A mistake was something that happened once.

What was it called when it happened twice? Idiocy? Insanity?

Luck?

It didn’t matter. The last time I was overwhelmed by the wedding and my family, I turned to the wrong man to make it right. And he had—at least, in that moment. Now I wanted more of the same, knowing the consequences.

I invited him to the cabin and tossed the bridesmaids and my sister into the guest bedrooms.

I told him to wait while I quickly showered the night off and grabbed a warm, fuzzy blanket.

And we planned to repeat that wonderful mistake.

It wasn’t logical. It wasn’t safe.

It wasn’t fair to him.

But I couldn’t share the secret about the baby yet, not even with him. My family already danced around total annihilation. The drama would ruin the wedding, drive a wedge deeper between my parents, and destroy any relationship I had with my sister.

That sort of news wouldn’t be seen as blessed or joyous. It’d be scandal and shame, and no baby deserved that.

Once the wedding was over, I’d tell them.

And him.

I shut the cabin door behind me. I expected the night to be completely silent this far away from the city, but the chirping frogs and buzzing locusts muffled the click of the door’s latch. The cabin overlooked a field of wildflowers in the front. In the back, it stood watch over a lake, mirror-flat and still, reflecting a sky littered with thousands of stars.

Nate leaned against the porch railing. Was it possible for him to look better now, waiting in the dark stillness? The shadows struck the hard angles of his jaw, and his eyes absorbed the mystery of the night. Green gave way to midnight tones of blue and silver. I stared, imagining everything we had done and had yet to do.

“Everyone asleep?” His voice rumbled, low and cautious.

“They will be,” I said.

“You okay?”

“I will be.”

Nate crossed his arms. The tattoos creeping along his biceps and under the t-shirt edged black in the low light, too dark to hide anything but their intent. He wasn’t a man who saved damsels in distress, but he was the type to accept their gratitude however they wished to award it.

I cradled the blanket to my chest. Nate didn’t ask any more foolish questions. He offered his hand.

I took a breath.

My palm fit within his, and the heat coursed over me, through me, inside me.

He guided me along the dirt path leading from the cabin to the lakeside dock. I hadn’t been to the lake since I was little. Back then, the water seemed huge and impossible. Now the stillness was safe and serene. The lake lapped the dock, and the sky above stretched in brilliant shades of blue and the darkest purple. I almost giggled. The sky looked indigo.

We didn’t need to speak. I wasn’t sure what we would say. Nate had pushed, and I’d denied him so many times. But we ended here together, staring into each other’s eyes like it was the first and last time we would touch each other.

Nate laid the blanket over the wooden planks of the dock. My breathing shuddered, and I had no idea how to stand or protect myself or what to do.

But he showed me, just like he did before. I was so inexperienced then, and I was still inexperienced now. Despite the twisting in my stomach as the baby swatted at all the butterflies, I’d never felt safer.

Nate reached for me, his hand caressing my cheek. He pulled me in for a kiss and let his fingers tangle in my hair.

“It’s shorter,” he whispered. “You cut your hair.”

“You weren’t the only one who noticed.”

“It’s beautiful. You’re beautiful.”

His lips met mine. Why did I ever fight his kiss? He nibbled the words I couldn’t speak, soothed the fears I breathed, and hummed absolute comfort in every draw of his lips.

“Simple pleasure?” My whisper broke the silence, too softly for anyone but him to hear.

“If that’s all you want…” His voice caressed me like another hand. “That’s what I’ll give.”

“…What else could you give?”

“Anything you wanted.”

He seized me again. His touch became ferocious, conquering, but still so very gentle.

Since when was Nate Kensington gentle?

That wasn’t his reputation or his real desire. But he did it for me.

Because of me?

He tucked me against his body. The delicate press of his fingertips into my hips wasn’t the fierce grip my instincts expected. He touched slow, steady. I abandoned my hesitations and fell into heaven. My arms fit over his neck, and I drew myself to my tippy-toes to kiss him deeper.

It shouldn’t have felt so good. I had no idea if the connection between us was real or a trick of my heart. Nate was the only man who could soothe everything jumbled inside me—because he was the one who tangled it.

At first I dove against him and eagerly swept my lips, mouth, tongue on his, like the last time we tossed in a bed and the passion overwhelmed us in hours of frantic excitement. But this touch deftly tickled over me. Soft. Leisurely.

Nate was patient, and I knew why.

“I’m not a virgin anymore,” I whispered.

