“What?” I ask, hardly able to believe the words.

Actually, I’d known it. I’d known he was holding back something like this, but now that it’s out, I can’t actually get it through my head. I step outside and face him, then slam the door, still unable to comprehend what he’s saying.

“It’s true. You knew it. Tell me you didn’t see through my bullshit.”

I nod. “I thought there was something you weren’t telling me. But how can you be done? Football is your career.”

He points down a sidewalk, and I start to walk it by his side, numb with disbelief. The birds are singing in the trees overhead, and the sun is shining bright and hot for an early November day. He doesn’t speak for a long while, during which time I can almost see the wheels turning in his head. He’s clearly having a hard time speaking about this. Maybe he really is serious.

“It’s like this,” he says quietly. “I went to Philly. They were my second opinion. They told me that the bone in my ankle had deteriorated too much. They can’t do anything. I’ll be lucky to be able to walk again without a limp, much less run around the field. I’m done.”

I stare at him. I’d known he was hiding something, but I hadn’t expected him to drop such a bomb. Finally, I say, “God, Silas. Are you sure?”

He nods.

“But you told everyone—”

“I know what I’ve been telling them. But that ain’t what’s actually happening. Right now, if I let it heal the way it is, I won’t be able to play professional sports because even the slightest weight on it could shatter it again. But I kept thinking that I’ve done miracles on the field before, maybe I could work a miracle with my ankle. So my coach got me an appointment for a second opinion in Philly. The doctors in Philly told me that there was only one option left: they could replace more of the bones in my ankle with metal rods, and while it could restore function completely, it could only weaken it further. I could be completely disabled.”

“Permanently?” I swallow. “Oh, my god.”

“At first I was so desperate to get back to the field, I told them to do it. Anything to get me back there.” He sniffs, rakes his hand through his hair. “The surgery’s scheduled for a couple weeks from now.”

I straighten and look at him. “You scheduled it? But—”

“But I’m not going to do it. I’m done with surgeries, Genevieve.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He looks at me. “You are?”

I give him an incredulous look. “Of course I am. I know how much football means to you. It’s everything.”

He shakes his head, grabs my hand. “Not everything.”

I suck in a breath. “You love that lifestyle, though. The glamour, the celebrity, the women—”

“Fuck that. I flaunt all that shit because all I ever wanted to do was impress you,” he says, wiggling his fingers of his left hand in the air. The ring is so enormous, it makes the knuckle of his ring finger stiff. “Or fill the hole that was made by losing you. You think I give a shit about this? I thought it would make me worthy of you, but you’re right. It’s just a fucking gaudy bible.”

I burst out laughing. “Bauble.”

He starts to laugh. “Whatever. The more I been thinking about it, the more I don’t want it. The surgery, I mean. When I got the news, I didn’t want to go back to Pittsburgh,” he says, his eyes pleading. “All I could think of was coming home.”

“But your father doesn’t live here anymore.”

“Right. “He grabs ahold of my hand suddenly. “My home is you. I didn’t know you’d be here, but the second I saw you, I knew that was why I was here. You make me feel okay. If I have you, I don’t want the surgery, and I don’t need football.”

I swallow. “But . . .”

He grabs my other hand in his own, and we stand there, in the middle of the path, facing one another. “But nothing. Don’t argue your way out of this, Genevieve. Fuck the surgery. Fuck football. I have my father’s auto shop, and I can make a life doing that. I want us to be together. And maybe you’ve just been hanging around here, not moving on with your life, because you were waiting for me.”

I stare at him. For so long, football has been his love. I always knew he loved it just as much, if not more, than me. I look down at our hands laced together, at that ring in his hand that’s so huge. “Isn’t that a consolation prize? You’ve always hated working at your father’s shop, and now you want to make it your life?”

“Genevieve. I wanted two things: You, and football. But you gave up on me first, Genevieve. Football was second, not you,” he tells me. “You’ve always owned me, and I’ve just been biding my time, waiting on you to give me the signal that you want to put me in play.”

I’m just speechless.

