“Are you hungry,” Owen asked as he pulled into his parking spot. Lainey stared at him.

“No,” she said. Something about his demeanor had changed, gone cold on her, on the drive to his place. She threaded her fingers together and waited as he got out and did his usual door-opening, handing-her-out thing. They stood with bodies close together on the hot asphalt a few seconds. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve ruined everything telling you all my stupid shit. I should have just…”

“What? Not told me? Let me find out on my own?” His voice was tight as if his throat was constricted.

“No. I should have let you fuck me then I could leave town and keep running from him without you ever knowing how stupid I was to marry such an asshole.” She bit her lip and willed the tears not to fall. They obeyed her for a change.

“Oh, Lainey, I’m not gonna fuck you.”

She frowned and looked up at him. He ran his fingertips across her cheek, down her neck, across her shoulders, down her arm then cupped her breast, making her gasp and lean into him.

“I’m not gonna lie, you’re confusing me a little.” She put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him, loving the salty ocean flavor on his lips. He made a sound, low down in his throat, and gripped her tight, owning her with the sort of kiss that she’d read about but never experienced until this moment.

“I’ve done a lot of fucking in my life,” he said when he broke away, keeping her pressed against the side of the Jeep. “Too much fucking. Not enough love making. I know it sounds weird but—”

“No,” she said, putting her fingers on his lips. “It sounds perfect. I asked you to make love to me, Owen. It’s what I want. Not fucking. Not tonight.”

He grinned and stepped away from her, held out his elbow and they walked into his cool apartment together. “I want a shower first,” she declared. She headed for his bathroom and turned on the giant overhead nozzle full blast. With a sigh, she untied the various strings on her new bikini and stepped into the glass-enclosed space, pressing her hands against the tile as the hot water sluiced across her shoulders. She found some shampoo and worked up a great lather with it.

The suds flowed down her body as the hot water steamed up the glass. Lainey cupped her breasts and teased her nipples, feeling safe and loved and ready for anything with the man she’d spent the afternoon with today. Humming to herself, she rotated under the massive spray of water, undulating and shimmying to her own inner music. When actual music hit her ears, she smiled and turned to see him—Owen, her man, her…dare she even think this word…hero.

He was naked. All the way naked, without his prosthesis, and leaning on the vanity top to balance himself. She could see the sparkle in his blue eyes through the steam. She wiped a peephole on the shower glass and waved to him. He leaned back and put his hand on his mouth-watering erection. “Go on,” he said over the music. “Dance for me.”

She smiled and turned around, letting the music transport her, shutting out her crappy reality as she ran her hands down her still soapy skin.

“Touch yourself, Lainey,” Owen said softly.

He was up against the shower now, his one hand on the glass, the other stroking his cock. She licked her lips and let her fingers trail downward, stopping between her legs. Her clit was ready for her, so she spread her legs and stroked herself, her hand pressed against Owen’s on the other side of the shower glass.

“Come for me, baby,” Owen said, his deep voice dipping even lower.

“Only if you do,” she said as she let her finger move faster. Her hips thrust forward, and she came with a cry of relief. “I changed my mind,” she said as she yanked the shower door open and pulled him inside. She pressed him against the tiled wall and went up on her tiptoes so she could kiss him, as the hot water covered them both.

The Rolling Stones tunes filled her ears while everything about Owen Taylor filled her other senses. She broke the kiss and reached down, stopping briefly to stroke his cock, then going lower. He flinched, and stiffened up as she passed her hand down his left thigh to his knee, and still lower. “Don’t,” he choked out. “It’s no good.”

“Oh, honey,” she said, using her other hand to cradle his cheek. “Open your eyes. It’s better than good. It’s perfect. Because it’s you.” She cupped the slightly puckered skin beneath his left knee. “Relax, Owen,” she insisted as she stroked him there, getting more turned on by the minute. “It’s perfect,” she repeated as he started to shiver. “You’re perfect.” When she pressed her lips to the hard, bronze disc of his nipple, still stroking the soft place where his lower left leg used to be, he dug his fingertips into her shoulders. She flicked her tongue across his flesh, and then did the same with the other nipple, biting down gently, making his cock jerk against her stomach.

“Mmmm,” she said, loving him so much at that moment it hurt her in her bones.

“Don’t….s-s-s-stop,” he hissed. “Please, Lainey.” He opened his eyes and pinned her with such a look of longing, trust, and adoration it made those stupid, irrational tears flow down her face. He tried to straighten up and pull away from her, but she gripped his left leg in one hand and his dick in the other.

“Don’t move, Owen. I’ve got this.” He nodded and relaxed. “I love…this.” She bit back what she really wanted to say.

She didn’t love him. How could she? She barely knew him.