I broke the kiss. He chastised me with a tightened grip on my hair. A thrill of excitement trapped me in his arms, and he tipped my head back. He nipped my neck and claimed that soft hollow he knew I loved so much.

“You deserve to be spoiled with pleasure. To learn from someone who takes the time to show you how great sex can really be,” he said.

“I already had a thorough lesson.”

“No.” His voice could command and comfort in the same breath. “That night was selfish and quick. I thought you wanted to blow off steam.”

“I did.”

“That’s not how we’re doing it this time.”

“It’s…not?”

His smile might have stopped my heart. “No. I’m going to show you everything tonight. How you should feel. What you can take. This night is all about your pleasure.”

My voice weakened in amazement. “Mine?”

“I’ve been chasing you for a reason, baby. Once wasn’t enough to sate either of us.”

His fingers teased over my blouse, and his adept hands worked the buttons without struggle.

“I was satisfied,” I said.

“I can do better. I will do better.” He promised me with a kiss. “That first time, I thought I wanted a night with you so I could get off and silence my own desire. I was wrong. I realized my only desire is to give you pleasure.”

“Why?”

“How else would I express my gratitude?”

“Gratitude for what?”

“Letting me near you? Letting me touch you?” His words stilled as my blouse fell away. “Giving me the best night of my life?”

Nate’s kiss teased a mew from me. A wave of goose bumps washed over my body as he studied everything I offered.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” he said. “You are, without a doubt, the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

“I think you’re just saying that because I’m standing here in a bra and jeans.”

“Let’s test it.”

His fingers danced over my back. He unhooked my bra and tugged it off. The cool air wrapped over my breasts, and I bit my lip.

They were bigger than they had been. Fuller.

Nate stared, enraptured. I held my breath as his knuckle brushed my nipple. It immediately tightened, hardened and budded for his inspection.

I wanted more than just fingers. How quickly could I get him to lick and taste and suck?

“You’re beautiful with or without clothes.” His hardness pressed against my leg. “Though I prefer without.”

So did I.

Nate took off his shirt, but he only unbuckled his belt before dropping to his knees. His shoulders rippled with muscle. In the low light, the tattoos blended into his flesh, almost natural. I couldn’t imagine him without the barbs and coils of ink.

I loved the sound of his growl. He strained against his own need. I had no idea he possessed such willpower. He grunted, but he didn’t dive over me. I wondered what I’d have to do to get tossed onto the blanket, to let him have his way with my desperate and wanting slit.

I swallowed, tensing to stone as he studied my every curve. His touch shivered dizzying circles over my arms and waist. I loved and feared the inspection. He unhooked the button to my jeans.

Could he tell?

Was the baby still hidden?

Did he remember how I had looked before? I recognized the change, but it was slight yet. My nipples had grown a little larger, and my breasts softened and plumped. My tummy was yet flat, but the secret made me feel heavy and weighted, as if anyone who saw me would know.

Nate said nothing. His lips tenderly kissed my skin as he tugged at my zipper.

He centered a kiss directly over my womb. I gasped.

His eyes glinted, mischievous. “Feel good?”

I didn’t know what to say.

Yes.

It felt amazing.

For one brief, insane second, I imagined he had kissed there because he knew. That he’d kissed because he was happy, and that this secret was ours to keep. In that world, this wasn’t a second mistake but the beginning of a lifetime of amazing opportunities and happiness.

I stayed quiet.

Nate held me tight as I kicked the jeans away. All the remained were my panties. Of course, they were a ridiculously pink and cute pair that had no place in my fantasy under the stars. He left them on.

Like he thought I was going to change my mind?

I wasn’t. I couldn’t. Every touch against my skin set a fire of confusion and delight. Had he peeled the panties away, I would’ve been ready for him then. Slick. Hot. I’d run for too long. What was I afraid of now? Nothing more earth-shattering could happen in his arms.

Except the amazement when he kissed me.

That was new. That was wonderful.

And it was so very frightening and real.

He guided me onto the dock, cradling me in the softness of the blanket. His touch wove so gently my heart only beat when his fingers graced my skin.

I reached for him, opening my legs so he could rest over me. His tongue responded to my delicate, tentative probe, and the rest of me shivered with warmth as his whisper promised everything I shouldn’t have accepted.

“You’re going to love this.” Even at his most gentle, Nate still grinned a wicked smile. “Every touch, every kiss. We aren’t leaving until you are nothing but a puddle of pleasure.”

“Promise?”