My doubt must be obvious. “I’ll do whatever I have to do, even if it means working in a shitty auto shop for the rest of my life.”

I don’t know. Football is what made him come alive. Nothing else. He may have had oil in his veins, but football is definitely what kept his heart beating, and made him happy. I’ve seen what happens to people when they give up their dream and crash down to the real world. They become jaded. They become someone like . . . me.

He senses the doubt in my silence. “What do you want me to do to show you?”

Without warning, he takes the ring, turns, and like a true quarterback, hurls it into the woods behind the nursing home.

My mouth drops open. “What did you . . . you didn’t just do that.”

His face is strangely placid.

I turn back to the woods, wondering if I can pinpoint just where it started to fall. The ring. The ring that meant so much to him. The ring that’s probably worth over fifty-thousand dollars of precious metal and stone, but is priceless because it’s inscribed with the name of one of the greatest Pittsburgh Steeler quarterbacks to ever play the game.

And he tossed it away, like nothing.

I take off, racing into the woods, toward the spot where I saw it fall. I can’t be exact. These woods are full of dead leaves, dark, and muddy. Silas has an amazing throwing arm. It’s impossible to know exactly where he threw it, but that ring . . . he’d gazed at that ring like it meant so much to him. And it had. It signified all of the hard work he’d put into his career, and he’d just thrown it away? Is he crazy? As much as I called it a gaudy bauble, maybe I’d just been jealous of it. That it got to be so close to Silas. That he’d obviously cared about it so much.

But maybe he hadn’t cared about it as much as I’d thought.

I crunch through the leaves, barely aware of Silas’ limping steps behind me. Wading through fallen leaves piled as high as my calves, I stumble over tree roots and the uneven, rocky ground underneath, searching everywhere for a bit of metal or jewel glinting in the sunlight. I swerve around tree after skeletal tree, thinking they all look alike. I stop, my heart racing, scanning the ground, but all I see are piles and piles of leaves. When I come to a clearing, I drop to my hands and knees, sifting through the groundcover, hoping to get lucky in this impossible task.

A moment later, Silas limps into the clearing. “Forget it,” he says softly.

I shake my head. “Silas! You have no common sense. How could you—”

He places a heavy hand on my shoulder, trying to pull me up, but I yank away. He grabs for me again, but I struggle against him, stumbling forward until the next time he reaches, he loses his balance and falls, taking me down with him.

I roll onto my back, on a pillow of leaves, and find Silas on top of me, his body bearing down on me. He’s all fresh air and that amazing, woodsy Silas scent I want to drink in. We’re both breathing hard, looking into each other’s eyes.

“You’re so stupid, so wrong on so many levels,” I say to him lazily, all malice gone. Right now, my heart is beating out of my chest, right in time with his, as he wraps his warm arms around me.

I want him. I want more.

“Well. You were always the smart one, Genevieve,” he says, his eyes heavy-lidded and full of desire for me.

How can this be happening? He’s giving up on football. He’s staying here, with me. He wants to be with me. We’d always talked about getting out of Brady’s Bend together, but for some reason, this feels like all I’ve ever wanted. Even so, I’m scared. It feels like too soon to give up on his dream, after he’d come so far. “Silas, I—”

He silences me with the most dizzying of kisses.

And instantly, I’ve never been surer of anything. Maybe he is right. Maybe fate has kept me here in this rundown town I despise, all this time, waiting for him.

All I know is, I don’t want to wait anymore. He’s kissing me, his hot tongue mingling with mine, his body pressed against mine. The leaves crunch under us, but even they fall away as he breaks the kiss, breathless, and starts to kiss his way down my neck. I gasp as his hands start to roam my body, finding their way down the fabric of my thin dress, to my breasts. He kneads them through the bra, like he had when we were kids, but now his hands are bigger, surer.

“God, Genevieve, you feel like heaven,” he whispers into my skin.

He feels incredible, too. My hands rove under his sweatshirt, feeling the warm, solid muscle of his back. I run my hands down his spine, around every exquisite curve, hardly able to stand it. I want the warmth of his skin against mine. I crave it unlike I’ve ever craved anything.