“Oh…” he said as his hips moved faster. She kept running her palm along the underside of his left knee, the piece of him that he hated and that she wanted him to accept and love the way she did. “Oh…Lainey,” he groaned and closed his eyes and coated her hand with his warm essence. Hips still moving, he gripped her arms and gave her a fierce, possessive kiss, making her let go of him and wrap her arms around his neck.

“That was….interesting,” he said when he broke away, still shivering. “I, uh…thanks.”

“My pleasure,” she said, turning to wash her hand, pulling him under the shower before she exited. Her body was still buzzy, her brain on high alert. She felt full, plump, ready, and hornier than she had in her entire adult life as she passed the thick towel across her stiff nipples. She watched as he shampooed and soaped up, then rinsed, all without looking at her.

With a sigh of resignation, she wrapped the towel around herself and wandered out to the kitchen. He’d bottled his IPA since she’d been here so she popped one open and took a seat on the balcony on a thickly cushioned lounge chair. The sun and beer made her sleepy despite her revved up state. She finished the beer—which was delicious, a perfectly balanced blend of rich malt and sharp, citrusy hops. With the empty nestled between her legs, she closed her eyes and drifted.

She awoke to the pleasant odor of a charcoal grill and the even more pleasant sensation of lips on her nipple and a something hard and cool pressing against her pussy. Sighing with contentment, she arched her back and let the towel fall all the way open. A cool ocean evening breeze lifted the ends of her hair as she blinked up at the balcony ceiling and gave in to Owen’s ministrations.

He lapped at one nipple, tugging it into his mouth, then letting go and giving it teasing little nibbles. His hand was between her legs, but he held something that was providing exquisite friction right where she wanted it. He moved to her other breast, mumbling something about “perfection” as she clutched his upper arm and thrust her hips so she could get more of the lovely pressure down below.

“Mmm,” he muttered as he moved back and forth between her nipples, making her groan louder and move her hips faster, wanting more. “That’s it,” he said as he kissed his way up her neck and met her lips with his. “Come for me, Lainey. Right now.” He shoved his tongue into her mouth, mimicking the thrust she wanted from a different part of him, fucking her mouth as he rubbed what she’d figured out was the empty beer bottle against her eager clit.

“Oh, Jesus,” she yelped against his lips as she let the orgasm grip her.

“Nope, no Jesus. Just Owen,” he said, pulling the bottle from between her legs and holding it up with a naughty grin and eyebrow waggle. “Handy thing, this. Glad you left it there for me.”

She pulled the towel back around herself with a fake burst of modesty. She felt great. But she needed something more. Something he seemed unwilling to give her for some reason. But she’d wait him out. They had all night.

“The grill smells great,” she said, swinging her feet to the wooden balcony floor and standing up to stretch.

Owen grabbed her and buried his face in her neck as he cupped her ass with both hands. “Fucking-A I cannot keep my hands off you, you evil witch.”

“Hmpf,” she said, disentangling and going inside for another beer.

“I have filets,” he called through the open door. “But I’m pretty useless with all that other crap.” He motioned to the counter top that was covered with fresh ingredients. Lainey grinned at him and then turned to her second favorite task.

Within the hour, they were seated on the couch, baseball on the TV, plates piled high with cheesy mashed potatoes, fresh spinach and onions reduced in garlic and olive oil, and the perfectly grilled steak. They were three beers in so she’d switched to water, unwilling to fall into bed with him in a drunken stupor.

They laughed and ate and cursed the bullpens and then ended up on opposite ends of the couch, their legs entwined, as the game wound to a close. The ocean breeze blew through the open glass door as Lainey got up and put all the dirty dishes in the washer, letting Owen take a short nap.

As she was wiping down the counters, she heard a phone buzzing from somewhere. She poked through a pile of his clothes and found it, noting the out-of-state number that had called him half a dozen times in the last hour. After glancing over and finding him so peaceful, sprawled under the blue and white afghan, she decided to let him rest a while longer before alerting him to his phone.

Grabbing a beer, she wandered back out to the balcony and leaned on the railing, watching the families as they gathered up their day camps and trudged along the beach. She sipped and smiled at the toddlers and little kids stumbling and fussing, over-tired and waterlogged. Lainey turned and leaned against the railing, watching Owen sleep a few more minutes as she sipped the beer he’d made. He was so perfect—perfectly handsome, perfectly hot, perfectly polite, perfectly smart, perfectly great at kissing and other assorted skills.

She’d never put much faith in the concept of soul mates. Even when her soon-to-be-ex-husband was courting her with a vengeance, she didn’t get this soft, ooey-gooey, melty feeling in her guts when she looked at him. This was different. This was real—and really terrifying all at once.

