I could pretend I’m not excited to see Lucy walking this way, her head occasionally turning to look back as she sneaks over to my place. But the giant smile would prove me a total liar.

When she knocks, I open the door immediately, pulling her inside before shutting it again.

“I can’t stay long,” she says, like a woman who’s having some torrid affair and is worried about being seen.

“Don’t worry,” I reply, grabbing her by the waist and dipping her backwards as though we’re wrapped up in a passionate tango, “I’ll make quick work of you, beautiful woman.”

She laughs, the worried look disappearing from her face. I pull her back up and kiss her. She kisses me back, throwing her arms around my neck, and I start walking backwards towards the bedroom. I need my Lucy dose. I’m an addict by now.

Within seconds I’m on my back and she’s on top of me, stripping away her dress. I pull off my t-shirt, she tosses her bra onto the floor.

“Wait,” I say as she reaches for the front of my jeans.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” she asks.

“Nothing. I’m grinning from ear to ear, Loose. Do you really think there’s anything wrong? I just wanted to take it slightly slower.”

She leans forward, propping herself up on her hands, and kisses me again. “I thought maybe you’d changed your mind,” she says, pulling back just enough to give me an eyeful of those magnificent breasts of hers.

“I will never change my mind where you’re concerned,” I tell her. “Are you kidding me? Look at this.”

I stroke my hands over her tapered waist, slipping them up to her breasts.

“These old things?” she says, looking down. “You really like them?”

“Fuck, yes,” I tell her.

She pushes herself back, slipping her ass over the hard-on now raging in my jeans, and gyrates just enough to make me nuts.

“You’ve learned a thing or two since we were kids, you know,” I observe.

“Things I wanted to learn with you,” she mutters. As soon as she says the words, she goes silent.

“What do you mean?” I ask, but she doesn’t answer. “Loose…what do you mean?”

“I…nothing. Nothing at all. It doesn’t matter anymore.” She smiles and kisses me. “The only thing that matters is here and now. I’m starting to think everything that happened back then was for a reason.”

I stare at her. “What reason is that?” I ask.

“So we could be together now,” she replies. “If we’d gotten together back then we would have broken up for some stupid reason or other.”

“Agreed.” I lay a gentle kiss her shoulder. “Look at us now. Enjoying a secret, sexy romance in Rome.”

She lets out an adorable little giggle and throws her hands over her face. “It’s all so crazy,” she says. Pulling her hands away, she looks at me again. “You remember when we were kids and people talked about ‘going together?’”

I nod. “Yes. If you so much as gave a girl a blade of grass in elementary school, you were going steady.”

“Yup.” She strokes a finger over my stubbled jawline. “Is that what this is? Are we going steady?” she asks.

I shake my head, smiling. “No.”

“So what are we doing?” she asks. I can see worry on her furrowed brow, like she’s waiting for a blow.

“We’re going hard,” I reply in a low growl. With one flurried motion I’ve flipped her onto her back and I’m on top of her, my hands pinning her wrists into the mattress. “Hard, like difficult. Hard, like so the only things in life that are worth doing are the hard ones.”

The smile forming on her lips is turning my heart into melted chocolate.

“What else?” She mouths the words almost silently.

“Hard, like my…” I say, pressing down to kiss her again. Our mouths are so hungry for one another, so fucking greedy.

I keep her wrists in my grasp as I work my way down to her perfect breasts, taking one nipple and then the other into my mouth as I listen to her moans of Lucy-laced pleasure. Her hips are dancing under me, asking me silently to keep traveling down her body until I get to the magical place between her legs.

Don’t worry, Loose. I intend to spend several hours there.

Or possibly my entire life.