“I need you, Silas,” I murmur into his ear, my voice low and throaty. “All of you.”

He stops kissing and drags his face up to mine, gazing into my eyes. “You sure?” His whisper is thick with desire. “You mean . . .”

I nod.

He grabs my hand, lifting me to my feet, and I can’t really say with complete clarity what follows in the next moments. It’s all a series of flashes, muddled by excitement and overwhelming need.

We leave my car in the parking lot. I remember driving in the passenger seat of his Ford pick-up, back to his apartment over the garage, since it’s closest, and we’re both practically trembling with lust. I remember feeling dizzy, drunk, feeling his hand on my thigh, creeping between my legs. I remember the desire on his face, the tension in the cabin of the truck. I remember his voice, low and husky. “Are you sure? Do you want this, Genevieve?”

“Yes,” I say.

It’s a fight to get inside. When we park and open the doors to his truck, his body is on mine before we can climb the stairs. He pulls me flush against him and buries his face in my neck, nibbling there. I throw back my head and gasp. When we get to the door he lingers there, his mouth on my neck. “You want to stop, you tell me. Got it? We can always stop.”

“I won’t want to,” I tell him.

When he opens the screen door and we explode into the room, not a moment is wasted. He presses me up against the wall of the kitchen, and the second the screen door bangs closed, his mouth is hot and heavy on mine. His hands roam my body. He whirls me around and presses against me so I can feel his erection, hard, against my ass. I’m caught between the hard wall and the even harder wall of muscle that is Silas. Pushing my hair to the side, his mouth devours my neck, making me cry out again. I push my ass against his erection, and he lifts the hem of my dress, cupping my bare ass. He reaches the strings of my bikini, and pushes them down my thighs. He lifts the skirt high and I can almost feel his eyes appraising my ass.

“Oh, goddamn it, Genevieve,” he says, his voice ragged, slapping me lightly. “I don’t think I can stop now. How the fuck have you been hiding an ass like that?”

It’s called a big sweatshirt, I think for a split second, until I’m not able to think anything at all. I’m aching, wet, more turned on than I’ve ever been as he drags down the zipper reaching from my shoulders to my ass. He spreads open the dress and I feel his tongue between my shoulder blades, sending jolts of excitement through the ends of every one of my nerves.

He pulls my dress from my shoulders and slides it down my body until it’s puddled on the floor. Then he easily undoes the bra clasp, and I help him to slide it off me. When I’m standing there, naked except for my ballet flats, he turns me around. My nipples pebble as his hungry gaze sweeps over me. “Goddamn,” he drawls, low and lost as his eyes rake over my naked body. “I never thought I’d . . .” He lets out a sigh as his eyes meet mine. “Genevieve. You’re beautiful.”

He scoops me up and places me on the bed, gazing at me hungrily. Then he pulls off his t-shirt and kneels on the ground before me. His body looms over me, just a hair’s breadth away, but close enough that I can feel the sparks radiating between us. His eyes are dark now, feral and wild. Then, all at once he descends upon me, warm and inviting, and his mouth slams down on mine in a feverish kiss. Soon, it’s back to fucking with our tongues, and part of me thinks I might just be able to keep doing this forever and ever and be fine. At the same time, I want things to progress. This journey we’ve been flirting with starting, for the past five years? I’m not afraid anymore. In fact, I’m excited to know where it leads.

Because it’s with Silas. The only person I ever wanted.

I tug at his shirt, helping him lift it over his head, then my fingers trail down his hard chest, stopping at the trail of dark hair pointing the way from his belly to what’s beneath. I unsnap his jeans, and he lets out a heavy, panting breath as I lower the zipper. My knuckles graze his hardness through his underwear, and he jolts with the motion. “Is this . . . okay?” I ask uncertainly.

He chuckles softly. “Anything you want to do is okay, Genevieve. But I can’t promise you I won’t come right away.”

Emboldened by that, I look down between us. My body shudders as I see his underwear, stretched over his erection. I suck in a breath. “I’ve never . . .”

