“Babe. You are everything right in the world.” It’s all I can come up with and it’s downright embarrassing. I’m not sure I can call myself a writer after that cheeseball line. I want to say something beautiful and timeless. Something worthy of being printed on a page.

I revel in the perfect lines of her body. My greedy hands want to take and take, but I keep them still.

Harper leans down and kisses the center of my chest. The feel of her mouth on my skin ignites an urgency in me. She sits back and dips her head, looking down at herself. Her hair falls forward and hides her face.

What is she thinking about?

My mouth goes dry when she unfastens her bra with one flick of the wrist. The lacy cups fall away and she shrugs out of it.

“I’m trying to be bold,” she whispers.

There’s something about the way she then lifts her chin, high and challenging, as if daring me to stop her. She gives a shaky laugh. And then she looks away and I can tell she’s nervous.

“You don’t have to be anything but yourself with me. We don’t have to do this. You can put your shirt back on. Baby, do whatever feels comfortable. We can go into the living room and watch television. This doesn’t have to go further.” I sit up slowly and put my hands on the sides of her face. I’m pushing her. She’s not some one-night stand I’ve brought home for a hook-up. I am a moron in the first degree.

Her eyebrows draw together and her eyes search mine.

“What? Tell me what’s wrong.” I rest my forehead against hers and breathe her in. The essence of her skin must be filled with brown sugar and oranges because she smells like Christmas to me. A beautiful package of what my heart desires.

“Don’t you want me?”

Her words are brutal because they tell me too much about her. She’s vulnerable and fragile.

“You don’t know, do you”?” I take a deep breath. Not only am I ready for us to open up physically, I want to bare my soul to her. “I have wanted you from the minute I first laid eyes on you.”

“Yeah?”

I stroke the side of her cheek with one hand. “Yeah. And then it kept getting worse. You’d come over in those tiny shorts and borrow a cup of sugar—”“

She laughs. “I never borrowed any sugar.”

I kiss the side of her neck, dragging the tip of my tongue along her skin and leaving goose bumps in my wake. “Ok. Books, then. Same thing. But the shorts. Killing. Me.” I nibble on her earlobe and press my cock into the soft spot between her legs. “Every. Single. Day. So if you think I don’t want you, you’d better think again. Do you want me?”

“I want you.” She states it as simply as someone walking up and saying they want an ice cream.

I move her from my lap, get to my knees, and slowly unzip her shorts. She reaches up and unzips my jeans. I lean in and kiss the corner of her mouth, starting out slow. Her hands grip the back of my neck and the simple touch sends one hundred degrees of heat straight to my cock. I try to slow down, but it’s too late. Try to pull back, but my mouth has an agenda and shifts to her breasts.

She’s perfection to me. Her slender frame thrums with electricity, muscles tense with each pass of my lips. I suck and bite and tease along her perky breasts down to the dip of her navel. My tongue flicks into the valley of her belly and she squirms.

I glance up through my lashes at her. I peel the shorts slowly down her hips and her panties with them. She helps me by sitting back so I can take them. The thin material of her panties is soaked and a thrill runs through me, zinging every cell as I discard them on the floor. I grin at the way she’s watching me, her cheeks so flushed and her nipples tight little peaks begging for my mouth.

I’m at the edge of the bed, so I stand and push my briefs and jeans to the floor. My body is so ready for hers. I swear I could come hands-free purely from the lusty look she’s giving me.

I take a couple of steps to my nightstand and retrieve a condom to place near us. She surprises me by grabbing my hand and pulling me onto the bed. If my body had its way, I’d push inside her in one stroke and then another and another until I found my release. My urgency for her would take over. Instead, I want her to set the pace.

It’s a tangle of sheets as I roll her on top of me. “Ride me,” I whisper, my voice scraping every vowel and consonant.

She has this expression of shock—only for an instant—and then it’s replaced with excitement. “Tell me if I’m doing it right.”

“You can’t do anything wrong.” I grab the condom and roll it on while she watches. My heart slams hard against my chest.

Harper moves her body over my hips and places her entrance over the head of my cock. My pulse—all the blood in my body—is focused on one thing. Filling her. Making her understand how much my body yearns to be inside hers.

