casey had never faded, but this . . . All this, she’d missed. The ferocity of attraction. That thing that castrated reason and had her wanting far more than she’d planned on—their underwear shoved away and his cock inside her, his body hammering. No thoughts of condoms or any other smart thing, just beastly need.

It was only her deepest self-conscious worries that held her back. That, and the very real reminder of what consequences came with such recklessness—the biggest and most life-changing consequence she’d ever weathered, asleep only paces away. That held her back from pure abandon. But it didn’t quell the need to see this man, precisely this way.

She urged his hips with her hands. “You feel amazing.”

“And you’re driving me fucking crazy,” he whispered, then took her mouth in a moment’s messy, hungry kiss.

She spoke against his lips. “I wish I could give you more.”

He straightened, shaking his head, eyes shut. “You’re perfect. This is perfect.”

“I’m imagining more,” she confessed.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve imagined everything, with you. Before the baby, and now again. I forgot how good it feels, wanting someone so much.”

“Honey.” He muttered it like an oath, like a dirty little prayer, and his body seemed to speed of its own will. “We can do anything you want. Anything you’re up for.”

“Tell me what you want. Even if I can’t go there . . . I want to hear you say it.” Just like when he’d been merely a boss and coworker to her, when the most contact they shared was his hand on her back as he slipped behind her to grab a glass or reach the register. She’d wondered then if he still wanted her, ever. If he still thought of her that way, and what he might want to do with her. “Tell me. Anything.”

He lowered to his forearms, elbows tucked up tight beside her ribs, hips pumping fast. He was so hard, he had to be aching.

“I want to fuck you. You have to know that.”

She had, once upon a time, before he’d found out she was pregnant. But he’d done so well to suppress it, since.

Yet it was still true, wasn’t it? Even after everything they’d been through. She’d never have imagined any man short of a husband could muster the loyalty to go there.

Guess I didn’t count on Casey Grossier.

“Bet you’re soft,” he whispered, lips barely an inch above hers, his breath sweet. “And warm. And wet.”

Right now she was all three. But there were things she wasn’t, anymore. That awful, loaded little word she’d both coveted and resented, formed by too many lovers’ lips. Tight.

Such an ugly adjective, yet entrenched so deeply with what she represented to the men she attracted—innocence, some promise that her defiling was theirs alone to bestow. That word came part and parcel when you looked younger than your years, when you had a small frame and a sugary accent, when you were born with eyes that sent messages without your blessing, telling the world you were one way. James was the first man she’d been with who’d not treated her like some virginal cherub—and with good reason. The way they’d met, she hadn’t exactly been the picture of purity.

“I’d die to be inside you,” Casey murmured, voice low and strained.

It was with both bravery and fear that she spoke the truth. “I’m not ready for that yet. I’m sorry.” Much as she wanted to see, even feel it, much as she wanted to please him, she couldn’t. Not yet.

He smiled down at her, body stilling. “Don’t be sorry. Last thing I want is to do something you’re not into.”

“Thanks.” It wasn’t as though she hadn’t been with men who’d been content with the opposite. “I like making you feel good. It feels as good as sex to me, just now.”

“Can I keep going?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

He paused to get his shorts off, and when the blanket slipped away, she seized that moment to memorize his naked body in the low light. He pulled the covers back over them, surely for discretion and not warmth—the room felt about a hundred degrees now.

He stroked against her, and the motions of his body and the friction through her underwear was as explicit as actual sex, after walling these feelings off for so long.

“Does it feel okay for you?” he whispered.

“It feels amazing.” Truly amazing—she’d forgotten the way the desire gathered, spurred by every sense. Beyond the thrill of his rushing cock, there was the feel of his bare skin under her palms, the weight and heat of him above her, the sounds of his panting, the smell of him, the divine spectacle of his strained face. She drew that face close and kissed his mouth, needing to taste him. He groaned softly, hips speeding.

And all at once, she felt it—a rushing, building pressure, that warm wash of sensation.

Holy shit. She was going to come. She hugged his waist a little higher, seeking the friction that had the pleasure rushing low and hot and frantic.

“Casey.”

She had no other words. She could only clasp the back of his neck and grip his arm, and hold on tight. He caught on in a blink—realized what was happening. His body tightened and the motions intensified, his pursuit going from pleasure-seeking to a focused mission. His every breath was a stifled moan now, desperate little seething huffs escaping in time with his racing hips. Her shirt had ridden up, and his head glanced her belly with every thrust. She could feel slickness there, evidence of how close he had to be himself. And that was what did her in, in the end.