When the kiss ended, I stood there blinking, trying to figure out if I was dreaming. It certainly wouldn’t have been the first time. But his lips were so familiar and warm and the contact had set my blood on fire. The masculine, cedar wood scent of his skin infiltrated my senses and my heart pounded with desire at the familiarity of it. His face was covered in a full but neat beard that had felt deliciously soft against my face, and his hair was swept back and tied in a knot at the back of his head. He looked very different than the last time I had seen him.

But there was no mistaking those eyes.

“I’m… I’m not Cain,” he told me as he gazed down longingly at me.

Confusion washed over me and I shook my head. I was dreaming. Oh, no. Please don’t let it be a dream. I swallowed and scrunched my brow. “I don’t understand… You… you look like—” The mind was such a powerful yet cruel thing. I should have remembered that fact. I must have fallen asleep after my shower. That was the only explanation.

“Allow me to introduce myself, Kelly.” He held out his hand and took mine. “I’m Cameron Iss. And you’re still beautiful.”

I dug my nails into the palm of my free hand, still unable to grasp what the hell was happening. Dizziness overcame me and the heat of the sun suddenly overwhelmed me. My knees began to buckle and I felt myself being scooped up into big, strong arms.

I opened my eyes and glanced up into a concerned blue gaze. Cain—Cameron?—smiled down at me. “You had me a little scared there for a minute. Are you okay?” He was still there and my heart skipped a beat.

“I’m… I’m fine… Just… a little confused.”

He squeezed me to him in his arms. “I’d better explain, huh?”

“You better had, yes.”

He carried me until we got to my car, and then he set me on my feet. Everything was so surreal, and I kept expecting to wake up at home, sobbing and alone in my bed.

“You kept your car.” He smiled as he smoothed his hand over the bonnet. I couldn’t reply. I had no words. Only confusion. He took the keys from my hand and opened the passenger-side door. “Get in.”

He somehow knew the way to my house, and we drove along without speaking. When we stopped, he climbed out of the car and came around to open my door again. He held out his hand, and I slipped mine into it before we made our way to the front door.

I fumbled with the keys and dropped them, so he bent to pick them up and proceeded to open the lock for me, just as he had so long ago. Still without words, we walked through the house to the living room, and I sank down onto the couch before my legs gave way with the shock of the whole situation. He sat beside me.

“Am I dreaming? Am I going to wake up and find myself alone?” I whispered.

He shook his head. “You’re not dreaming, Kelly. And I will explain. But my God, I’ve missed you so much, and all I can think about right now is making love to you.”

Without needing any explanation and without any cognitive thought, I was drawn to him once again. I clambered into his lap and crushed my mouth to his, gripping his hair and yanking out the tie that bound it. I whimpered as I revelled in how good it felt to be held by him again. He slipped one hand around my back and pulled me hard into his chest. His other hand found its way into my hair and he breathed deeply through his nose—an urgent, ragged breath that spoke of desperation and lust.

Our tongues tangled and I couldn’t get close enough to him. All the feelings I’d had before came rushing back tenfold, and my eyes overflowed with tears.

He stood with me in his arms and began to carry me toward the wooden staircase by the front door. Our mouths remained locked together, and the kiss gained fervour. How the hell we made it up the stairs, I’ll never know.

We almost collapsed through the door into my room and he placed me down so that my feet touched the floor. He stood there just staring at me for a few moments. His chest heaving and his eyes sparkling. I couldn’t take the barriers between us any longer, and so I stripped the clothes from my body as he watched me. When I was naked before him, I stepped closer and smoothed my hands up his sleeves to grip his biceps. His muscles tensed under my caress, but he still didn’t speak. It was as if he were mesmerised by me.

Suddenly, he snapped out of his trance-like state, reached up and smoothed his hands down my neck, over my collar bone, and over my breasts, as he sighed deeply.

He rolled my nipples under his thumbs, shaking his head. “I’d forgotten how beautiful you are,” he whispered. I watched his gaze move over my skin as if he were memorising my every curve. The urgency had gone, but the desire was still evident in his eyes.

