Beckett wondered briefly if he was dead and then decided he didn’t care. It had been worth it. He’d never felt anything like it. The possession that choked him when he made Gianna come, the wrenching release of his own orgasm.

He was afraid he’d just had a religious experience. With a witch. In a secret passage.

He shifted to bury his face in Gianna’s hair. Maybe she was a witch? A spell had obviously been cast. She had bewitched him. It was the only explanation for what had just happened.

“Can you breathe?” he asked, nuzzling her.

“Mm.”

“I can’t tell if that means I’m smothering you or you just can’t form words yet.”

“No words,” she mumbled, snuggling back against him.

Beckett brushed her hair out of her face and fanned it out over the stairs. “Is that better?”

“My ears are ringing,” she sighed, finally opening her eyes. “I think it’s from me screaming your name.”

He grinned. She had shouted his name as they came together.

“I still feel the need to ask you if that was okay.” He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingers one at a time. “I think I got a little rough and I didn’t mean to.”

She smiled smugly. “Better than okay. I think all the cells in my body are singing … or weeping with joy.”

Beckett felt a quick wash of relief. He’d lost control, let go. He’d never done that with a woman before. Gianna’s words at yoga came back to him. She’d accused him of being too in control, afraid of falling. If this was falling, he wanted to do it again.

“I think we need to get off these stairs,” he decided.

“Okay,” Gianna sighed. “Which one of us is carrying the other one back downstairs?”

“Why downstairs?” Beckett asked, envisioning the soft expanse of his bed.

“That’s where your kitchen is and I need you to feed me.”

A quick detour to his closet yielded a pair of pajama pants for himself and a t-shirt for her and together they staggered down the stairs to the kitchen.

Gianna ducked her head into his refrigerator while he rummaged through the pantry. Beckett wrestled a box of Frankenstein shaped macaroni and cheese from the back of a shelf. It must have been Ellery’s. He hoped she wouldn’t mind donating it to the cause.

“How about this?” he asked holding up the box.

Gianna grinned. “It’ll go perfectly with these.” She held up a bowl of raspberries and a bag of sliced cucumber.

“You have an interesting post-sex appetite,” he told her, pulling a pan out of the cabinet and filling it with water.

Gianna tossed him a saucy look and began plating the berries and cucumbers in a rainbow across the plates. “The handful of French fries I nervously inhaled did not sustain me,” she told him.

“Nervously?” Beckett looked up from the simmering water.

Gianna hopped up to sit on the island. “You weren’t nervous?” She poked him with her foot.

“I’m a man. Men don’t get nervous. We get focused on whether or not we will be able to provide appropriate amounts of reciprocal pleasure.”

She rolled her eyes in a way he found utterly sexy. “You are such an attorney.”

He stepped between her legs. His hands skimmed under the t-shirt to pull her closer. “And you are so irresistible.” He nibbled along the line of her neck until he felt goose bumps rise on her skin. “Why were you nervous?”

Her eyes were still closed and she angled her jaw to give him better access. “Because I was afraid you wouldn’t be any good at it,” she sighed.

Beckett’s teeth sank down. Hard.

She yelped.

“Not funny, Red.”

She was laughing now and it sounded like music.

He shoved a cucumber slice in her mouth. “Enjoy your snack. It looks like we’re not going to eat for a while.” With that, he turned off the stove, tossed her over his shoulder, and marched upstairs, smacking her once soundly on the bare flesh of her ass when she struggled.

Gianna bounced when he pitched her on to the bed and he fully expected her to jump back up. But instead she rose up on her knees and beckoned him with a finger. A siren’s song couldn’t have had a more immediate effect. He found himself painfully hard and diving across the mattress to her and those sea-witch eyes that called to him.

Beckett met her in the middle on his knees with a kiss meant to brand her. She was his for tonight. And he belonged to her. They tangled and tumbled, rolling over the expanse of sheets sending pillows and clothing flying to the floor.

