“Baggage doesn’t scare me.”

“It doesn’t bother you that my family is so messed up?” she asked, because it bugged her. “It’s so uneven between us. I mean, you just offered to take me to visit my mother in prison, who’s behind bars for murdering my father for money. Meanwhile, you bake pumpkin pie for your parents every year at Thanksgiving. What could I possibly ever do for you?”

He scoffed loudly. “You have no idea what you do for me.”

“Then tell me. I can’t even imagine what I could ever do that would compare.”

“First of all, it doesn’t have to compare. You send me a selfie of us and I’m fucking ecstatic,” he said, and his voice was filled with sincerity that made her heart beat faster. He was the easiest person to please, and she loved that about him. “Think of me like a cactus. I don’t require much. A little water, some sun, I’m good.”

“I’ve often thought of you as my sunflower, but cactus works too,” she said, as a smile spread across her face. “I guess that means I’m a hibiscus. They need a ton of water.”

“That’s why we’re right for each other,” he said, and she wished she were with him right now, to see his face, to touch his cheek, to kiss those lips that said words that made her feel so much joy.

“But sometimes I worry that I don’t have enough to give,” she said, voicing her deepest concerns. That no matter what, she would always be the one needing him more than he ever needed her. “That all I’m doing is taking because I need so much. That you’ll resent me.”

“Don’t you realize? I want to give what I have to you. I’m lucky. I know that. I have an overflow of luck, happiness, all that stuff. And yeah, I don’t have family issues, but what I have instead is the ability to be by your side as you deal with yours.”

Her heart leapt. It twirled, it skipped, it tried to jump across the country and find him in New York City. “What can I give you though?” Her voice rose with worry. She didn’t want to lose him again, and she feared that all this crap in her life would be too much. Especially since there was more to come. More confessions, more secrets still to be shared.

“All I want is you. Give me you,” he said, and his words warmed her from the tips of her toes to the ends of her hair.

Later. She’d deal with the rest later. “You can have me.”

“Good. Now tell me what you’re up to right now. Right this second. I want to picture you.”

She carved out a deeper spot in her living room couch, making herself comfortable, not wanting the conversation with him to end. “Just lying here on my couch, glass of white wine in my hand, talking to the most handsome man I’ve ever known,” she said, taking a swallow of the chardonnay, then setting down the glass on the coffee table.

“Oh yeah? Sounds like you’ve got it bad for this guy.”

Shannon turned on her side, perhaps subconsciously shifting into an even sexier pose, picturing Brent’s eyes roaming her body as if he were there, his gaze holding her captive. “I tried to shut him out, but it was impossible. He’s pretty much the cat’s meow.”

“What’s he like? This guy you’re into?”

She closed her eyes, seeing him perfectly. “He’s gorgeous, he makes me laugh, he loves showering me with gifts, he has a matchstick temper—”

“Hey, now.”

“And he’s this totally sexy nightclub owner.” She was keenly aware that she was using his current job, focusing on the man he was now. Not who he used to be.

Brent played along, his deep, gravelly voice sending a charge through her as he spoke. “Sounds like this guy rocks your world. In more ways than one. Is he good in bed, too?”

“Oh, yes. He owns my body. He’s always known what to do to me.”

“What would he be doing to you right now? Kissing your neck, tugging on your hair, doing little things that get you all revved up for him?”

A gentle pulse beat between her legs as he began turning her on. “Kissing me all over. Making me want more.”

“I bet he’d tease you. Drive you wild. Work his way up and down those sexy legs of yours, all the way to your ankles.”

“He loves my ankles. Loves them in high heels.”

“Bet he makes you leave them on, because it turns him on.”

“He does,” she said, in a purr.

“Right now, I have a hunch he’d be getting you so worked up you’d breathe hard, and your knees would fall wide open for him,” he said, as if he were laying out the roadmap to her body. Her skin heated up, and that gentle pulse turned into an exquisite ache between her legs.

She let the blanket fall off her. She opened her legs. And she stopped talking about the two of them in the third person. “I wish you were here right now, Brent,” she said as she unzipped her jeans and pushed them down to her knees.

He groaned, a deep, throaty rumble that gave away all his desire, too. “I want that so much. I want you so much.”

“I want you even more than I did before. It’s crazy how much I want you,” she said, wriggling on the couch as she dropped her hand inside her panties. Her fingers slid easily between her legs, to the wetness waiting for her touch. A fresh wave of heat raced across her skin as she touched herself, gliding her fingers through all that hot desire for him.

“I don’t even know how to get through the next thirty-six hours till I can have my hands on you,” he said, huskily. “I have to have you again.”

“You will have me. I want you to have me. All of me,” she said, her breathing speeding up, her voice turning feathery. Her body tingled everywhere.

“Where is your hand right now?”

She closed her eyes and stroked her slick heat. She moaned as her fingers rubbed her swollen clit. “Between my legs. Where I want you to be.”

“Fuck,” he hissed. “Are they spread for me? So I can prop them up on my shoulders and take you deep?”

A rush of heat swooped through her. “Yes. I love it when you do that.” She let her knees fall open wider. “You can take me any way you want.”

His voice turned dirtier, harsher. “I’d like to flip you over. Put you on your hands and knees. Watch you raise that perfect fucking ass for me. Slide into you. Bury myself in you.”

She could hear his breath growing faster. “Is your hand on your dick?”

“I’m doing exactly what I stopped last night.”

“Don’t stop now. Finish this time. Finish and I will, too,” she said on a pant as she writhed into her own touch, wishing it was him, imagining he was touching her, tasting her, fucking her into blissful oblivion.

“You better finish. You better finish because I love hearing you come. I always finish you,” he said, and she moaned loudly, like she was singing a hot, sultry chorus to a song.

That song was his name, and it tumbled from her lips as desire climbed faster up her spine. “I love being on my hands and knees for you. I want you to put me there. Or bend me over the couch. Whatever you want, just please do it to me. Please. I love it all with you,” she said, as her fingers flew across her heat. She loved everything with him, every position, every moment, every touch, and every taste. Especially because he liked to dominate her, and she craved that. She hungered for the ways he needed to take her.

“Say that again. Say please again. I love it when you beg for it.”

She arched her back, thrusting into her fingers. “Please, Brent. Please make me come. I want to come all over you.”

He groaned, a feral sound, and she heard his breath hitch. He was close, too. “I’m going to make you come so hard. I want to feel you come all over my cock. I want you to lose control all over me, and scream my name so loud you go hoarse,” he said, and she imagined his big hand flying over his cock. Gripping himself. Tugging hard and rough and fast.

And she broke. She soared. She rode her own fingers shamelessly as she screamed his name, like he wanted, like he needed. “Brent.”