He sits down on the edge of the bed, kicking his jeans off one leg, and lowering the stiff denim fabric over the tight cast on the other leg. Now he’s only in his underwear. He rolls over to me. Then he takes my hand, dips open the band of his underwear, and gently helps my hand inside. He’s burning up, like white-hot fire. I feel the small wisps of hair there, and then his cock. God, it’s a rock. My body shivers as I stroke its smooth thickness. I look up and see him, head tilted back, one eye gazing intently at me. I nudge down his underwear so I can see it, and he complies, pulling it down and kicking them off too, so we’re both naked.

My eyes trail down his strong torso, to the V of his waist, to the trimmed pubic hair. And there it is, his cock. Glorious and goddamn. Huge. I have nothing to compare it to, I know. But there is no denying it. Silas St. Clair is as beautiful there, as he is everywhere.

I draw in a shaky breath as it hits home.

That is going inside me. The whole thing. This is happening. The only doubt in my mind is whether I’ll be able to take him in. But dammit, I’m going to try, because this is, without a doubt, something we should’ve done a long time ago.

He closes the gap so my breasts push against his chest. I pull him closer, even closer, so close that his heartbeat is thudding against mine. He leans his head down and kisses me, soft and tender, his eyes begging me once more for permission. But I’ve already given him permission. I’ve already said yes, with every fiber of my body. It’s far from the Silas that treats women like meaningless conquests. It’s like he can’t believe that I would deign to be with him, when he is the superstar, the person every woman wants.

“Don’t stop this,” I tell him, completely melted and gasping from the tenderness of this moment.

I race my fingers down his strong back to the globes of his ass, kneading them. He growls into his kisses, then his mouth drops down, lower, lower, finding purchase on my breast. And all at once he’s licking and sucking my nipple, leaving me spasming and arching my back in pure delight. I scratch at his ass with my fingernails, pushing myself off the bed, meeting his open mouth. He stays like that for what seems like hours, just licking and kissing my breasts, cupping one and then the other, and the small fire in my belly starts to gather into a fiery inferno.

Then his mouth slowly trails downward, licking and nibbling to my navel. His rough cheeks are like sandpaper against my skin but it’s an amazing friction. He slides off the bed, then suddenly grabs my leg, lifting it up, positioning himself so that I can feel his breath on my clit. I let out an animal groan as his nose bumps up against my clit. “Oh,” I murmur, suddenly feeling embarrassed. “Oh, no . . . I can’t. Please don’t.”

He sits up and lays a kiss right beneath my navel. “Tell me what you want to me to do, Genevieve.”

“Touch me there,” I murmur. “Just touch me everywhere.”

He nudges my thighs open with his knees, spreading me open. I’m dripping wet. His hand slides between my legs, fingering my clit, and then slowly, he delves a finger into my hot, wet core. I gasp as fever shoots through every one of my nerves. His finger slides slowly and rhythmically, in and out of me, making me moan and wriggle under his touch. His touch on my clit is gentle and soft and slow, circling surely so that now the wetness is coursing out of me. I feel an ache in my belly, something inside me, yearning to be filled.

“I want you to fuck me,” I hear a voice say. I’m surprised to hear that it’s my own.

He draws in a ragged breath. “Are you—”

“Don’t ask again, Silas,” I tell him confidently. “Now.”

“All right.”

His breathing is hard as he reaches down and lifts his jeans to the bed, searching through the pockets for his wallet. He pulls out the wrapped square, rips the packet open with his teeth, and I feel his hand withdraw from me for the smallest second, so that he can roll the condom on. I rest my weight on my elbows, watching him take his shaft in his hand and guide it between my legs. He pauses at my entrance and looks into my eyes, licking his lips in anticipation. He stops there for the longest time, enough for me to take in and let out several shaky breaths.

He hovers over me, propped on one elbow, his other hand still on his cock, guiding it. He pushes a lock of my hair away from my face with the other hand, and says, very sweetly and softly, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I know.”