He wanted — no — he craved her with an ache that hollowed him out. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be, he thought, as his mouth cruised over her shoulder and then lower to feed.

She fell back on to the mattress, hair fanning out like wild fire. Beckett used the opportunity to gain the upper hand. When his mouth closed over a taut nipple, her fingers closed around his shaft. She stroked him with something that skirted the ragged edge of violence and almost sent him tumbling over that cliff.

A last lap of his tongue and then he was sliding down her body, out of her grasp. He tasted his way down her taut stomach and around the lush curve of her hip. Her breath was coming in gasps and Beckett wanted to push her further.

He nibbled the delicate flesh of her inner thigh and was rewarded with her gasp when he ventured higher. There, Gianna’s fiery core welcomed him home. He used his palms to spread her thighs, leaving her bared to him. She trembled against him, her thighs fighting his grip.

“Hang on, baby,” Beckett whispered. His tongue dove into her slick folds, teasing and tasting. She bowed back, hips pumping with frantic energy. Her response frayed his control and when she moaned his name Beckett felt his cock go impossibly harder.

He paused just long enough to stretch two fingers into her tight channel. She was sobbing out his name now. His tongue found that most sensitive bundle of nerves and with a single stroke sent her hurtling off into the darkness.

Her fingers locked in his hair and her hips bucked wildly as she rode out the orgasm. Gianna had barely started breathing again when Beckett ranged himself over her. Her eyes fluttered open, misty green and dazed. “We’re not even close to done, sweetheart.” He made the promise as he buried himself in her. Fully sheathed in her heat, Beckett saw stars and fought to restrain himself.

Gianna’s fingernails dug into his shoulders and he held himself perfectly still for a heartbeat and then another. When her gaze — wide and hungry — met his, he began to move. He wanted to give her everything. Everything that was inside of him, locked up under layers of restraint and control.

He didn’t see her next move coming. Gianna used those strong, perfect legs of hers to lever him onto his side. They rolled, still joined until she gained the top. She stared down at him triumphantly and began to ride.

She set a reckless pace and Beckett understood her goal then. He wasn’t going to give her everything. Gianna was going to take it.

His hands found her hips and gripped as she rode. His jaw clenched, teeth bared, he tensed for the raging battle. He wouldn’t lose, he couldn’t lose. Gianna brought a hand to the base of his throat and held lightly just over his thundering pulse.

He stared into the face of the woman who had bewitched his body, and quite possibly his soul. Her color was high and as she leaned forward to capture his lips her hair tumbled over them in a curtain of fire.

“My Gianna,” Beckett heard himself whisper against her mouth.

She rose up again, a flawless goddess with her milky smooth arms reaching for the sky. She didn’t stop moving, bowing back, back, back until Beckett thanked God for yoga.

His hips took over the impossible pace, thrusting again and again until it didn’t matter who came first. That first quickening, a tightness in her was more than he could handle. He couldn’t hold back the orgasm that churned for release. And the second he spilled inside her, Gianna’s own climax echoed until they became one.

Seared to the soul, Beckett gathered her to him and buried his face in her hair. Their hearts beat together, too fast and a little unsteady. Gianna was everything, brave, beautiful, bewitching.

* * *

Gianna woke to sunshine and the delicious heat of the perfect male form next to her. And partially on top of her. She was locked in the cage of Beckett’s arms and had absolutely zero desire to escape.

She kept her eyes closed, but her lips curved in a feline smile of satisfaction.

“Good morning, gorgeous,” Beckett murmured against her ear.

“Mmm. Good morning,” she said, rolling in his arms to face him. “How did you know I was awake?”

“I saw you smirking.” His finger traced her full, rosy lips.

She bit his finger lightly. “I wasn’t smirking. I was basking in the many, many orgasms of last night.”

Beckett forced a frown. “Many, many? I feel like you’re missing a many.”

She felt him hard against her thigh and moved to cuddle his erection to her. “Beckett, darling, if you don’t feed me immediately — and make it the biggest breakfast either of us has ever seen — I’m going to faint from hunger and forget all about those many, many, many orgasms.”