“You know how much I love a challenge. And I know how much you like when I do this…”

He flattened his tongue over my nipple and dragged the heat over my breast. I arched.

Oh God.

I was more sensitive than ever. My breasts weren’t just fuller, they tingled and tightened and if he did it again—

“You look better than I remembered.” His words rasped over his own desire. “Unbelievably sexy.”

His tongue returned, spiraling over the tight bud. Every stroke rippled through me with aching jolts. I couldn’t breathe. He liked that. Nate did the same to my other breast, slowly tickling my nipple with his tongue. It was as if he wished to torture me with pleasure until I revealed my secrets.

I bit my lip. He thought it was a dare to make me cry out. Nate centered himself over me, popping a nipple into his mouth so suddenly I arched in case he planned to suckle it off my breast. The bite came without warning. Not painful, but surprising. It earned the whimper he wanted, and, as a reward, he suckled the shock away.

This wasn’t how we fucked before.

Not at all.

I had no idea what Nate could do to my body, and he read my astonishment with a cocky wink. The nipple slipped from his mouth with a sloppy pop.

“Just wait, baby. You’ll regret that we didn’t do this sooner.”

I already did. I regretted every second of every day that I hadn’t returned to his bed.

I gained a bit of courage and threaded my fingers through the pale blonde of his hair. The pinkness of his lips against my skin wasn’t vulgar, but it delighted a secret part of me that longed to see more of him pressed against my darkness. I wished I had kept my eyes open the first time. I would have loved to watch his muscles, his arms, and his cock claim every inch of me.

I would this time.

No excuses. No shame. Nate was the most gorgeous man I’d ever met, and it’d be a crime to waste any opportunity to savor him.

He delighted my breasts, switching back and forth as he took such pleasure in the simplest of kisses. I never thought Nate would enjoy giving as much as taking, but my coos and groans only hardened his cock more. It strained against his jeans, and I wished he’d let it free.

But he worked with purpose. Deliberation. Concentration.

His kisses trailed over my waist, lower and lower, until he reached the panties that hid my most sensitive area. The last time he’d delighted me, he overpowered me, quick and fast, forcing me to the peak before I understood what’d happened.

Nate breathed over the crest between my legs. The heat rocked me, and I bit my lip before I begged him for more.

“I’m being selfish,” he warned.

I bucked my hips, hoping he meant he was too hard, too frustrated. God, I wished he needed to take me then and now.

“It’s okay. I’m ready.”

“I know you are.” He slowly peeled my panties down, teasing himself as the hint of my slit revealed to him. “Since I last had you, all I can think about is devouring you again. This…” He pulled my legs apart and stared at the dark petals quaking for his touch. “This is as much for me as it is for you. If I don’t taste you right now, I might go insane from your scent.”

His tongue danced over my pussy. Nate lapped, slow and steady, tasting my secrets. I’d kept my slit soft and smooth, and he rewarded me with a kiss upon the silken mound.

He stared at me, grinning as my hips chased his mouth. “This is the most beautiful pussy I’ve ever had the privilege of tasting.”

Oh, he made being a player sound like such a perk for me…and, it was. Nate understood my body in ways my showerhead had yet to figure out. This was something more than hard-earned skill.

Nate knew me now.

He’d watched how I squirmed. He tasted how I responded. He held me as I bucked.

He’d learned what I liked, and everything changed.

I groaned against the slight pressure of his lips. His hot breath. The slip of his tongue just deep enough into my folds to test my slick excitement.

He had me panting without even touching my clit. He did it on purpose. It would be a long time before he gave me that simple pleasure.

His kisses focused on my inner thigh, teasing the soft skin around my slit, and dipping low to earn my frustrated murmur. Nothing eased that deep, trembling pulse inside me. I wetted for the only man who had ever brought me to that pleasured peek before, and I couldn’t wait for him to do it again.

“Nate…”

“Shh.” He savored me with a long lick. “I’m just getting started.”

I wasn’t above begging, but the words caught in my throat. I gripped the blanket and offered more of my hips.

He wasn’t playing fair. I tried to distract myself. I stared at the sky. The stars sprawled across the horizon, and the sweet, damp air soothed my flushing skin. Everything delighted me more. I couldn’t escape the delicate pressure searing into my core.

I sweated. My whimpers turned pained. This was it. The best and worst eternal agony. I wouldn’t survive if he stopped or ended it. I surrendered and fell limp.

Nate gave a voracious growl and launched upon my center.

