Best bike ride ever. Quinn had expected fun. He hadn’t expected transformational. He could have kept going for hours, but he didn’t want to overdo it on Kendra’s first outing.

She might be hungry. Or turned on. He was, but not to the point that he’d need to drag her straight to the bedroom or go crazy. Not that she’d ever needed to be dragged.

After she’d conquered her anxiety that first time, she’d been all in. God, how he’d miss making love to her, miss talking and laughing with her, miss…her.

He pulled the bike up in front of the flagstone walk and waited until she swung down. After he turned off the engine, he nudged down the stand and climbed off.

She was struggling with her chin strap.

“I’ll get it.” He helped her off with her helmet and set it on the seat. “What did you think?”

“I loved it.” But her voice sounded funny.

He took off his helmet and gloves before he glanced at her. “You’re a great passenger.”

“Thank you.” She handed him the gloves she’d worn. Her expression was subdued, which didn’t fit with her body language during the ride.

He’d swear she’d been transported by the experience, too. He didn’t take the gloves. “Might as well keep them. And the helmet, too.” He picked it up and gave it back to her.

She avoided looking at him as she accepted it and dropped the gloves inside.

Yeah, something was seriously wrong. “Kendra, what is it?”

She met his gaze at last. Before the ride her eyes had been filled with anticipation, happiness, excitement. Now…unreadable. “Would you please come inside and make love to me?”

“You know I will, and gladly, but—”

“Please don’t ask me anything, okay? I just…need you.”

He nodded. Leaving his helmet and gloves with the bike, he took her hand for the silent journey along the flagstone, up the porch steps and over to the door. His head buzzed with a million questions she didn’t want him to ask. Maybe he didn’t want to know the answers.

Inside he helped her off with her jacket and shrugged out of his. What a strange turnaround from the lighthearted woman she’d been earlier. Sliding his hand around her waist, he walked with her back to the bedroom where she’d left on a light as usual.

No tropical music tonight, though. They’d deflated the palm trees and put away the leis. Nothing remained of their happy little party. Just as well. The mood had completely shifted.

Cupping her face in both hands, he kissed her. Grasping his head, she kissed him back with an urgency that spoke of desperation. Then she backed away and began taking off her clothes. He got the message and started on his.

She finished first. Throwing back the covers, she stretched out on the snowy sheet and watched him as he shoved off his jeans and briefs. She murmured something he didn’t catch.

“What?”

“You’re perfect.”

“Hardly.”

“Perfect for me, then.”

He took a deep breath. “That’s great to hear.” And confusing. Perfect for her was good, right?

He gazed into those blue eyes as he slipped in beside her. “You look so sad.”

“Please make love to me, Quinn.”

“I don’t have to be asked twice.” It was a lame excuse for a joke. The Kendra he was used to would have pointed out that clearly he did have to be asked twice because this was her second request.

But she said nothing, just reached up and stroked his cheek with a tenderness that made him catch his breath. What was going on?

Moving over her, he dropped soft kisses on her cheeks. When her eyelids fluttered closed, he brushed kisses there, too.

Her touch was light but thorough as she caressed his shoulders, his arms, his back. Almost as if she wanted to commit him to memory because…no. He refused to go down that dark and dismal path.

Instead he’d build a fire in her that would drive out whatever demons she was battling. He roamed the length of her warm body, stroking, nibbling and licking all those secret places that he’d learned could bring her to a fever pitch.

Gradually she began to respond. Her breathing changed first, then the pressure of her touch. At last she began to moan and thrash beneath him.

That was more like it. Capturing her mouth, he put everything he was reluctant to say into his kiss. He ravished her sweet lips until he was out of breath. Lifting his head, he sucked in air. “Tell me what you need.”

Clutching his shoulders, she dug in with the tips of her fingers. “I need…please…I want…”

He moved between her thighs and plunged deep. Then he leaned down and put his mouth close to her ear as he drew back and drove home again. “This?”

“Yes.” She gasped the word and arched to meet his next thrust. And the next.

He settled into the rhythm that worked for them. He could gaze into her eyes as they changed color, watch the flush of an impending orgasm suffuse her skin.

“You’re perfect, too.” He changed the angle a little and she tightened around his cock. “Perfect for me.”

The glow in her eyes intensified.

“I never thought I’d find…someone like you.” She was close. He increased the pace. “But…here you are.” He bore down. “Come for me, sweet Kendra.”

Faster now, and faster yet. She arched upward with a wail and her climax rolled over his cock as he continued to pump. Her orgasm triggered his and he claimed his release, adding his deep groan to her breathless cries. But she didn’t swear.