I grab her hips and lift myself to slide inside. I shake with the effort to go slowly. Each centimeter inside her incites me to push harder, go faster. She’s so fucking tight.

“It’s been a while,” she says, squeezing her eyes tight.

I pull out and thrust in, one long stroke, unable to stop. “Does it feel good, baby?”

“Ahh…” She hangs her head and squeezes her eyelids shut. “Yes.”

“Move however it feels good. Up and down. Fast. Slow.” My last words sound guttural, restraint forcing me to resort to one-word, monosyllabic speech.

Harper sets a rhythm, her body sliding faster and faster until I’m gritting my teeth in an ecstatic pain. I forget about her fragility.

I dig my fingers into her hips, urging her to continue. We’re a streamlined instrument that demonstrates how two bodies become one.

In the quiet of my apartment, there’s only the labored sound of our breathing and the glorious music of skin hitting skin, rising to an ultimate crescendo. Although her eyes are closed and her eyebrows drawn, I can’t stop watching her. I reach down where our bodies meet and rub my thumb against her. Her lips smash together as if the pleasure is too much to bear. The moment I sense her orgasm coming, a tensing and pulsing of her body around my cock, I wish I could slow it down so I could memorize her face.

She groans, the sounds hitching as each wave of pleasure rolls through her.

My own release chases hers. My fingers dig into her hips as I quit fighting it and thrust long and hard. Giving everything of my body in the final seconds of claiming her.

Mine.

I thrust a second time, although we’re both spent and it’s a half-hearted stroke to tell her I’d do it again if I had any strength left. She languorously bends to place her head on my shoulder and licks away the salt of my sweat.

“I’ve never…” she whispers and her lips tickle my collarbone.

“Never what,” I prompt. My eyes are closed, but I open them to peek down at the top of her head.

She’s breathing as hard as I am. “That. I’ve never. It’s the first. Orgasm.”

Harper lifts her hips and pulls away. It’s as if I’ve lost a part of me, a sanctuary I’ve never visited before.

She relaxes her body and rolls to lie beside me on her belly.

I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t like hearing it. I want to be better than her former husband. But then, I don’t want to compete with a dead man. There’s no honor in being jealous of a man six feet under.

“Hey,” I say into her mass of hair. It’s strewn across my chest and sticking to the warm skin of her back. I lift it and blow across her neck.

“Hmm?” She places her hand on my chest and one finger traces over my nipple.

“Don’t go anywhere.” I get out of bed, and walk to the bathroom so I can dispose of the condom. My apartment is small and it’s not a stone’s throw from one end to the other.

I make a quick trip into the kitchen and grab a couple of bottled waters. When I walk back in, she hasn’t moved. “You need to stay hydrated after last night.”

She lifts her head. “Thanks.”

I make a nest of pillows against the headboard and drag her to sit with me. Twisting the cap off, I offer a drink of mine. She lifts the bottle to her lips and it’s sinful that I get half-hard just watching her throat work as she drinks. “You’ve ruined me for other women,” I say. “I guess that was your plan.”

She chokes on her water. I pat her gently on the back.

“Stop doing that.” Harper laughs at my expression of mock confusion. She pokes me in the ribs. “Stop waiting until I take a drink to say something funny.”

“You think I’m kidding?” I take the bottle from her and guzzle it.

“Yeah. I do.”

I place the water on the nightstand and pull her to lie back in my arms. “No joke. I’ll never find another like you. You don’t take yourself seriously. You like to read as much as I do. You’re absolutely gorgeous. And most of all, you’re real. Real and honest.”

“Mmm…” she says.

“And I forgot about your ass. Oh my God, your ass.”

She giggles and I smile into her hair.

I like the sound too much, so I continue. “Your ass is the stuff men dream of.”

“So poetic,” she says.

“Yeah. Did I tell you I’m a writer?”

She gives an unladylike snort. “I think so.” She looks at the ceiling and then tilts her head back to make eye contact with me. Her expression is suddenly as somber as a storm cloud. “Do you want to know about my past?”