His tongue seized my swollen nub, suckling my clit with a fury that stole my voice and left me shattered, breathless, and amazed by the sheer power he wielded over me.

“I want you to come.” Nate’s order was rushed and pained. He growled over my clit, and the vibrations rattled into my core. “The instant you come, I’m taking you.”

“Yes, please.”

“I can’t believe it’s been this long, baby.” He savored my slickness and greedily lapped everything I offered. “Swear to me, right now, right here. You’re mine. I can’t go months without having you again.”

His words pleasured me as much as his tongue. I groaned. Nate didn’t stop.

“You are everything pure and sexy that would drive an honest man to his knees and a bastard like me to the brink of hell. You have no idea how much I want you.”

And he had no idea how much I wanted him, but with promises and vows and futures I couldn’t give and he wouldn’t want.

I nodded, half-delirious with a crazed desperation. I tensed too much. I couldn’t hold back or refuse or deny it any more than I could have forced him to stop his teasing. I cried out and stared above as every star in the sky burst and exploded with me.

I quaked, shivered, and melted, but Nate was there. He kicked down his jeans and leaned over me with a determination that might have been frightening if I hadn’t wanted that fierceness.

I had no time to prepare. The pleasure wound through me, wrapping me in the fracturing shrapnel of my control. Nate poised himself at my entrance.

And pushed.

The overwhelming fullness wasn’t just the thickness of his cock steadily invading y core.

I rose with a breath but couldn’t come back down. My heart frantically beat, and I realized then Nate was the only man who would ever control me with such authority.

And he was the only man I ever wanted to possess that power.

My body had shred itself upon the delicate lapping of his tongue, but I had no time after the crash to recover. His cock drove inside me. Not fast. Not desperate.

He filled me because we couldn’t live apart for even a second longer.

I stared into his eyes, losing myself in the mysterious hue of forest green captured in the moonlight. He buried himself inside me, taking the tightness he had claimed before.

The first time, it had pinched and surprised me. I spent too long trying to adjust, to understand how something so primal could feel so delicious. This time, I had the answers. It felt good because it was Nate’s cock, his touch, his kiss.

The slow thrusts built in me, and I focused on every throbbing motion to savor how I reacted to the wonderfully perfect heat that passed between us.

He was bare now. Not that it mattered much then, but it did now. I felt him. Each thrust impaled me with a hard cock, but his skin was velvet soft and slid within my wetness so perfectly. Every vein, every ridge pushed against the tightness as I clenched around him.

Another orgasm built within me—deep and secret. Nate fell over me, and I raised my hips to welcome more of his length. His lips silenced my groans, too loud to let pass into the silence of the perfect night, sheltering our pleasure.

This wasn’t fucking. It wasn’t anything close, and the thought should have scared me more than the moment I realized I was pregnant.

But it didn’t.

It felt right. Natural. We fit so perfectly it was a wonder we had ever parted before.

Nate groaned against me, tensing just as I did. God, everything about us was in sync. Our breathing gasped together. Our heart beat the same jagged pulse. And our desire?

It built within me, ready for the moment Nate crested with his.

I clung to him, soundlessly begging. My head fell back, and he held me still so he could bite the sensitive spot on my neck that nearly sent me over the edge without him. His thrusts quickened, harsher but not rough. Never rough. His touch and kisses promised only perfection.

And he gave it.

He grunted and slammed inside as deeply as he could fit. I tightened against his cock.

And we were one.

His heat coated me as I collapsed into the same shattered excitement that had stolen me before. I fell limp against his hands and surrendered.

I cried out only once, calling his name and nothing more in my last, desperate grip of sanity.

The rest of everything I had to say, every secret, every dark and confusing emotion, I tucked inside and hid. I held onto him instead and buried my head in his shoulder. Nate did the same.

We rolled onto our sides, safe and warm on a blanket in the most beautiful place in the world. I counted stars again, just to ensure they still rested in the sky. His breath returned to normal. He pulled me close again. I sunk into his arms, turning to seek comfort in the strength of his chest.

I didn’t know what to say.

Nothing I thought was right or honest or could explain how I felt.

And so I held tight to him, protected and warm. Then, once our bodies stirred again, we moved together in pleasure once more.

I made love to him all night, except love wasn’t something to make. It was a curse to inflict and a struggle for us both.

As much as I denied it, I’d never escape the truth that passed every moment I rested safe in his arms.

I was falling for him.

And it was the worst and best thing that might have happened to me.