“Jesus!” Leith lunged, caught the stick just before it hit the ground. “Watch the truck!”

“Sorry, sorry.” She helped him get it out and laid it on the grass just inside the yellow circle made by the headlights.

He moved to the back of the truck, forcing her to follow.

“You’re not actually thinking about welching on the bet, are you?”

He turned around, mid-eye-roll, to find her much, much closer than he expected. There was a soundless bang inside his mind and a virtual lurch of his heart as he looked down at her and found himself caught between two worlds.

The thing was, for the last ten years, all he’d had of her was the past. An eighteen-year-old Jen owned the images and memories that had remained in his mind, and they carried such mixed messages. Most good. Some sour.

He realized something profound. It felt better to be with her today than it had back then, because of the time spent apart. Because of who they’d become during those years. Because of who they were today.

“I’m not welching,” he said, suddenly finding it difficult to swallow. “I haven’t been—”

“Don’t even say you haven’t been working out.”

“I was going to say training, which is an entirely different thing. And I’m not warmed up at all.”

“So get warmed up.”

The invitation couldn’t have been more intentional, more sexy. Just looking at her mouth fed his brain some pretty wicked pictures—ones sprouted from memories of what she’d once felt like, and enhanced by a man’s experience and exposure. And ones from just a few days ago, when he’d teased himself with her lips. The things he wanted to do to her . . . the things he wanted her to do to him . . .

But.

This had all happened once before. He’d pursued her, caught her, and in the end she’d slipped free, run off. Only this time he was under no assumption that she would stay. After all, neither would he. So why did he still want more? He knew the dangers, the stakes, and yet he wanted to be more to her than someone reappearing out of the past. He wanted her to be more than that to him, but there was no way, in this universe, that that could happen.

Fuck it.

He grabbed her. Just shoved his hand around her waist, pulled her to him with a not-so-tender yank, and wrapped his other arm around her body, fingers splayed between her shoulder blades. He waited for her to protest, to push away, to say something that would contradict her earlier invitation, but then he felt the pressure of her arms around his neck, and it wasn’t gentle at all.

Despite the speed of the embrace, the clinging desperation of it all, the kiss happened slowly. It took forever to reach her mouth, and he savored every millisecond.

The other night against his back door, that hadn’t been a true kiss. This, this, was their first kiss.

He thought “first” kiss because it was, in fact, entirely new. A first kiss with this new woman he somehow knew so well. It was the strangest feeling in the world. And also the most wonderful, the most natural. All his other first kisses—yes, even with her that night outside the Stone—had been precursors to true emotion, driven solely by a teenager’s throbbing need. But this time, the emotions were already there. Already strong. His head felt light, spinning. His arms tightened on their own, needing no prodding from his brain. Tilting his head, he deepened the kiss.

Holy hell, her mouth. He couldn’t exactly recall her taste from all those years ago, but it didn’t matter because it was now all new. Jen. Here. Now. The taste on his tongue was exquisite—fine and sweet and rich. They were perfectly in tune, on the same beat, sharing the same need as the pressure and intensity of the kiss evolved into something almost painfully hard and teasingly soft.

In the back of his mind he was sure he’d kissed other women in the past ten years, positive that he’d slept with some of them, too, but the feel of Jen in his arms, in his mouth, erased all that. There were no others. He couldn’t recall a single moment in time when she wasn’t wrapped around him. Couldn’t remember a single one of those bad dates and relationships with unsuitable women.

Her fingers curled into his hair. She’d never been able to do that before, and it caused waves of sensation to ripple across his scalp. She gripped him like he was about to dissolve, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth. He wasn’t going anywhere.

He was, however, losing it. Fast. The fact that she’d angled her body, turning him so his back hit the lowered hatch, and then essentially started to climb him, didn’t help. If there was anything he needed right now, it was control.

In a swift movement, their mouths never releasing, he flipped her so her back was the one against the truck. There was a moment’s pause, a simple stillness of her mouth that either spoke of shock or dislike, but he didn’t care. He sank down, knees bent, and nudged her legs apart so that he could fit himself against her body. As he expected, it was the perfect puzzle piece, the one you search for on that table of a thousand tiny others.

He thought he might have made some sort of sound, because he could feel his throat vibrate, but he couldn’t hear himself over the way her presence rang in his mind. And maybe he was moving, too, but his body seemed to be following the direction of his heart. Blood thumped in raging rhythms in his dick, and his movements were loose and uncontrolled.

Then she started to move. The slow undulations of her hips, perfectly angling the sweet warmth of her body against his hard-on, suddenly made him intensely aware of himself and his needs. As well as their past and lack of any future.

He wrenched his mouth away, desperate to breathe. Desperate to take hold of reality again. His forehead dropped to the curve of her neck, and he thought the whole world might shake with the force of his heartbeat. Her hands slid from his head, over his shoulders, to rest on his chest. Her cheek felt so warm against his ear.

“Jesus, Jen . . .”

He meant to take a break, to get a handle on himself, he really did. But there was hot, soft skin less than an inch from his lips. His tongue darted out, and it was just that little taste that got him going again. Pushing a hand into the hair that felt as smooth and dark and luxurious as it looked, he tilted her head to an angle he liked and gave himself the exquisite treat of her neck. At first she offered no resistance, and images of how else he could arrange her—on her back, on her knees, on her belly—flashed in smoky, sexy moving pictures behind his eyelids.

Then she pushed him off her, his mouth releasing, and his face was in her small hands. Her mouth was swollen, her eyes clear with wide-eyed wonder.

“I think I missed you,” she said. Then she gave a little shake of her head as if to clear it and even in the very dim light, he could tell she’d reddened. She hadn’t meant to say that; the admission had sneaked out under cover of desire, and he loved it.

“You think?” he teased. With a nudge of his chin, he indicated the big, open back of his pickup truck. “I want to see you up there.”

She glanced dubiously over her shoulder. “Are you forgetting the last time we tried to do it in the back of a truck? We woke up the whole town with the squeaking.”

He ran a loving hand over the taillight. “Aw, that was the old truck with the bad suspension and the rusty fender. This baby’s practically brand new. Made for me in every way.”

She rolled her eyes, but it was with a smile.

“Come on. Get on in.” Then, leaning over to brush her lips with words, he added, “Promise the only thing that’ll be making noise up there is you.”

The way she drew back no more than a centimeter, the way her breath gave a little hiccup, had him shaking with anticipation. If lust had an image, it was her face at that moment. Her body felt so warm and free, but there was still an underlying tension, issuing a challenge he was more than willing to take up. He wanted to explore her new curves with his eyes and mouth and hands. He was dying to know how his larger body would fit into hers.