Jack braced himself for it. For the onslaught of panic. The rapid breath. The sweating palms. The horrible prickling itch just under his skin that always threatened to drive him mad whenever he got close to another person. The panic, the rage, the revulsion. Tightening of the stomach or chest.

What he felt was a whole lot of nothing. Silence. Peace. And then the steady burn, the wash of raw, animal lust. He wasn’t used to feeling either of those things but the underlying tenderness there, squeezing his chest, creeping into his heart and spreading from there to his blood stream and suffusing every cell and nerve ending and limb.

Luna’s lips were soft. The only other word he could think of in that moment to describe her mouth was… delicious. Okay, so astounding, incredible, amazing, mind blowing, body numbing… any of those descriptors would also work.

She pulled away, gazing at him questioningly. The heat of her touch remained, firing his body, pushing his heart into overdrive. What the hell was going on with him? He’d never experienced a reaction like that before. It was like all the negative shit, all the route, mechanical actions he’d classified as sex or connection, no longer had the power to touch him.

“So… how was that?” The expression on Luna’s face, the wonder she tried to keep out of her eyes and the tenderness she too obviously felt, told him she really hoped he would respond positively.

Jack reached up and touched his lips, which were still tingling. “I… it was-”

“Yah.  I know,” she finished helpfully. “Want to try it again?”

Hell, do I ever. It was like being asked if he wanted to continue to breathe. All his life, Jack had avoided other people. He now knew why. No woman, no single other woman on earth, was Luna. This moment, this first experience of tenderness, touch and connection, was reserved for her and her alone.

Neither of them needed words. They both realized they were starving and the forgotten food on the countertop factored into the equation not at all. Their hunger was a physical one, a starvation of bodies too long deprived.

His mouth slanted over hers, hard, needy. Shocking the hell out of him when he responded like a man completely starved. Every single inch of him came alive, like a light bulb being turned on for the very first time. His life where every single moment of every year he lived he thought had pushed him beyond the point of connection, beyond redeeming. Beyond this.

Jack explored her mouth again, his tongue pushing past her lips, delving in to enjoy the sweetness of her, a taste that was all woman, again and again. She moaned, low and deep in her throat. He swallowed the sound, tasted her breath, stole it, breathed it into his lungs. She’s already a part of me. I never want this to end. God, I never want to let go.

Luna moaned again. Her body pressed into him, her lush breasts with the fully erect nipples grinding against his chest. He clued in then, to the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra. His body jerked hard with raw, wild need. Whatever he was feeling, the unnamed emotion that he never thought was for him, kicked up a notch. His heart tightened, pounded hard, wildly.

When she pulled away, the question burning in her eyes, she didn’t have to speak the words. She turned, not waiting for him. She already knew he would follow.

Jack put his feet in motion. Not running out the door like he thought he would want to. No, he propelled himself in the direction Luna had just gone. He followed in her wake, imagined the scent of her perfume and desire thick and heady in the air. He breathed in, filled his burning lungs.

Luna’s footsteps sounded on the stairs above. Jack walked through the house in some kind of trance. He took in everything. The ancient, quirky mismatched furniture, eccentric, bright, recovered pieces, the art that took up every single portion of the wall space, the original hardwood floors and radiators from another era.

His foot hit the first tread and he knew he was lost.

The problem was he never wanted to be found.