This wasn’t fucking. It wasn’t even sex. Somewhere, between blow jobs in the parking lot and here in the backseat, this whole act had transformed into—oh boy, she never thought she’d be able to even think the term without giggling—making love.

Thinking that, even though the term was antiquated and silly, sent a surge of emotion through her, enhancing the gift of his physical sensations. Something about his movement, his strokes, was different that night. Special. They were powerful and focused, and they were doing things to her she instinctively knew were right.

Still, she needed . . . she needed a hand between them, rubbing where she wanted, giving her that extra push, throwing her over the edge. She needed it now, now, now. But there was no space, and he wasn’t giving her any time to think.

Leith touched his forehead to hers, his hair brushing her skin. He gave a mighty thrust, curling upward. It dragged something out from deep inside her, and she let out a ragged cry. He did it over and over, for more minutes than she could ever count. On and on, for forever and a day. Her hands scrabbled at the leather, looking for . . . what? Purchase? Something to hold on to and ride out this wave? Him?

His voice rumbled low. “I found it, didn’t I?”

“Leith . . . oh, God . . .”

He pulled out again, thrust back in in that upward motion. There.

“Stop fighting it. Let go.” Then against her ear: “Be mine.”

This was her last stand, the last measure of control she had over herself when she was around him. But why was she clinging to it? Why wasn’t she letting go? Was she every bit the control freak Aimee and Leith and so many others had made her out to be? If she was fighting it, it wasn’t deliberate.

He pushed in again and again, finding and stroking that invisible spot inside, despite the fact she’d convinced her body it didn’t exist or that it had somehow died or gone numb over the years. The rhythm changed, ramping up, his accompanying grunts turning to music in her ears. The motion pressed the top of her head against the side of the car, and she put her palms to the wall, pushing off. The resistance drove Leith in even deeper.

His knees were wedged under her legs, lifting up her body, crunching her into the tiny space, completely at his mercy. No room to twist away or do what she wanted. No room to be anything but his.

You are you, and I am me.

And I am yours, she thought.

Tremors started inside her vagina, and slowly, achingly radiated out through her body. She wanted to speak, to tell him what he was doing was magic, but she couldn’t find her voice. It had flown straight up into the stars.

“Don’t . . . stop,” she finally got out.

“That’s my girl.”

“Don’t stop,” she said again. And again, and again.

He obeyed, timing his thrusts to her words, until a brand new kind of orgasm, born of a secret place, stole her body and replaced it with a quivering, hot mass of skin and bone. She could feel sweat break out all over her skin, the warm night air sweeping over it, and Leith touching her everywhere. She was flying, her body weightless and sensitive. When she came down, he was still holding her, still moving urgently inside her, and it created a new fear—that this night, what he’d made her feel, had splintered her veins with cracks, and any move away from him would make her shatter.

She was still pulsing when she opened her eyes. Leith was still looking at her, but he wasn’t smiling. There was a beautiful animal inside him, a man of such strength whom she’d reduced to this driving need. Forget throwing giant weights around a field; this was power.

“Oh, my God.” He shuddered, grinding out her name between his teeth. Then he, too, disappeared into orgasm. She could feel him through the condom, and then his whole body turned shaky and unstable. She watched it all in a strange kind of wonder.

As he pulled out, wedged his arms underneath her back, and collapsed on top of her, she welcomed the weight. They clung so tightly to one another, she didn’t know if she’d ever be able to unhook her legs from around his hips, or her arms from around his neck. He crushed her, combined with her, and it was the most sacred feeling.

She felt blindsided by her emotions. She’d driven up to Gleann two weeks ago to put on a good party to help her sister and to honor the memory of her aunt, and instead she’d found . . . him. Leith. Never in a million years had she expected this. It certainly wasn’t something she’d been looking for. As Leith had put it, she had that “crazy job” that had long prevented her from even considering a relationship with serious undertones. Or maybe that had been her just making excuses.

The more she thought about it, the more she realized that how she felt now had everything to do with him. This never would have happened with another man, at any other time in her life. The timing, his presence, who they both were now—everything had aligned. It had nothing to do with orgasms and everything to do with her heart.

Ten years ago—or three years ago, or five and a half years ago—they might have tried to fit back together and found that the teeth and grooves in their respective gears didn’t quite match up. But somehow, being the people they were today, and finding each other again under these specific circumstances, the machine snapped together and ran way too smoothly.

Leith drew a deep breath as if to say something, but Jen cut him off. “If you want to live, do not say ‘I told you so.’”

As he lifted his head, the moonlight showed his feline grin. “I told you so.”

“Argh!” She futilely pressed at his shoulders. “Get off.”

“No.” He kissed away her protest, and she tried to hate that it worked. “I believe you were the one who got off. With me inside you. Just like I said you would.”

Involuntarily, her arms went around him again, the low rumble of his laugh against her chest.

He helped her dress in silence, passing her articles of clothing. All he had to do was pull up his underwear and smooth down his kilt. But she loved how it had gotten wrinkled, that his T-shirt was now crooked and untucked.

As he drove her back to Maple Avenue, she worried he might veer off the road, he kept looking over at her so much. He pulled the car into Mildred’s garage and as they got out, the sound of the Cadillac’s car door slamming brought back a forceful memory. Her, getting out of the Cadillac in front of the Thistle, then running around back to the garage apartment before Aunt Bev would wake up.

Jen turned to Leith, only to find he was already watching her from where he stood on the other side of the car, arms folded across his chest.

She knew full well what she’d told him back in New York, that they would try to make this work again, but was that a fantasy? A delusion? Had they been swept up by something way too quickly? They were two adults, standing in the small town in which they’d formed their friendship twenty years ago, so very far away from their current realities. The second they left this valley for good, would the glistening, sparkling bubble pop?

“Come on.” He walked to the trunk of the big, beautiful car, holding out his hand to her. “Now you’re allowed to sleep.”

She went to him willingly, because that’s what her heart demanded. As he folded her into his body in an embrace she could only describe as loving, she thought: I am in deep, deep shit.

Chapter

22

“If my event next March goes off as well as these games,” Bobbie said to Jen at eight the next morning, “I’m going to owe you a whole hell of a lot.”

The last of the 5k runners disappeared down the Hemmertex drive, the Highland cattle watching the group of fifty-four competitors stream by. Bobbie, Jen’s race assistant, clutched her tablet computer in which she’d list the finishers after they wound through Gleann, struggled up the hill overlooking the lake, and then made their way back down to the games grounds. The Kid Sprint, which would circle the grounds once and award prizes in different age groups, would go off in a moment. Tons of excited kids and camera-wielding parents milled about in the sunshine.