She sat and put his foot in her lap. He’d gone without the prosthetic all evening, his comfort with her apparent in his nonchalant attitude about it, even though she knew it was an issue and he felt less of a man because of it. That was why she’d made a point to touch it, to be touching it while she stroked him to orgasm in the shower.

Smiling, she ran her hand up his right leg, softly teasing the light hair there, before giving the soft skin under his left knee a stroke. He shifted, grunted, and seemed to settle back into sleep. Getting that urgent, needy feeling again, she slid the afghan off his body, wanting to devour him with her eyes, to lick him from head to toe, to have him inside her so deep they wouldn’t know where he ended and she began.

Lainey leaned down and put her tongue on his left knee, as she cupped the flesh beneath it in her palm as she’d done in the shower. As she watched, his cock stiffened under his shorts, getting harder the more she stroked. Her nipples brushed the inside of the T-shirt she’d taken from his drawer. She felt ripe, plump with blood like his penis, but all over, like she might burst if she couldn’t relieve the pressure.

“You made me a promise,” she whispered as she moved up his torso, licking and kissing the awesome terrain of his abs, pecs, and shoulders. “Owen,” she singsonged into his neck as she slipped the boxer shorts she’d been wearing off her hips. “Honey…wake up. It’s time to keep your promise.”

He moaned, then turned what for some other men might be a simple kiss into an entire erotic romance novel, using his tongue, lips, teeth, and hands, making her quiver and shake like Jell-O. She straddled his hips, grinding against his still fabric-covered erection. He opened his eyes and looked shocked for a half second, then alarmed. She stopped moving, letting him process.

“It’s just me. Lainey, remember? It’s all right.”

He blinked fast, digging his fingertips into her thighs so hard, she gasped.

“Honey, you’re hurting me a little. Owen. Owen! Wake up!” She shook his shoulders as a tickle of fear crept in under the thick layer of lust.

“Shit,” he yelled, as he shoved her so she ended up on the floor between the couch and the ottoman. No worse for wear, but for embarrassment. “Fucking god damn bitch!” he spat out, his face in his hand as he rocked back and forth on the couch. Lainey got up slowly and sat next to him, not touching him, just waiting for him to realize where he was.

He dragged fingers through his hair, gripping tight, then pounded his fists on his thighs, again and again, still hissing, “Bitch, bitch, bitch,” over and over.

Finally, he turned to her, his blue eyes cloudy with something she didn’t understand or like. “Lainey,” he croaked out. “You have to go. You have to get away from me. I’m no better than…than… him. That douche bag of a husband. I’m no fucking good.” His eyes swam with tears, and then he got up and hopped over to the kitchen, leaving her to sit and ponder the fact that perhaps, just perhaps, the man was as fucked up as he claimed.

“Go,” he called out, his voice low and broken-sounding. “Please go.”

She got up and found the boxers, then walked into the kitchen. He was slumped against the counter, clutching a beer and looking as miserable as she’d ever seen a man look. She went to him, but he sidestepped her, keeping his face averted, his body as stiff as a board.

“Owen, honey, stop it.”

“I’m gonna tell Jon and Zane about your ex. I’ll need his name and anything else you can give me—especially what he looks like. I’ll have them move you somewhere else too. That shit hole you call an apartment is the opposite of safe.”

Her mouth was hanging open, but she couldn’t seem to close it as he spoke, all the while not looking at her. He downed half the beer then put the bottle on the counter with a rattle.

“You don’t have to do anything,” she said, anger rising along with her disbelieving acceptance that the man was about to toss her out of his apartment, again. “I don’t need your help.”

She grabbed the pile of clothes she’d been wearing before she changed into that stupid, revealing bikini and marched into the half bath, got dressed, yanked her hair up into a ponytail and marched back out again.

Owen was on the couch, head in his hands. “I told you. I warned you. I’m fucked up, and you don’t want any part of me.”

“You know what? You may be right,” she said. “Oh, your phone was blowing up earlier. Same number calling. Don’t get up. I’ll show myself out.” Her ears were ringing with fury, and her heart conducted a timpani concert in her chest. She turned to glare at him before she put her hand on the doorknob.

He’d gotten up and was holding onto the back of the chair, staring at her, his face a rigid mask of so many emotions—she didn’t care to sort them out. “You can stay away from me. I’ll take care of this…thing on my own. I’ll tell Zane and Jon when I’m damn well ready to.”

He opened his mouth and made as if to move toward her. She held up a hand. It shook with rage, and it was all she could do to not scream. “Stay away from me, Owen Taylor. I get what you’re about. Just another guy who can’t keep his promises.” She sighed, willing herself not to cry.

“I’m…”

“Good-bye, Owen.” She slammed the door nice and hard behind her, snatched her phone from her purse, and dialed up an Uber as she started walking toward the road.