The click of the door as it shuts behind the doctor is like Wes’s hand on my shoulder eight years ago.

This time, there’s no Wes to stop us.

It’s me stopping us, and only because I’m teetering right on the edge with Summer. She tastes like sweetness and hope and I want to hear what it sounds like when I make her come. There’s an exam table in here and I’d fuck her on that, honestly, I would, but that’s not good enough for her. No.

Her hands are curled into my shirt, two fists wrinkling the fabric, and she sucks in a breath when I pull away.

“Want to get out of here?”

Summer’s eyes are open wide, her lips slightly parted, but as my words register she gives me a sly smile. “Not a chance in hell.” She drops her hands away from my shirt. “You’re keeping one appointment today.”

She flounces to the door, head held high, and while she’s calling the doctor back in I take the opportunity to adjust the unbelievable erection I got from the taste of her. More than that—from that handful of her firm ass, the way her other knee rose and hooked on my hip. How’d she back away from that? Jesus. What a smartass.

I love that about her.

It’s not Dr. O’Connors I’m meeting with today, it’s some prosthetic specialist. He’s a short guy, reddish hair, and I can’t say I hate the way he struggles to look me in the eye. I don’t care what he saw. I’m still buzzed from that kiss, that mistake of a kiss, that disaster of a kiss.

“—fitted for a custom socket.” I surface mid-sentence.

“Great.”

He narrows his eyes. “It is great, Dayton. You’re risking serious nerve damage, using the temporary fitting this way.”

My instinct is to laugh, to brush it off. Who the hell cares if I have more nerve damage in my residual limb? My fucking foot is gone. But with Summer’s eyes intent on me from the plastic chair tucked next to the handwashing sink, I can’t do it. “I know. I get it. When can I get scheduled in for the fitting?”

We go back and forth on dates that’ll fit in with Killion. “Or your new job,” Summer cuts in with her professional tone. It almost sets the doctor at ease. Almost.

He presses an appointment card into my hand and leaves. The sound of my stomach growling overpowers the soft click of the door.

Summer stands up briskly. “Let’s go.”

“Back to your office?”

She shoots me a look. “No. To eat. You’re always an asshole when you get hungry. And clearly—” She nods in my direction.

“You liked it.”

“I liked the end.”

I don’t tell her how an argument with her is better than any day without her.

*****

Out on the sidewalk, Summer puts up her hood. “My place or yours?” Then she holds up a hand. “No, I won’t make you take me to your fake place. We’ll go to mine.”

I want to take her to the nicest restaurant Midtown has to offer, but I can’t afford that. I can’t even afford a shitty place. Not with the money I owed when I got here, and the bills on top of that. Worst of all, Summer knows it. Otherwise she wouldn’t be inviting me to her place. Shame trips its fingers down the back of my neck. “That’s fine.”

She elbows me through the thick padding of her winter coat. “You owe me one for standing me up in the first place.”

When she puts it that way...

Her apartment’s not far, but it’s far enough that my leg aches by the time we reach the lobby of her building. I distract myself by watching the curve of her ass peek out from beneath her coat. There’s not much to be seen until we’re in the elevator and she shrugs it off.

Inside, she hangs her coat neatly on a hook inside the entryway and holds out her hand for mine. “My roommate’s at work,” she says, as casually as she might say that was a cold walk or I have to be back at one. But she doesn’t say either of those things. She lets her hips sway on the way to the kitchen and I follow her there.

She flits from the fridge to the microwave, then to the toaster. “You can have a seat, if that’s more comfortable.”

My missing foot has a cramp, but sitting on the high stools next to her kitchen island at least takes the pressure off the stump. “What are you making?”

“What am I reheating, is more like it.” The toaster pops and she takes down a salt grinder from a slim cupboard up above. There is buttering involved, and then she adds the salt. Whatever it is smells delicious, but how can the food compete with the view of her body underneath her slim-cut work pants, a pale pink dress shirt on top, the outline of her camisole barely visible beneath?

