Walker was right.

He was so damn right.

His hand snaked around my lower back as he pulled me toward him and our lips met. I parted my lips slightly and the tip of his tongue teased mine, tentatively at first before going all-in. Happiness swirled around me on every level, and I realized I’d never felt luckier. Or happier.

He lifted me by my ass and I wrapped my legs around his waist. “I’m taking you to the bedroom. You can thank me there.”

I threw my head back and laughed. “I know I should be saying something like, ‘No, Walker, this is too soon,’ but we were in love once before so it doesn’t count, right?”

“Doesn’t count? It all counts. Every moment with you counts, Madison.” He walked us through the double-door entry to his bedroom, and I gaped at the room’s ocean view. I could definitely get used to this.

Walker placed me on the bed before he knelt, straddling my body with his. I reached for his arms, feeling his biceps flexing as I ran my fingers across them, tracing the tattoos that swirled down to his forearms with a light touch. His gaze trapped my own, refusing to release it as he slowly stretched out his legs, lowering his hips against mine as he rested his weight on his elbows. When I closed my eyes at the delicious tingles that began when he pressed all that wonderful male hardness against me, he said, “Open your eyes, babe. Look at me.”

Without conscious thought, my eyes fluttered open as my body reacted to Walker’s words and actions instinctively, no permission from me requested or needed. He asked, and I obeyed. I wrapped my arms around his neck and tilted my hips against his, trying to get closer, and closer, letting him know just how badly I wanted him inside me.

“Don’t rush me.” He focused on me intently, and the determination and passion I could see in his eyes took my breath away. “I plan on taking my time.” A devilish smirk crept across his face and my cheeks heated.

I slid my hands over his back before grasping the hem of his shirt. Tugging on it, I forced it up until he ducked his head through the opening and discarded it onto the floor. I inhaled quickly, the sight of him shirtless even better than I could have imagined. Definitely better than I remembered. His tanned skin was beautiful, all hard and smooth at the same time, and I wanted to lick every square inch of it, especially the tattoo of five numbers in a simple, but masculine script placed above his heart. When I traced the numbers with my fingers, I must have frowned in confusion because he glanced down at it.

“I got this tattoo once I started making money and traveling a lot. I was hardly ever home for a while there.”

“What do the numbers mean?”

“It’s the zip code for Malibu. I thought about getting the coordinates for our beach, but I didn’t like the way it looked. Too many numbers.”

I sucked in a sharp breath. “You were going to get a tattoo about me?”

He smiled. “This one’s about you too.”

“It is?”

“Not just you, but yeah, you’re a part of it. You were always a part of my heart, even though I swear you took it with you the day you left. I wanted to carry my home with me when I was far away. My mom, Malibu, the surf, my friends, you. As long as I kept you all right above my heart, you’d always be with me, no matter where on this planet I was at the time.”

My heart did a little flip-flop inside my chest. Everything this guy said to me made me feel like I was fourteen all over again, falling in love for the first time. The past few days had been straight out of the pages of a fairy tale, and I wanted to live my life in it.

“When’d you get so romantic?”

“Birth,” he crooned.

Swooning a little inside, I sucked in a sharp breath, wanting that magical mouth all over me.

As if reading my mind, he tugged my shirt up a few inches, leaving part of my stomach exposed. He shifted back and dipped his head to my abdomen, touching his tongue to my skin in slow, sensuous strokes. From time to time he paused, pressing his lips to my skin, dropping small kisses here and there as he ventured to the next exposed piece of me. I gasped as he gave me a small nip, the excitement building within me almost too much to handle.

“I need this off. Now.” He tugged at my shirt impatiently, then pleaded with his eyes for me to get rid of it.

“You said not to rush you,” I teased, but did as he asked.

When I dropped it to the floor, his eyes gleamed with an undisguised hunger as his gaze drifted over me, dropping to my waistband before traveling back up and stopping at my breasts, encased in a skimpy satin and lace bra. Thank God I decided at the last minute to grab my sexiest lingerie; from the looks of it, Walker liked it. A lot.

He hesitated, licking his lips like I was his last meal, so I grabbed his head, my need for his mouth on mine overwhelming any rational thought. My tongue found his as I stroked it, then sucked his bottom lip between my teeth. When I bit down gently, Walker let out a moan that almost had me screaming for him to take me. How long did I have to wait until I could feel him inside me?

Fuck taking my time; I needed him like I needed air. Walker was my oxygen and I desperately needed to breathe.

“I want you,” I huffed out between pants, my greedy hands pulling his hips into me, against me, onto me.

His head pulled back from mine, a half smirk on his face. “You think I don’t want you? I want you so fucking bad it hurts. It’s hard to go slow. It’s fucking torturous,” he said, dragging out the last word. “But I need to take my time with you. I want to remember every detail, every expression on your face, every sound you make. I want to make love to you like it’s the last time I’ll ever get to do it.”

“Why would you say that?” I asked sharply, my defenses instantly up at the notion of anything ending between us.

He chuckled. “I just meant that I want to appreciate it. But if you don’t let me take my time, it will be just as quick as if we’d done it when we were teenagers. And that would be embarrassing.”

“Fine,” I agreed reluctantly, my hormones clearly not on board the slow-moving train.

When he resumed his attention to my bare stomach, this time teasing the sensitive areas on the side of my rib cage, his tongue left a trail of warmth in its wake. I closed my eyes and threw my head back, all my senses on overload, affected by his every move. I gripped his head, threading my fingers through his short-cropped hair, my nails scratching, my fingers pulling. Wherever he was, it was never enough. I wanted him all over me, every part of him connected with a part of me. The feeling was overwhelming, all-consuming, and I’d never felt anything like it before.

After teasing every square inch of my stomach and ribs, he moved his mouth slowly up toward my breasts. With a quick one-handed flick, he unclasped my lace bra and tossed it on the floor. At least I think that’s where it landed; I didn’t know anything anymore. The room spun around me as Walker took the tip of one breast inside his warm mouth and began to suck. Teasingly, he switched between sucking and flicking me with his tongue as pleasure shot through my entire body. Pulling away from me, he moved to the other breast, already pebbled with desire and waiting for him.

As he gave attention to my other breast, he slid one hand down to my jeans, unbuttoning and pulling down my zipper. I tried to wriggle out of them for him, but could barely move any part of my body, I was so consumed with his mouth and the things it was doing to me.

He pulled away, all the heat from his body roughly torn away as he stood up and quickly ripped my pants from my legs. Before I could complain at the loss, Walker was back, his hot mouth meeting my skin again, but this time starting at my ankles and I hissed with pleasure. He worked his way up my calf, alternating between stroking me with his tongue, kissing me with his lips, and nipping at me with his teeth. By the time he reached my thighs, every nerve in my body was afire, and I trembled at his touch.