I hesitantly move closer.

Closer.

Then I give in to the untamed thing inside my soul and kiss him.

I’m against him with my body, pressed to his mouth with my lips and molded to his skin with my hands. I want him. No, I need him, and he needs me. Not just in desire, but in life and healing. And here we are, under the sound of rain against the window, the fields. Alive.

He kisses me back, and there’s nothing between us anymore. Sadness and pain and loss and regret still exist, but they swim around us, unable to break through the wall we built decades ago. With friendship. With love.

His mouth moves against mine as he wraps his hands around my body, holding me steady, setting me free. My lips part and his tongue sweeps inside, pulling hot breaths from my chest as our tongues meet and mend.

I grip his shoulders, trying to climb up his body so I can sink into him. His hands lock on to my waist and his fingers slip under the raised hem of my shirt, pressing into my back. I can feel each pad of his fingers, like small flames branding fingerprints into my hips, my spine, my bare skin.

I lift up on my tiptoes as our kissing becomes desperate and breathy, shoving my hands into his hair and feeling it run through my fingers for the first time. It’s intimate, the feel of his hair gliding between my fingers.

His hands run under my shirt and around the sensitive skin of my belly. I whimper into his mouth as every muscle in my body is clenching beneath his touch. I want to arch my back. I want to climb inside him.

His mouth moves to my throat, where he barely sets his lips against my windpipe. Not kissing. Not licking. Just breathing. And God, I’m melting.

My body is wet and wanting, and I want to cry almost as much as I want to howl. I tip my head back and gasp as his tongue slowly burns against the vulnerable skin there.

I cup his face and pull his mouth back to mine so I can kiss and grab and hold every piece of him. His scruffy jaw sits in my palms as I devour him, and I love the sensation of his rough stubble against my soft skin. Burning me. Marking me.

He picks me up and moves us to the bed, where I’m soon on my back and rolling my hips up to meet him. We pull at each other’s clothes and skin and hair until he’s only in his jeans and I’m only in my panties. I’m out of breath and wild inside. I feel like an animal and a goddess at the same time, tearing into him with my tongue and my nails and not getting enough. Not nearly enough.

His hand runs up the inside of my thigh to right where I need him, and my eyes flutter. Guttural sounds fall from my mouth, and he growls—he growls—in appreciative response. God. I want him to growl more.

I run my paint-covered hands all over his body as his mouth travels to my chest. He pulls his head up and stares down at my scar in the stormy moonlight, and my body tenses.

I’m afraid he’s going to change his mind and stop touching me. But instead, he slowly leans back down and presses a soft kiss to the top of the scar.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers. He places another soft kiss just below the first, his lips featherlight as they brush against the red mark. “I’m so sorry you wear this.”

I skim my hands up his back and into his hair, stroking the strands as gently as he’s kissing my scar and loving that his lips—Levi’s lips—aren’t afraid to touch my brokenness. “I’m not.”

He looks up from under his dark lashes, his mouth still against my damaged skin.

“My scar reminds me of my hero,” I say.

At first, I think he’s going to refute my words. But quick as lightning, his mouth is back on mine, kissing me like he needs me. And I need him right back.

His back is too broad for me to get a good grip on him, but I sink my fingers into his shoulder blades anyway, grasping at his hot, slick skin as he kisses down my jaw and over my chest. He sucks on my nipple, and I’m pretty sure I would scream if I wasn’t so busy trying to catch my breath. He suckles and cups my other breast as I arch in to him and yank him tighter to me before he moves his mouth down to the sensitive skin of my lower stomach and pulls my panties off.

His hands, his mouth, his everything, work against me, finding wetness, finding the only part of my body that can leave me empty of everything but primal need, and then his mouth is between my legs.

Not touching me, just breathing—which is crazy arousing. Hot, deliberate exhales tickle the sensitive flesh spread out for him, and it’s all I can do not to scream and cry and wail in desire. I shove my hands in his hair and grip his head as his tongue slips from his mouth and slowly licks a trail up the crease where my hip meets my thigh and back down to the most southern skin of my belly. And then slowly, so slowly I think I might die, his warm, wet tongue gently strokes the very center of me with three soft caresses.

Holy hell. Sweet Jesus in heaven. Son of a biscuit eater. I’m in heaven.

Figuratively. Literally.

Heaven.

His tongue rolls over me twice more, and I cry out and fall apart and lose my mind under the blinding and brilliant sensation of his mouth. My thighs tremble violently as I arch my back and claw at the sheets. I don’t know where I am or what my name is or how to breathe, but who the hell cares about minor details like breathing?

Levi Andrews just undid my whole world. With his tongue.

“Condom,” he says breathlessly.

I force my eyes open. “What?” Is someone talking to me? Who DARES to interrupt my bliss?

“Condom,” he repeats.

“Oh. Yeah,” I say. “Good idea. Uh…” My brain doesn’t work. My brain doesn’t work. “My purse!” Brain working now. “My purse.” I point to where it sits on the floor.

He shimmies off the bed and starts digging through my bag. “Why do you have so many condoms in here?” He pulls one out and rips it open.

“Because my best friend travels like a porn star,” I say absently, my muscles flexing with needy bliss.

Did I just call Jenna my best friend?

Levi climbs back on the bed. “Remind me to ask you about that later.”

“Absolutely,” I say, my body still quaking. “We’ll have that conversation right after our conversation about knocking on Pixie’s door before entering her bedroom.”

He puts the condom on and smiles. By the time he’s hovering over me again, I’m pulling at his large body, trying to bring him into me like my vagina is starved and dying. On his elbows above me and with his body up against mine, he stops and stares down at me. Terrified. Nervous.

I shift my hips and whisper, “Please.”

“You sure?”

“God, yes. Yes, yes, yes—”

He pushes into me and I howl like a werewolf. Seriously. It’s that kind of doglike sound that comes out of my mouth. But I don’t care because Levi is inside of me and I feel complete.

He slowly pulls out, eases back in, and I moan impatiently. I don’t want slow.

I’m pulling at him, slapping at his back for more, for faster, and he just smiles at me, driving me crazy with slowness and gentleness.

I whisper, “Pleasepleaseplease—”

And then he shoves inside me, deep and full, and starts pumping away just like I need. He rocks out of me, then back in, until I’m once again on the verge of barking at the moon. I’m clawing at his back, breathing out moans and breathing in spearmint and safety and friendship and hope and healing.

Lightning strikes, and the room fills with thunder and blue light.

Yes.

Rain beats down on the window. The lavender field outside.