8

It took April three weeks to find a new apartment, not for lack of trying. Eventually she found a place close to the city center and the offices where she worked. During those three weeks, there had been moments where she felt that she had found what she had always been searching for with Max out at his ranch. He never made any sort of advance towards her, but he was the kindest man she’d ever met. At times, she felt the air around them sizzle with electricity, and yet both of them seemed content to ignore the feelings passing between them. After all, it wouldn’t be right. Would it?

On the evening that her new lease was e-mailed to her by the owner, she bought a bottle of champagne and met Max out on his ranch. He had taken the night off and was sitting out on the front porch watching out over the cattle grazing beside a stream.

“I have good news,” said April.

“Is that a fact?” said Max, smiling.

“Yup, hold on.” She went to the kitchen and returned with two champagne flutes. As she set them down on the porch’s balustrade, she noticed that instead of feeling excited for the new road ahead of her, she only felt regret. She popped the cork into the field laid out before them and poured each of them a glass.

“What are we celebrating?” asked Max, taking his glass from her.

“I found myself an apartment,” said April. Max’s eyes became downcast, but he smiled anyway.

“That’s…um…that’s good news,” said Max as they clinked their glasses together.

“Yeah, the owner says I can move in tomorrow. I’ll take the day off work to get settled in and—”

“April,” said Max. “I have to tell you something.”

“What is it?”

“I didn’t want to say anything before. I didn’t want you to feel like I was rushing you after everything you’ve been through, but…”

Max set down his glass and stood up to face her, then he took her glass from her and set that down as well.

Their gazes bore into each other with everything left unspoken between them; all the things they were too afraid to say or even to accept to themselves. For a long time no words passed between the two of them. The simply stood, drowning in one and other’s gaze.

Then his fingers found hers and in those moments, April’s doubting mind was silenced and all that remained was the feeling of his presence and the deep rhythm of his breathing. Her body yearned for him and took control of her. She lifted herself onto her tiptoes to better reach his lips and felt the weight being taken up into his strong arms.

As their lips met, words became unnecessary. She could feel his yearning, his longing for her to stay, even, she imagined, the fear of losing her. She returned the desperation of his kiss. It was finally clear, though she still couldn’t quite believe it; they both wanted the same thing.

The intensity of the kisses became almost too much to bear and she pulled away from him, her breasts heaved as she fought to catch her breath. Her skin tingled and every part of her felt suddenly alive. She made to kiss him again, but when he leaned forward, she pulled away again.

“You’ll have to catch me,” she whispered, backing away from him.

He took a slow step forward, then another as she backed away, retreating into the house. Soon her cautious retreat broke into an all out sprint up the stairs, crying out with childlike laughter as he bolted after her. She made it into his bedroom before he cornered her against the wall beside his bed.

“For a marine, you aren’t so quick,” she said, teasing him, their lips once more hovering millimeters apart. “I almost outran you.”

“Almost, but I know the lay of the land here, ma’am,” he said.

She kissed him again then and the excitement in her belly became a fluttering of wild butterflies. They became lost in the mad rush, tearing at each other’s clothing, desperate to remove anything and everything that separated them. As her panties slipped from her ankles and were discarded across the room, he lifted her into his powerful arms and they landed in a heap together on the bed, a tangle of kisses, limbs and naked flesh.

She could feel the raw power of his muscles as he spread her out, laying her open and vulnerable, pinning her wrists and kissing her neck, her face, biting at the lobes of her ears. The rush of lust had rendered her helpless to him. She could do nothing but writhe beneath him, her hips straining to meet his. But now was his turn to tease her.

His fingers moved across her electrified skin, pinching the throbbing nubs of her nipples, twisting, sucking, while she yearned for him to be inside her. His mouth moved over the plane of her belly, kissing her navel, her inner thighs, her ankles then back towards the part of her that craved him the most.

As his face plunged between her legs, she could do nothing but ride the heavenly waves of his tongue and curl her fingers into the brush of his short hair. Her breath came out in heavy moans and even her scalp tingled with the sheer enormity of sensation engulfing her.

By the time he came up, she was breathless and half drunk on their chemistry. She guided him to her entrance, her hips rocking up to take him, but he seemed to be working on a deeper, longer rhythm, one that tortured her with its excruciating slowness, but she knew that when it came, it would be unlike anything she had experienced before.

Despite her urgings, he slid into with such measured increments that she could feel every nuance of thickness and texture with exquisite clarity. She closed her eyes, allowing him control and savored each inch of him as it filled her.

And then, just as she knew it would, his self-control wavered and broke and he took her with all the force and urgency that she could handle.

Minutes or hours later, she had lost all sense of time or how many times she might have climaxed, she found herself straddled on top of him, his back rested against the bed’s headboard, his arms bracing her back. They moved in a lust-drunk rhythm of ecstasy and she wished that she could spend forever just like that, him inside her, closer than any two people could physically be, staring into those eyes that went on forever and ever and ever.