His breathing slowed and he gave her part of his weight, just enough to let his chest nestle against her breasts. He kept his voice light. “What happened to the salty language?”

Her soft whimper was his first clue that he’d asked the wrong question. Then he glanced into her eyes. Uh-oh. Tears quivered there, ready to spill out. “Kendra? What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

“I love you.”

He stared at her, stunned. And elated. And some other emotions he didn’t have the brain power to process yet.

“I’m sorry.”

That snapped him out of his confusion. “Sorry? What’s to be sorry about? That’s wonderful!”

“No, it’s not! It’s terrible!” The tears spilled out from the corners of her beautiful eyes.

He was undone. He’d fight dragons to stop those tears. “How can it be terrible? Don’t cry, please don’t cry. We’ll work it out. I’ll fix this. Just tell me what—”

“It’s not your fault. Well, it is, because you’re so great. I should have resisted, but I didn’t and now we have a huge mess.” She pushed at his chest. “You need to move so I can get a tissue.”

“Stay put. I’ll bring the box.” She loved him. How did he get so damn lucky? She loved him. How terrific was that? He returned to the bed with a renewed sense of purpose. “You love me?” He still couldn’t believe it.

“Yes, damn it.” She pushed herself to a sitting position and took the box of tissues he offered.

“Hey, it’s okay. I love you, too.” He climbed back into bed and sat facing her.

“You do?” She looked horrified. “That’s even worse!”

“You’re confusing the hell out of me. How can it be bad that we love each other?”

She blew her nose and gazed at him with such despair in her eyes that he reached for her. She scooted back. “I guess I need to explain.”

“I guess you do.” That little scuttle movement away from him hurt. She’d always wanted to come toward him, not back off.

She used up several more tissues as she talked about Ian and the pain of his absences while he was deployed. “I never got used to it.” She blew her nose again. “That yo-yo of being with the man I loved and then not, and then with him again for a little while, and then he’d be gone again. Horrible.”

He was getting the picture and it wasn’t pretty.

She wadded up a tissue in her fist. “Maybe you’d be fine with it. Maybe being in love with me and only seeing me every month or so would work for you.”

“I don’t know. I’ve never tried an arrangement like that. But I’m willing to, because the alternative—”

“That’s just it. I’m not willing to.”

The bottom dropped out of his world. “We’ll shorten the time to three weeks. Let’s do that and see how it goes.”

She shook her head and reached for another tissue. “I love you, Quinn.”

“And I love you, Kendra. That’s why—”

“I can’t love you only a couple of nights every three or four weeks and call that a life. I just can’t! It’s too hard!”

“So you’d rather have nothing?”

“Yes.”

He sucked in a breath. Not much to say to that, was there? He gestured to the rumpled sheets. “Then why this?”

“I’m weak. I wanted to make love with you one more time because it’s the most wonderful thing that’s happened to me in—”

“Damn it, Kendra!” He grabbed her whether she wanted him to or not. “Can you hear yourself?” He gave her a little shake. “The most wonderful thing that’s happened to you in years! That’s what you were going to say, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“It’s the most wonderful thing that’s happened to me in years, too.” He loosened his grip on her arms and rubbed them gently. “I can’t believe you don’t want to at least try this arrangement. If you hate it, then—”

“Then I’ll be even more in love with you than I am now. I’ll have tortured myself and made it even worse when the breakup comes.” She took a shaky breath. “I never told Ian this, but if he’d chosen to stay in the military and make it his career, I was going to divorce him.”

That was a conversation stopper.

“When this all started, I convinced myself that it could work because you’d only be a diversion, a fun, amusement park experience that I could look forward to every month or so, like a massage or a pedicure. But you’ve become way more than that.”

“So have you.”

“Then take it from me, Quinn. We’re not the kind of people who can settle for scraps when we want the full meal. That’s probably why we clicked. You might not have discovered how bad our solution was until you’d lived with it for a while. But when you did, you’d have wanted out, too.”

His jaw tightened. “I can’t imagine wanting to cut you out of my life.”

“You’re angry with me.”

“Yes. Angry and frustrated and…in love with you.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

“Me, too.” He left the bed and started putting on his clothes. “No, I’m not sorry, or I won’t be when I get some distance from this. You’ve taught me that I’m still capable of…what we’ve had. The damnable part is that I know how rare this kind of connection can be. I don’t expect to find it again.”

There was nothing more to say. All his stuff was here, and it wasn’t much. He gathered it up. His bike was out there waiting. He could text Roxanne from the road to let her know he’d left. “Goodbye, Kendra.”

“Goodbye, Quinn.”

He walked out of the house. Climbing on his bike had always felt liberating. Not tonight.