A resident of Southern California, Wrench was no stranger to earthquakes.

It still left his knees feeling like water and his jaw clenched like iron, and he was reluctant to let go of Lydia until she squirmed in protest.

“Well, Warren, I’m awake now,” she said shakily as he slowly let her go.

The lantern had fallen over, as had Lydia’s ginger ale, soaking the blanket. “Good thing that wasn’t an old fashioned oil lantern,” Lydia said, setting it upright. “Even if that would have been more romantic.”

“Lydia,” Wrench said, as she started to gather their picnic back into the basket.

“My heart’s still racing,” she laughed lightly. “What an eye opener!”

“Lydia,” Wrench tried again.

“I don’t suppose that was part of your date plan?” she said, with a sly sideways look. “Got my blood to rise, certainly.”

Wrench finally caught her arm and pulled her up close. “Lydia,” he said, and this time she looked back at him, her eyes bright in the darkness.

“I ain’t Warren,” Wrench said seriously. “I ain’t this picnic. I ain’t the kind of guy who’s going to write you poetry or sing you love songs. Believe me when I say you wouldn’t want me to. I’m just Wrench.”

“War—Wrench,” Lydia said softly.

“Lemme say this,” Wrench said desperately.

Lydia was silent, but her hands crept up his arms and gave him courage.

“I love you, Lydia,” he said in a rush.

She didn’t say anything and Wrench scrambled to fill the silence. “I’m just Wrench, and I ain’t got fancy learning, and I’ve done a lot I ain’t proud of, but I’ll do my best for you.”

Just as Wrench feared he’d have to come up with more to say, Lydia rose up on her toes and kissed him.

Kissing Lydia was like fighting—all adrenaline and excitement. And at the same time, it was like floating in a pool, and a shot of whiskey, and that moment you wake up before you remember that you have to get out of a comfortable bed and stop dreaming.

She tasted like pie: spice and molasses.

And her tongue was alive in Wrench’s mouth.

He picked her up into their kiss, one hand cupping her sweet ass and the other arm across her back. She slipped her arms up around his neck and held on, kissing him back.

“My room?” she said when she had breath for it.

Wrench shuddered as Lydia slid herself along his body, catching on the erection that was bulging through his shorts.

“Got a better offer,” he told her, kissing down her jaw and tangling his fingers in her loose hair.

The rest of the picnic was stuffed back into the basket willy nilly; the blanket had no chance of fitting back in and Lydia gathered it up in her arms as Wrench took the basket and led them back towards the resort, then stopped at the high privacy hedge. “Cottage two?” he asked Lydia, and she took point, leading him by the hand to the second path up from the sand.

Cottage two proved to be one of the fancier rentals, with its own covered hot tub on a porch, and steps up to big sliding doors—one of them still missing glass and boarded up from the storm that had recently passed through. The doors opened onto a well-appointed living area between two luxurious bedrooms. The larger of these bedrooms had a trail of rose petals, but there was no champagne this time, and the condoms were down to one.

Wrench was almost offended. Did they think he and Lydia would be slowing down? he wondered, amused.

Breck’s fine advice matched his panther’s plan perfectly, and Lydia was clearly done with the talking part of it—she was stripping off her clothing wherever Wrench wasn’t touching her. It was challenging to keep his hands off of her long enough to get his own clothing off, but she tugged at it insistently, running clever fingers up under his shirt and down into the waistband of his shorts.

“Wrench,” she sighed, as he wriggled short pants down over her hips.

The name sounded right from her lips.

Almost as right as she felt under his hands.

She was strong and curvy and her breasts filled his hands perfectly.

Her hair was silky and loose, like a dark curtain to her shoulders, and it whispered over him when she pushed him over on the bed and straddled him like a goddess.

Wrench felt like a starving man at a buffet, not sure where to look or what to touch, because everything felt like the fulfillment of a wish he’d never known he made.

And Lydia rose to every touch, shivering and gasping when he found the place where waist met hip with both hands, closing her eyes and moaning when he put a hand at the back of her neck under her hair, crying out when he explored the inside of her thigh, keeping his touch careful and light.

She was wet on his fingers, and she pressed herself around them when Wrench hesitated. He stroked her gently, drinking up her delighted reaction as he deepened the touch and brought her higher and higher.

He was harder than he’d ever known was possible, and every time she writhed, his cock rubbed against the velvet skin of her thigh, driving him mad with desire.

Then she was drawing off his fingers, and before Wrench could decide what to do, she was impaling herself, and he made a roar of triumph before he could stop himself.

“Yes, oh, yes,” she said, as he arched up and drove deeper into her, holding her on by her glorious hips.

He worried briefly that he might hurt her—he could not hold her on himself as hard as he wished, then she was rolling, and pulling him over on her across the broad bed.

Crushed rose petals scented the air and he found that he could press into her harder this way, fingers clenched into the coverlet with one hand and wrapped around her shoulders with the other.

“Yes, please, yes” she cried, polite even in the throes of the orgasm that Wrench could see in the way her muscles all tightened, leaving only her gorgeous breasts to move freely.

“Fuck yes,” Wrench replied with less civility but no less sincerity.

As she cried out in release, he came as well, any hope he’d held onto of prolonging their act washed away in the way her orgasm dragged him into his own.

“Yes,” she repeated, laughing as she fell from the heights, still arching into his last strokes. “Fuck, yes.”