I gripped the hem of his shirt and dragged it up his body and he stooped, allowing me to remove it completely. There was a new and rather alarming addition to his chest. But it wasn’t a tattoo—it was a large newly healed scar that looked distinctly like a bullet wound. As I trailed my gaze over his pecs and down his muscular arms, I noticed that the tattooed word “Cosmic” on his forearm had been filled in so that it was now illegible. The woman draped over the lettering was still there but she looked more like me than she had before. I wanted to know why these things on his body had changed and why he was so brutally scarred, but he removed something from his pocket, drawing my attention away. He then unfastened the buttons at the front of his jeans and pushed them down his legs. Once he had kicked them aside, my gaze was travelled down his sculpted body to his thick arousal. My core clenched as my own need for him became more urgent.

He cupped my face and gazed at me with lust-clouded eyes. “I need to be inside you, Kelly. I need you right now. It’s been so long, and I don’t know how I got through the last six months without you.” His voice cracked as he spoke. “But I don’t want to go through another day alone. I can’t be without you any longer.”

The urgency in his words brought me back to earth, and I stepped back from him to sit on the bed. Keeping my gaze on his, I lay back and opened my thighs in wanton invitation to him. His chest was rising and falling fast again, and he knelt on the edge of the bed. Ripping open the packet he was holding, he deftly slipped the condom over his thick shaft and moved up my body. With his rigid cock poised at my entrance, he leaned down and suckled on my nipple. I gasped and allowed my head to roll back as I basked in the sensation of being close to him again.

“Later, after I’ve explained all the shit that’s happened in my life, I’m going to make love to you and I’ll take my time then, I promise you that. But right now… right now I just need to fuck you. I need to lose myself in you. I’ve missed you so much, and I don’t think I’ll be able to hold back.” He smoothed a hand down my chest and gripped my breast roughly, eliciting another sharp gasp from me as he tweaked my nipple.

I couldn’t seem to speak and so I reached down, gripped his firm arse, and pulled him into me. He released my breast and groaned in pleasure as he sunk himself into my body, holding his large frame up on his forearms. “Oh, fuck, I’ve missed you so much, baby, so fucking much,” he mumbled as he covered my mouth with his and pulled my lower lip between his teeth.

He began to move slowly at first. Sliding in and out of my sex with such restraint that I wondered if he had changed his mind about needing to just fuck me. But no sooner had the thought entered my head than he picked up the pace as carnal growls left his body. Grinding his pubic bone into my clit and pounding his cock deep inside me, hitting every sensitive place and drawing moans from my throat. I could feel my breasts bounce as he thrust, and each time it happened, my nipples grazed his chest, building my need to climax to the point of sheer desperation.

Each rough, delicious movement knocked the air from my lungs in a pleasured grunt until I didn’t care anymore how loud I was being. I completely let go. I dug my nails into his skin, and he suckled on my neck in between muttering things I couldn’t make out.

Being totally enveloped and immersed in Kelly’s pussy was just as amazing as I remembered. Every noise she made only fuelled the fire burning beneath my skin as I pounded into her. In the back of my mind, I hoped that I wasn’t being too rough, but the way she moaned and dug her nails into me told me that she needed this kind of connection as much as I did.

In between deep thrusts, I kissed her neck and told her how fucking amazing she felt as her pussy pulled me deeper. And how wet she was for me. Fuck. She was so damn sexy and she didn’t even fucking know how much she affected me.

I pulled away and locked my gaze on her as I clenched my jaw. “You feel amazing, Kelly, I can’t believe how well you fit me. It’s like we were made just for this. Just for each other.”

She gripped my shoulders and wrapped her legs around me, and I couldn’t hold back any longer. My hips mirrored her movements and her head fell back. Her lips parted and the most erotic noises left her body as I buried myself deep inside her over and over.

“Come for me, Kelly I want to feel you come around my cock.” My words were her undoing and she pulsed around me, triggering my own climax. I let go of a string of emotion-filled expletives as I emptied myself and clung to her while she nuzzled her face into my neck.

When my breathing had calmed, I opened my eyes to find hers closed. Tears were leaving glistening trails down her cheeks, and her chin quivered.

Panicking that I’d hurt her, I wiped the tears away with my thumbs. “Hey… Kelly, baby, don’t cry. Shhhh. I’m so sorry for not being here. Please forgive me. I never stopped thinking about you. And I never stopped loving you.”

Her eyes opened, and a sob left her throat as she pulled me down and buried her face in the crook of my neck once more. We stayed there, just holding each other for what felt like hours, and I couldn’t help the niggling sense in the back of my mind that instead of being a kind of reunion for us, this was actually goodbye.