“The call I had was with an analyst from there,” he said.

“And?”

“And my mom has the markers for dementia. No shock.”

“And you?”

A long, ragged, quaking sigh, and his arms trembled around her waist. Her heart broke in an instant.

“Oh, Casey.” She wrapped her hands around his wrists and held on tight, as though that could fix it somehow. “I’m so sorry.” For him, and for herself. This was nothing like the theories she’d cooked up, for why he was being cautious about the two of them. So much worse. So much more—

“No,” he said through a hitching breath. “No, honey, I’m all right. I don’t have what she does.”

“What?”

“I’m not going to lose my mind.”

“You’re not? You’re sure?”

“As sure as science can make me. And Vince is fine, too.”

“Jesus,” she huffed, short of breath, heart racing. She craned her neck to meet his blue eyes and found tears glossing them, a sight she’d never seen before. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Sorry.”

“I thought you were upset.”

“No, no. I’m just . . . I’m rattled. Relieved, but a little messed up. I’ve been operating either out of denial, or under the assumption that I was going to go crazy for so long . . . I think I’m in shock.”

“It’s good news, though. It’s all good news, right?”

He nodded—she felt the gesture and heard his relief in the next exhalation he let go. “It’s the best fucking news ever.”

“I wish you’d told me before, what it was all about.”

“No, you don’t. You’ve had enough to worry about.”

That was probably fair. But what did all of this mean for them?

“How long have you been worrying about this?”

“For a few years, now—that’s when the episodes started. But I blocked it out for most of that time. I can be real good at denial, when it serves me.”

Can’t we all?

“It was after I came home and saw how bad my mom had gotten . . . Then I was fucking scared to death. Too scared to get the testing done, even. It seemed better to just live in the moment and ignore what might be coming.”

“Why’d you change your mind?”

“Partly Duncan. He suggested the testing, last fall. And once we’d gone into business together, it started weighing on me more. I mean, before, my future was nobody’s concern except mine. But now I have him counting on me. And my brother, since I’ve started pitching in, helping with our mom. And . . . and you. You and the baby. You depend on me.”

“Well, yeah, I have. But you shouldn’t feel like—”

“No. No, I like that you do. Maybe a year ago, the thought of it would’ve sent me running for the hills, but now, here, actually being that for the two of you . . .” He unlaced his fingers and turned his hands around to take hers. He balled them into fists and squeezed them. “I meant what I said in the car. I like how it feels. Being useful. Or needed.”

A hopeful and possibly naive thought occurred to her. “Do you think this is going to change things for you? I mean, do you think that whatever it is you used to do—the shady stuff—do you think maybe you chose that because you figured you had nothing to lose? No future ahead of you, so fewer worries about doing something to mess that future up?”

“No doubt. I’ve always operated thinking, well, if I’m fucked no matter what I do, I may as well make a load of easy money and enjoy it while I can.”

“And this changes that philosophy?” She wanted to hear him say yes. Without knowing what he’d done and how bad it might have been, there was no telling if she’d change her mind about being with him. But hearing him say he’d do things differently now, that his priorities were changing . . . She’d be a liar if she said that wouldn’t weaken her hold on her feelings for this man.

“Course it does,” Casey said. “The things I’ve done . . . Well, let’s just say that the threat of a life sentence is a lot more scary when you know your lucid years could go on for another five decades.”

“Life sentence?” she echoed, all at once unnerved. She turned around to face him.

He smiled and smoothed her hair. “I promise you it wasn’t anything violent.”

“That’s something . . .” That was a whole heck of a lot, but . . . “But that’s still scary.”

“Never scarier than now that I have a real life ahead of me. Trust me. I’m changing.”

What about your feelings for me? Does this change them at all? She’d grown bolder these past few days, more demanding, but she didn’t yet dare ask that question aloud.

She wanted to cling to him in the wake of this talk, in any way she could manage. Sex seemed the context least likely to give away exactly how darn attached she’d grown.

“You said you like feeling needed by me,” she said.

“More than I’d ever expected I would.”

“I’m glad. And I do need you. In more ways than you know.” As she stroked her hand down his chest, his eyes widened and his lips parted. She felt a rush at those changes, excitement to watch him transform, the relief on his face tensing to something darker. “It’s meant a lot to me, being with you this week. I’ve gotten back a part of myself I’d almost forgotten about; it’s been so long since I’ve felt these things. Been this way.”

He swallowed, looking hazy. “You have no idea how goddamn good that makes me feel, honey.”

“You just found out you’ve got your whole future ahead of you,” she whispered. “We should celebrate that. Celebrate life.”

“Amen.”

And she welcomed his warm weight on her, his knees between hers, his mouth when he kissed her, deep. And when the time came to welcome his cock, she reached for the lube herself, no longer intimidated.

He sank inside with a breathless shudder, looking overcome. She stroked the goose bumps that rose along his arms, marveled at him. She marveled at herself, even, at the hunger in her motions, the abandon she felt with this man. She marveled that sex could be so freeing, so intuitive and natural.

So many times, he’d asked her what she needed, here in this bed. Tonight he wouldn’t have to ask. She’d show him with her body, tell him with her words, unbidden.

She stroked his hair, his face, his arms. “You feel good.”

He moaned, hips speeding.

“I like that,” she whispered. “When you go faster.”

“Yeah?”

She smiled, nodded. “I like seeing what I do to you.” And someday she wanted to hear it, too, just like he’d said. The two of them, alone, and that voice she loved so much, unbridled.

So tell him so. “I want to know how you’d sound, if we were alone.”

“And I wish I could let you hear it.”

“Give me a taste. Just quiet, in my ear.”

He shifted lower, weight on his forearms, and put his mouth to her temple. His breath alone was enough to tighten her sex around his.

“Wouldn’t be quiet at all, if I had my way.” He was so close, she could hear his lips and tongue shaping each word.

“Just a taste.”

His hips slowed, and that voice dropped as low as she’d ever known it. A dark moan rose and peaked each time he drove deep. Her fingers curled against his back, nails digging, and she hugged her legs tight to his waist.

“You like it fast, though,” he whispered, and nipped at her ear, took her a little quicker. He gave her the sound of his breaths, raw and tight, until she was pawing, panting, squirming beneath him.

“You ever touch yourself, honey?”

“Sometimes.” She felt that familiar trickle of shame cool her body, melted in a beat by the fire raging between them.

“Do that now,” he said. “Let me see. Let me feel you come, with me inside you, just like this.”

She’d never done that—never dared to, never imagined it was an option. She’d have thought such a measure would hurt a man’s ego, though once again, she’d not counted on Casey Grossier.

“I’ll let you see, if you let me watch you,” she told him. “Lean back a little.”

He gave more than that, planting his knees wide, sitting upright, holding her hips. He let her see everything happening between them, and she feasted her eyes. When her hand slid down her belly to tease her sex, she felt no shame, no embarrassment. Watching his hips roll, his muscles clench, watching his skin, flushed and gleaming in the lamplight . . . she was too full up with lust to leave room for anything else. Too full up with lust to just lie there, in fact.