Knox barks out an abrupt laugh. “And I didn’t put you through the ringer with my stupid fucking test?”

“It wasn’t stupid,” I cry.

He curses again. “I wish we weren’t in this fucking car, because I need to hold you right now.”

“Where are we going?” I use the veil to wipe my tears. I hope mascara comes off tulle.

“Hotel.” He grins. “Gift from my parents.”

“I can’t believe they let you get married.”

He drapes an arm across the back of my seat and tangles his fingers in my hair. “We’re adults. I’ve always known what I wanted since I came out of the womb. They knew better than to argue.”

I suppose that’s right. He’s a bulldozer, forging forward to take what he wants. And somehow he wants me. “I love you,” I whisper.

His hand tightens in my hair and he makes a sharp right into a parking lot of a strip mall that’s apparently closed for business on Sundays, because the lot is empty. In one swift movement, he has the parking brake on and my seatbelt is off. He hauls me over the console and into his lap. It’s a tight, uncomfortable fit. The steering wheel digs into my side. My legs dangle awkwardly over the console. Knox’s seat belt hadn’t fully retracted in his haste, and it pokes into my right butt cheek.

But I’ve never felt better.

I allow my hands to roam over his gorgeous face and into his hair. It’s getting long enough to brush the collar of his suit coat. I take one deep breath after the other, filling my lungs with his scent.

My tears start falling.

“No, no, please stop,” Knox says in a panic. “What can I do?”

His hands try to brush away my tears and the sweetness of the gesture only turns up the waterworks higher. I don't make any effort to stop them or him.

“These are happy tears,” I inform him gladly. “I didn’t think I’d ever have the chance to touch you again.” I take his hands, placing them over my sweater covered breasts. Instinctively, his palms curl around the round flesh. His thumbs graze my sensitive tips. “You feel so good,” I moan. “Never stop touching me.

“I won't,” he swears. “I won't ever stop.”

He curls forward, closing the small distance between us. His mouth meets mine with so much tender love I explode in bliss. He tastes minty and male and so wonderfully familiar. His tongue snakes inside to rub against the roof of my mouth, along the ridges, setting off a riot within my taste buds. He’s the best thing on the menu, the only flavor that will ever appease my growing hunger.

I run my hands freely underneath his suit coat. We have a mountain of clothes between us and I’m desperate to get them off. I want that the hair-roughened skin against my more delicate frame. I want to run my tongue over those hard muscles and take the hardest, velvety part of him into my mouth, into my body, into me.

“We need a bed,” I whisper throatily against his mouth.

He groans and tightens his hands around my breasts one more time before lifting me back onto my side of the vehicle. With exquisite care, he reaches over and buckles me in. Satisfied that I’m secured, he reaches a hand up to my face and brushes my hair back. “I love you, Eliot Masters. I still love you.”

Water drips down my face. “If you want me to stop crying, you can’t say those things to me.” I clutch at his hand and presses waterlogged kisses into his palm.

He releases a small huff of laughter. “I guess you’ll cry a lot then.”

“Will you cry if I tell you I love you back?” I nuzzle my cheek into his hand.

“Maybe. Why don’t you give it a try?” The evenness of his voice is an effort.

“I love you.”

He doesn’t cry, but his eyes soften toward me and love shines through; better than tears in my opinion.

Knox puts the vehicle in gear and heads downtown to the hotel. We get there, but I don’t remember the trip. All I know is that I can touch him again, feel him, breathe him in.

That he’s mine again…and forever.

•••

“I feel…discombobulated,” I admit as we wait for the hotel elevator. People stare at us. I suppose we do look a sight. My veil is askew and Knox’s jacket drapes over my shoulders.

“I told Matty that’s how I felt. Thick headed and muddled. We concluded it’s how quarterbacks must feel when they’re sacked.” He ushers me onto the elevator.

“So we’ve gotten sacked by love?” I snort. It’s corny but sweet, and totally Knox. At the core, he’s a romantic. The man saved himself for the right girl and somehow, I’m her. All my life, I’ve never been anything but Jack’s sister. To Knox, I’m the person he waited for his entire life.

“Yeah, but we’re never saying that shit again.”

I hide a smile. At least now I have something to torment him, and Matty, with. Sacked by love! How hilarious. The elevator stops at the fourth floor and Knox leads me to our room.

My humor turns quickly to something else, because the minute the door of the hotel room closes, Knox has me up against the door. His hands shove my jacket off. His mouth fastens to mine. We each toe our shoes off and leave them haphazardly in the entryway. His jacket gets tossed onto the sofa as we pass by it.

He pulls me toward the bedroom, not once lifting his head. We kiss like the world will end tomorrow. Like we haven’t seen each other in years. Like he’s a soldier returning from an endless deployment.

We kiss like we love each other and don’t know how to express it in words, only in touch. His tongue works against mine in ways both fevered and reverent. I can’t imagine kissing another man. I don’t want to. This taste, this touch, this tenderness is all I will ever want or need.

In the bedroom, we tug at each other’s clothes. Our mouths separate so we can get rid of his suit coat.

“Nice.” Knox waggles his eyebrows as my skirt comes off with one tug of the bow. We both pull off my sweater and bra until I’m in nothing but a pair of pink panties.

He pushes me onto the bed. “I’ve missed your hot body,” he says before lowering his head to pay homage to one very erect nipple. The other nipple gets plucked and tugged by his left hand while his right makes quick work of the buttons on his shirt.

We both groan when his hand finds its way between my legs.

“I love how wet you get for me,” he mutters against my breast. “Wet and hot.” He sinks one finger inside me and I nearly expire right there. “Wet and hot and tight.”

“It’s been so long.” Three weeks has been three years, he’d said; right on the money.

“Yes,” he starts to dip lower, but I grab his shoulders.

“What is it? That time of month?” He looks anguished and I have to stifle a laugh.

“No. I need you inside me. Now. Because it’s been so long.”

He understands. I see it in his eyes, the way they darken and become hungry. Well, hungrier.

He pushes to his feet. As his hands go to his waist, I suck in my lower lip in excitement. He's so beautiful and I pause to take it in. Everything about his frame speaks of power and strength, from the width of his shoulders to the massive span of his arms. But there’s vulnerability, too, in the surprisingly narrow waist, accented by the hard obliques, and centered by the slabs of rectangular muscles outlining the dark hair arrowing down to the heavy shaft that bobs eagerly in the air as Knox steps out of his pants. He shrugs off his shirt, removes his socks, and then stands motionless before me.

I run my eyes over every inch of him once, and then do it again. It’s hard to believe that all this goodness is mine.

“Like what you see?” he mocks gently.

“Yes, very much so.”

“My turn,” he says and reaches for me. I lie back and let him remove my panties. He reaches between my legs and strokes me lightly, teasing me even after I told him I could not wait. “You’re fucking gorgeous, Ellie. Fucking gorgeous.”

He lowers himself between my legs and runs his big hands along my ankles to my knees, then to my inner thighs, until his thumbs meet at my sex.