“If you want to tell me.” Tori kept too much from me, but Harper would never do that. It’s not in her nature. “Do you mind if I bring up something from last night?”

“Oh no. What else did I do?” She covers her face with both hands.

I laugh, trying to keep the conversation light. “No. It’s something from the game. You asked if anyone had ever been in love.”

“Oh.” Her hands drop. “Did I?”

“Um hm…” I wait a beat and wait to see if she remembers.

“I’m really fuzzy about that part of the night. I think I do remember it.”

“You didn’t drink which means ‘no’. So. I don’t know if that was the drunk part of your brain not keeping up with the game or the honest part of your brain knowing the right answer.”

“This is embarrassing. I got married when I was eighteen. I ran off with Wesley without my parents’ blessing. Didn’t tell my friends. Just left because I thought I knew him.”

I stroke her arm. “I doubt you’re the first or last teenager to do that.”

“I should’ve known better. I was raised better. And I was grown.”

“How’d you meet him?”

“I worked at a grocery store the summer after I graduated. Wesley came in one night and he was in line behind this lady and her two kids. She looked dirt poor and the kids were crying. She’s trying to pay and she’s short of the amount. Wesley reaches over and plunks a one hundred dollar bill on the counter and says for her to buy her groceries and keep the change.”

I nod. “That was a nice thing to do.”

Her mouth tightens and she smoothes the comforter over her legs. “He was. He was a nice guy. I remember thinking, ‘Wow. He’s one of the good ones.’”

All my muscles tense. I stare hard at the wall and take a deep breath. Do I really want to go here? Hear the dead man immortalized?

Something wet drops onto my arm. “Babe. Hey. Oh, please don’t cry.”

“I’m not,” she lies.

I turn her toward me and wipe underneath her eyes with my thumbs. “You’re a terrible liar.”

“I’m a good liar. Just have a little something in my eye.” Her laugh is husky.

Then her resolve crumbles and fat tears stream down her cheeks. “He was nice when I met him. He was all the things a guy is supposed to be.”

“People look for what they want to see. It’s the way we’re made. Always searching for that ideal.”

“There was a baby. I was pregnant. That’s why I ran off with him. I couldn’t face my daddy. I miscarried a week after I married Wesley.”

“Shh…” I say, rocking her against my chest. I search for the right words to make her understand that it’s all right, but there are none.

“We moved out to Tacoma. The house was a rental in the middle of nowhere, and I didn’t have a car. He left for weeks at a time to work. He’d return and bring flowers and nice words. I was so confused. I didn’t know if I loved him or hated him. I really didn’t feel anything for a while. I’ve never told anyone that.” Her words are muffled against my chest.

She’s given me the gift of her trust with something she’s carried around all alone. I’ve had the luxury of Josie when times were rough. As much as she can be a pain in the ass, she’s my rock. Never judgmental. Always a phone call away. Hell, I even have friends who silently carry my secrets from the past.

Harper’s had no one and that knowledge of her isolation twists inside me like a furious cyclone. Her husband is dead and that should be enough to quiet my anger. I need him out of our bed.

“He wasn’t who I thought he was,” she says. Harper’s mouth turns up at the corners in a derisive smile. “I was so blind.”

“Shh…” I don’t want to talk about him in the place where I make love to her. It needs to wait until another time because this bed is a place for her to feel cherished, not relive bad memories. I turn her face toward me. I kiss the end of her nose and her curves melt into me. Our naked bodies are flush to each other and my desire for her stirs, despite the fact that I need to console and comfort.

I kiss her tenderly. My tongue strokes hers, saying she’s beautiful, desirable, mine.

She fits against me, her soft places molding to my hard.

“Do you have anywhere you need to be?” she asks.

I grin and push my erection against her. “Is that an invitation? I know one specific place.” I suck her bottom lip into my mouth and gently grab it between my teeth.

When I release her mouth, she sighs. “It’s scary how good this feels.”

“Yeah. I know.” She’s right. I should be scared. I should be terrified. I’d told myself that I wouldn’t jump into another relationship so soon after Tori.

But when feelings this intense slap you in the face, you don’t ignore them.