“More.”

I’d give you the fucking world.

He hummed and pushed his face closer, shaking his head from side to side, purring against her flesh when her nails scratched deeply across his scalp. His tongue moved faster and his fingers slid deeper, as sounds started to erupt from her, breathless and begging.

“Oh my God. You’re going to make me come.”

Yeah, he fuckin’ lived for it. She pulled at his shoulders, tugging and pushing while her hips ground against him, drenching his chin. She whimpered and called out, nonsensical words pouring from her mouth until her orgasm snapped and shook through her body. Carter gripped her thighs when they slammed shut around his head and she tried to move away from his voracious mouth. He devoured everything she gave him until she was begging him to stop.

I’ll never stop loving you this way.

Eventually, Carter lifted his head and gazed up at her and the glow washing across her gossamer skin. Her chest heaved heavy, spent breaths. He prowled up her body, lathering her skin with kisses, needing the warmth to keep him grounded. He knew he had to be gentle, tender. The fog of lust had started to descend, hot, frenzied, and hard, but he breathed through it. Right then, chest to chest, her hands gripping his shoulders and her thighs around his waist were enough to calm him.

He moaned into her mouth when she kissed him, tasting herself on his lips. He rested his hands on the bed next to her ribs with his cock trapped between their bodies, wet, wanting, and thick. Every time she moved, she rubbed its entire length, driving him insane, making his hips shift and rotate. He grunted when she bit his neck.

I’m yours to mark.

She lifted her legs and placed her heels on his ass. They both grabbed for him, their desperation slipping through. Carter let go first and watched as Kat guided him, rubbing the tip of his cock along her wet flesh. He sighed, furrowing his brow, enraptured. Coming together that way made Carter’s bones weak. She was soaked and so soft. Carter pushed his hips a little closer, a little harder.

Carter pulled her face to his, nibbling on her plump bottom lip. Kat’s hand pushed so that—for one incredible moment—he slipped inside. The euphoria that always came with their unions blazed up his back and sent his hips into a frenzy.

“My sweet girl,” he whispered across her throat and slowly began to push into her tight warmth. “That’s it.” A little farther. “Oh fuck.”

He lifted his head and pushed, little by little, until he was completely enveloped by her. He was home. A small sob escaped her, but Carter caught it between his lips. The urge to thrust deep and hard clawed at the base of his spine, and his knees moved upward, pushing her thighs wider apart so he could get farther inside. Their fingers entwined by the sides of her head as Carter pulled back, releasing a long groan of breath. He chanced a look down to where they joined and panted at the sight of her all over his cock, glistening and beautiful.

He gasped, sliding back in. “Do you know I’d do anything for you?” he asked. “Do you know I think about you constantly? Sometimes I think I’m crazy. You make me crazy. I’m insane when I’m not with you. Jesus, Kat, I ache.”

She grabbed at his neck.

“I need you so badly,” he continued, breathlessly. “I need us. I need to feel us like this, because I swear to God, my heart, it beats only for you.”

She squeezed his hands and kissed his neck. Their foreheads fused together and he lost himself in her heavy lidded eyes. He continued to move, slow but firm, tilting his pelvis so he reached the spot inside of her that made her breath catch. A small tightening began deep in the depths of his stomach. He gave a sharp thrust and gripped her hip harder than he probably should have. He grunted when she licked his jaw, nibbling on his Adam’s apple in reply.

She held him close, arms around shoulders, holding tight. Never had Carter been so close to her. She was all around him, and he was at her mercy, defeated but entirely victorious. But, above all, above his need to come and his slow descent into euphoric bliss, Carter felt totally and unequivocally loved. The sensation wrapped around him in the same way Kat was, warm and safe, and it crushed him in ways that were entirely fantastic and impossible to describe.

It was the weirdest, most incredible thing.

It was so much more than making love.

It was erotic, passionate, naked, soul bearing—which ordinarily would have terrified Carter.

But not now. Not with his woman in his arms. With Kat, he could take over the fucking world.

Never had Carter been so exposed but so safe.

Never had he given himself to someone so freely and expected nothing in return.

His body lifted higher and higher. “I can’t get close enough,” he confessed with a frustrated growl. He pushed harder and harder, gritting his teeth and making sounds entirely alien to him, quickly being pulled under. He held on tighter. “I’m coming. Kat.”

Carter’s neck snapped back and he shouted and cursed. His cock pulsed with blinding force, as his orgasm ricocheted through him—leaving flashes of white behind his eyes and thundering in his ears—pulsing, hot, and relentlessly hard, into her body. He snarled into her shoulder while his entire body throbbed, writhed, and twitched.

He breathed easier. He felt free. He felt good. Could he dare to believe he was good enough?

Carter clenched his eyes shut, fighting back the salt water threatening to fall, overwhelmed once again by the woman in his arms, overwhelmed by what he’d shared with her, what they’d shared together. He kissed her collarbone and breathed through it. Carter’s body shivered. He buried his face under her jaw and removed his sated cock from her warmth, cocooning himself within her arms and legs, the only sound being Kat’s heart echoing in his ear.

His heart beat back in reply.

I love you, it thrummed. I’m yours, but please, for the love of God, don’t break me.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you for forgiving me. For loving me. I don’t deserve any of it, Peaches.” He held her close. “Thank you.”

Kat murmured sleepily by his forehead, “I guess that makes us even.”

Carter closed his eyes. He knew that wasn’t true. As hard as his time away from Kat had been, Carter had had a lot of time to consider his options, and the one option that was simply impossible to comprehend was the one that saw them separated permanently.

He would not, could not walk away. He’d tried and it had crushed him.

Which left only one option.

He lifted his head and brushed her hair from her sleeping face. “Peaches.”

“Mmm.”

He drew an invisible circle under her lashes and across the flush of her cheek, considering his next words. There was no use in denying it anymore. He was responsible for the animosity between Kat and her mother. Of course, Eva hadn’t given him a chance and would no doubt laugh in his face should he try to explain his feelings for her daughter; nonetheless, Kat had already lost one parent, and he didn’t want her to lose another.

“We have to do something—something important—before we fly back to New York tomorrow. I have to do something.”

She snuggled into him. “Yeah?”

Carter cleared his throat. “I need to talk to your mom.”

* * *

Austin Ford paced like a caged lion in his office, gritting his teeth so hard Adam was convinced they would shatter. Hell, it would match the four-thousand-dollar vase that lay in a million pieces at their feet. Following Ben Thomas’s impromptu visit, the much-anticipated fax had come through from the WCS board. Its message was clear: Pack up your shit, boys. Your presence at WCS is no longer required.

Adam, for one, hadn’t been surprised, and, in many ways, it had come as a huge relief. For too long he had followed his brother through the valleys of aggressive mergers and bullying acquisitions. He’d stood back and watched in humiliated and embarrassed silence as Austin bartered and harassed people and businesses for his own gains.