“Ta-da,” she says, turning to face me with two plates in her hands.

It’s spaghetti.

And not gross-ass, leftover spaghetti. Delicate with red sauce like her mother used to make—that’s why it smelled so familiar. She’s made garlic toast.

“It was my weekend make-ahead,” she says with a laugh. “It’s a good thing you’re here. I wasn’t going to get through all of it myself.”

“It’s Monday.”

“I have a sense for these things.”

She comes around the island and puts one plate in front of me, then places her own down in front of the next stool.

“Be careful,” she says automatically. “It’s hot—” As she stands tall again, her breasts brush against my shoulder, the intake of her breath a whisper against my cheek.

I twine one hand around the back of her neck and pull her to me, claiming her lips for the second time today, and it’s less of a battle than it was in the doctor’s office. She’s there, instantly there, her arms curling around my neck, legs curling around my waist, and she’s panting. Panting.

I want my hands on every inch of her but I settle for a stroke down her waist and feel her hip rise to meet my palm. Summer throws her head back, giving me access to the soft skin of her neck. “Aren’t you hungry?” she breathes.

“For you.”

She shivers under my touch, and my mind wanders back to the locked door of the apartment.

We’re safe here.

I can have her.

I have to have her.

Energy rushes through me and I stand up, lifting both of us off the stool, then set her on her feet. “Dayton?”

“I want to see you.” I trail my thumb over her collarbone. “Show me everything.”

Her eyes sparkle, tiny bursts of want glittering there, and she takes a step back. “Show me everything.” Her voice is a little uncertain and my cock jumps in my pants

“No.” I step closer, pitching my voice low. “I’ve been waiting years for this.” I bend to speak into her ear. “And I’m not the kind of man who takes orders.”

Another shiver, a soft gasp, and then Summer’s hands are working at the buttons of her shirt, and then the clasp of her bra.

She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. The curves of her waist. Her breasts—fuck. I put my calloused hands against her hips and she tilts her head up, her nipples standing up in the cool air, and I take her mouth one more time while I circle one of those nipples with the pad of my thumb.

The sound she makes is half moan, half whimper, and it might as well be a bomb dropping against the last of my self-control.

I break the kiss and shove her pants down as far as I can reach—I can’t get on my knees, not when things are moving this fast—and she scrambles to step out of them, scrambles to get back to me, desperate, grasping, and I have all of her in my hands. My sweet Summer spreads her legs and straddles me again, mouth furious against mine, and I balance her with one hand while I dip the other between her legs.

Her folds are soaked and at my touch the words spring out of her. “Oh, please, please...”

I am unleashed.

With a growl I can’t control I turn us both. Three quick steps across the kitchen and her bare back is pressed against the eggshell blue of the wall. I haven’t felt this strong in months. I have spent the last forever off-balance, my shitty prosthetic eating into my sanity, but with her weight in my hands I am grounded, powerful, rooted to the ground. My balance is just fine. She nips my neck and pleasure rockets down my spine and coils at the base. With one hand I undo my pants.

“Please—”

“We shouldn’t do this.” That’s as much as I can give it. That’s as much resistance as I have in my entire body.

Summer gives me a wicked grin and licks my neck. She tilts her hips. She takes me in one stroke.

The apartment falls away. The world falls away. It’s her heat and wetness and nothing else—nothing but the smooth feel of her skin on mine, her muscles tightening around my cock. Harder. Harder. My hands on her hips, the way she braces as I fuck her.

As I come, her cries in my ears. Sinful pleasure. Angels singing, here on earth.

She’s still trembling when we untangle from one another, still clinging to my neck, but she straightens up after a minute. Lifts her chin. Grins at me, her cheeks flushed and pink. “So are you—”

I bend to press my lips against the curve of her neck. “Satisfied? Never.”

“I was going to say are you still hungry.”

“Ravenous,” I whisper into her ear.

“Let’s eat,” she whispers back.