Her legs trembled. Jack looked around for a chair, saw none, and hoisted her up onto the kitchen counter. He tugged the tiny wisp of stretch-lace thong off her legs, tossed it away. She balanced there, clutching his head and trembling, skirt wadded against her chest. So aroused, the feeling bordered on terror.

“I love your taste,” he murmured. “I could lick you for hours.”

“I wouldn’t survive it,” she quavered, and he laughed, pleased.

He knew instinctively just how to touch her, how deep, how hard, how soft. Voluptuous thrusts of his tongue, lapping up and down, plunging deep. His long fingers opening, stroking, while he suckled, insisted, pushing her to that screaming point of no return…and oh.

Pleasure flooded through her, deeper and wider and sweeter every time. She floated back, and found herself draped over him. He’d caught her, held her as she came.

He lifted her up so that she straddled him, and braced her against the wall, reaching down to fumble with his belt—

And her shimmering pink warmth flash-froze. Her heart skipped, bumped. Panic flashed through her. Faintness, suffocation. It was happening again.

The sickening black fog rising. Those last awful times, with Brian.

Brian had liked that position, especially when he was snorting coke. On his feet, pinning her to the wall. Or else holding her down, immobilized. His face, a taut, stiff mask of lust. Eyes fixed, staring. A million miles away. Not listening when she told him that it hurt. Not caring.

She hadn’t been able to be intimate with a man since. She’d tried a few times, but nothing but nothing wrecked the mood faster than a stress flashback. Finally she’d let it go. Learned to do without intimacy.

But goddammit, she wasn’t going to do without this.

She grabbed his shoulders. “Just a minute,” she said, gasping for breath. “Just…let me get myself together. Don’t go away.”

She could hear him talking, from far away. His tone was urgent, anxious, but she couldn’t make out the words over the frantic, deafening trip of her heart.

Breathe, silly. It’s now, not then. It’s Jack, not Brian. Get a grip.

“…okay? Jesus, Viv! What did I do?”

“It wasn’t you,” she forced out, through shaking lips. “I’m sorry.”

“What the fuck? What happened to you?” he demanded.

“It’s just…it was that position,” she said. “It just triggered some bad memories, that’s all. No big deal. I’m okay now. Really.”

“What do you mean, that’s all?” His face was pale with alarm.

Crap. So close to getting through this stone wall in her head, and she had to have a meltdown right when she got to the good part. So freaking typical.

“…memories? Can you talk about it?”

The look on his face told her that he wasn’t going to let this slide. She sighed, and gave in to the inevitable. “It was a bad boyfriend I had once, years ago,” she explained. “The relationship went sour. So did the sex. It took a while for me to pry myself out of the situation, and in the meantime, well. It left me hung up. He was heavy into control.”

She was afraid to look at Jack’s face. Pity would make her cringe.

But when she finally looked, it wasn’t pity she saw. It was a blaze of fury that made her heart do a weird galloping skip of primitive fear.

“Tell me his name, and where he lives,” Jack said. “I’ll rip that filthy piece of shit to pieces and grind him into the fucking dirt for you.”

She blinked at him, stupidly. “Ah, well. Um, thank you,” she said, flustered. “That’s a very kind offer, but I’m okay with it now.”

“You didn’t look okay two minutes ago,” he said grimly.

“I’m sorry I—”

“Stop apologizing!”

The harshness of his voice startled her. He looked away, shaking his head. “Fuck,” he muttered. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you.”

“We can’t seem to stop apologizing to each other.” She kept her nails dug into the muscle of his shoulder, as if afraid he would run away, but he didn’t. Not at all. His hands crept up, crossing his chest, to cover hers. Enveloping hers. Flooding her body with reassurance.

“Do you want to, uh, just leave it for now?” he suggested.

“No!” she yelled. “I want this! I will not let him fuck this up for me, too! He has taken enough from me already, goddammit!”

Jack started to grin. “You don’t know how happy I am to hear you say that. Just tell me what I need to do. Or, uh, not do.”

“It’s not that complicated. Just do what you do. You’re fabulous. Just not…shoved up against the wall. And don’t pin down my hands. Or my throat. And we’ll be fine. I think.”

That tightly leashed fury flashed again in his bright wolf eyes. “That sick, filthy fuckhead,” he said.

“Yeah, maybe, but now he leaves the scene,” Vivi said sternly. “No more airtime for the sick, filthy fuckhead. It’s just us now. Just Jack and Vivi, capisci? Because I don’t want any more company.”

He nodded. The silence grew so long, they both started to laugh.

“I feel really shy, now,” Jack admitted. “I think you’re going to have to choreograph this one. I’ll just follow your lead.”

“But I don’t know where I’m going,” she protested. “That is to say, I have a rough idea, but I might drive us into the swamp, you know?”

“I’ll give you a tip. Take my hand and lead me into the bedroom.”

She lifted her hands from his shoulders and grabbed his hand, pulling him into the adjoining room. It was practically empty but for the futon with her sleeping bag and her suitcase tucked in the corner.

The walls were alive with shifting green shadows from sunlight sifting through oak and maple leaves. She longed for the cover of dusk, or night, but no. It was all going to be so visible. So terribly deliberate.

She gave him a questioning look. “Next tip?”

“Take off your clothes,” he said.

She giggled nervously as she began, but she put her brave and brazen all into it. Kicking off her sandals. Peeling off her top. She stretched and preened as she pulled pins out of her hair and tossed them to the floor. The tinkle as they fell was loud in the green, flickering silence.

He watched her uncoil the long, twisted tail of red hair, shake it down into loose waves over her shoulder, her breasts. She began to circle him, and he followed her with his eyes. The movement felt ancient. A ceremony, a spiral dance, an invitation. Entwining their male and female energies into pure magic.

“The skirt,” he reminded her. “Lose the skirt.”

She loosened the drawstring and let the skirt drop. Naked, but for Lucia’s little necklace with the emerald V that she never took off.

She scooped her hair up over her head, arching her back, tossing her hair. Turning, in front of the raw hunger in his beautiful silver eyes. Not a nervous thought for her itty-bitty boobs, or her not-so-little ass, or her in-your-face tattoos. Flaunting herself. Sure that she would please him.

“Now my clothes,” he told her, kicking off his sandals.

Wow. Even his feet were sexy, and she’d never given a thought to feet before, as long as they smelled okay. His were beautiful; long and brown, with graceful toes, square nails, elegant bones.

She attacked his clothes. A goofy grin wasn’t the right heavy-eyed, sensual temptress expression she’d wanted to assume for the occassion, but she was having too much fun to pretend to act serious.

She peeled his T-shirt off inch by inch, taking the opportunity to explore his torso with her fingertips. Feeling the grain of his hair, those lean, cut muscles. Every detail sumptuously lickable.

She flung the shirt away and attacked his belt, but as she started to shove his jeans down, he stilled her hand, dug into his pocket, and fished out a string of condoms. A long string. He flung them onto the futon.

Ah. Well and good that he was prepared, but the calculated gesture struck her as a provocation. He shoved his jeans and briefs down and stepped out of them, naked, kicking them away.