“I’ll do it slow, okay? Real slow, and if you want me to stop, if it hurts, just tell me.”

I nod and hold my breath for the sting, the pain. The daylight is waning outside, but I can see him so clearly in front of me. His face strains in deep concentration, just like it does whenever he’s working out a tough play on the field, but even more intense, and his gaze never leaves mine.

Suddenly I feel him sliding slowly into me, just an inch, breaking down the wall, spreading me open gently.

“All right?”

“It doesn’t hurt, Silas,” I say, tightening my grip on his strong back.

“Okay.” He pushes forward, so, so slow, inch by inch, filling me.

“Fuck,” he murmurs, voice strained and husky. His hands are now gripping my hips. “You’re so tight. I’m almost… in.”

And then he is flush against me, hips against hips. There is no pain, just this enormous feeling of fullness, of completeness that I’ve been lacking all my life. I’ve never been this close to anyone, never will be, and of course, it’s Silas. It couldn’t have been anyone else. I can stay here forever, I think. He’s huge, stretching me, and I feel him inside me, throbbing with his heartbeat. I let out a shuddery breath and savor the feeling of his hot skin totally against mine, blanketing me. I kiss the side of his face, salty with his sweat, and wonder what comes next.

“This okay?” he asks unsurely. “Does it hurt?”

I shake my head. “I love it.”

“You . . . love it?”

He seems so unsure, as if he hasn’t brought so many women to the same revelation.

“Yes. Do you?”

He lets out a small laugh. “Baby, love isn’t a strong enough word.”

I smile at him. “I’m ready for what comes next, Silas.”

He lets out a tortured breath. Pressure is building, an explosion just waiting to happen. Before it can, he releases his grip on my hips and pulls himself out. I feel the tip of his shaft at my entrance for a mere breath, and then he plunges inside, slowly and steadily.

I can’t help it. It rips a shriek from my mouth.

“Okay?” he asks me, searching out my eyes.

“Yes. More. Faster.”

Another slow, slide out, and this time, no pause. He thrusts into me, hard this time. The pressure is building, blooming deep in my core like a volcano, ready to erupt. His muscles are tense as he pulls out and thrusts again, harder, faster, deeper, and there is pain, but mostly just the desire to get more of him as far into me as possible.

“Yes. Yes,” I cry out. “Fuck me, Silas. Harder. Don’t stop.”

“You like it hard?” he says, voice strained and surprised as I’m now lifting my hips off the bed, meeting his every thrust in a steadily hastening rhythm. We’re both covered in sweet sweat, and the friction is threatening to make us burst into flames.

“Yes. Harder.” I murmur, concentrating hard. This feeling . . . what is it? It started low in my belly but now it’s radiating out, threatening to take over every inch of me. Now, I feel shameless. I want his mouth on me, everywhere. I want him to fuck me forever. The pressure in my belly is now thundering through me, and I know an explosion is coming. I’ve never felt it, but I know it’s right. There is no way this feeling can be wrong.

He slows his thrusts, sliding in and out, testing the rhythm, getting even deeper. His chest slides against my hard nipples, and suddenly, I let out a cry. He’s found the right place, because the pleasure is almost too much to take, I’m getting even hotter and closer to that edge than I dreamed possible. I hook my legs around his hips and he buries himself impossibly deep inside me. I’m frantic as I find myself building to the edge of that peak.

The climax.

I don’t know it’s the climax until it hits me. I’ve never had one before. My entire body ripples with such intensity I let out an animal wail, my body shattering.

I come. So hard. So hard that I keep screaming and sobbing his name, over and over again, even as I start to come down. He rips me apart.

He must’ve been holding out on me because the second I find myself coming down, he plunges deep into me, holding me there, and I feel him pulsating inside me. He lets out a long, muffled groan into my hair, then whispers my name over and over again.

“Genevieve,” he murmurs as the shuddering subsides, gazing dreamily into my eyes. He falls then, completely limp, into my arms.

And for once, I can’t find a thing to argue about with him. Everything seems perfectly right. I’m his Genevieve. For now, and for always.