“And after breakfast?”

“I’m picking up my children from their respective sleepovers and trying not to look guilty and smug for the rest of the day.”

Beckett lifted his head and squinted at the clock on the side table. “If I cook fast and we eat fast, we could still manage a very friendly shower before you leave.” He nibbled her neck and earlobe.

“You forget. I’ve seen the inside of your refrigerator and it’s sadly lacking in breakfast carbs,” Gia teased. “Why don’t we sneak out the back door and I’ll make you breakfast at my place and we can shower there with all of my nice shampoos and shower gels.”

“I think I could be convinced.”

They laughed and stumbled their way from Beckett’s back door to Gia’s front in a state of undress that would have scandalized all of Blue Moon. The rainbow of fallen leaves providing a colorful carpet for their bare feet as they scurried over the frost-scarred grass.

She made him pancakes in the sunny little kitchen while he started coffee and poured juice. They ate and laughed at her kitchen table, seeking touches or kisses between bites.

She sighed contentedly after Beckett fed her a piece of bacon. The only thing that would have made life more perfect at that moment is if Evan and Aurora were at the table eating and arguing. But the timing for that little fantasy needed to wait. She and Beckett weren’t in a relationship, no matter how tied to him she felt with a shiny chain of orgasms and sweet feelings.

And no relationship meant, no public declarations of affection. No family breakfasts, no sleepovers.

Gia glanced at the clock and sighed. “Our window is almost closed.”

Beckett took their plates into the kitchen, rinsed them and stacked them neatly in the dishwasher.

“I think we’ve got just enough time for a shower,” he said with a smoldering look.

Beckett Pierce stood in all his shirtless glory in her kitchen after loading the dishwasher and Gia knew she was a goner. There was no way she was going to come out of this unscathed and somehow she just didn’t care.

She stood up, a wicked sparkle in her eye. She had no idea how the two of them would fit in the tiny tub, but they would find a way and she could put her hands on him one more time. “Race you upstairs?”

He grinned, a heartbreaker of a smile.

Gia’s phone rang on the table. She hesitated for just a second, debating, before answering it.

“Hi, Dad. How did everything go last night?” She watched Beckett cross his arms and lean against the counter.

“Everything was great,” her father assured her. “Aurora had almost as good a time as Phoebe and I did. We were calling to see if you wanted to pick up Evan and join us for brunch.”

“Brunch?” Gia repeated.

Beckett hung his head in mostly mock disappointment.

“Brunch sounds great. I’ll go get Evan now.”

“Phoebe suggested seeing if Beckett’s available to join us, since you’re neighbors and all,” Franklin said. Gia could hear Aurora’s giggle in the background.

“I’ll see if Beckett’s around and hungry,” she said.

“You just ate three pancakes,” Beckett pointed out when she hung up.

“I can’t not go. I have to pick up Rora and if I don’t eat they’re going to get suspicious.”

“Suspicious of what? That you already had breakfast?”

Gia went to him and laid her head on his chest. Her fingers trailed over the ridges of his abs. “Want to come with me? You’re invited.”

He stilled her fingers with his hand. “Red, you see what’s happening with just a little touch.” He brought her hand to his barely contained erection. “If you look at me the wrong way across the breakfast table everyone’s going to get an X-rated show. I’m not going to be able to keep my hands off of you. They’re going to take one look at us and know.”

“Know what?” Gia whispered, her hand sliding under the waistband of his pajama pants.

His inhale was a hiss when her fingers closed around his thick shaft.

“That we spent all night naked, wrapped around each other?” Her hand stroked up from the root to the crown. Beckett’s knuckles went white on the countertop.

“We don’t have time for another round, Red,” he groaned.

“You know, a lot can be accomplished in five minutes,” Gia said, slyly freeing him from his pants.

His eyes closed on a growl as her ripe lips encircled the crown of his cock and she proceeded to show him exactly how much could be accomplished.