Isaac swung his bike around a tight bend in the road on the way to his country house. He couldn’t quite believe he had Ava’s arms around his waist and her body pressed to his back again. Something was definitely bothering her, something about work, judging by the fact that she was playing hooky and didn’t want to talk about it.

But right now, he didn’t care. After three days and nights without her, he wasn’t going to do anything to steer her away. In fact, he was looking forward to the opportunity to show her a little more of himself.

He slowed and turned onto the drive leading to the house. Ava shifted behind him and peered over his shoulder.

“Oh, Isaac,” she murmured in the helmet’s microphone, her voice soft with awe. “It’s adorable.”

He pulled to a stop in front of the garage he’d finished building two months earlier. Turning off the engine, he tugged his helmet over his head and took hers as she handed it to him. “It’s got a ways to go, but she’s going to be a real charmer when she’s finished.”

Ava climbed off the bike and ran her hands through her hair, her gaze on the house. Every time he rolled up the driveway, he got that little thrill beneath his ribs. Four dormers added interest to the exterior and light to the bedrooms. Three fireplaces warmed the interior’s historical colonial charm. The wraparound porch with dual pillars accented the home’s country flair.

“Do you own the land?” she asked, looking around.

“Yep. Six acres. There’s a seasonal creek in the back and a view of the mountains. It’s really something in fall when all the leaves change.” He pulled his phone from his back pocket and opened the original photo of the home. “This is what it looked like when I bought it.”

She squinted at the image a second before her eyes went wide. “No way.” She took the phone and lifted it to compare it to the house. In the photo, grass and weeds obscured the porch, ivy strangled two of the three chimneys, and rot ate out the eaves and porch pillars. “Holy shit.”

He chuckled.

“How long have you owned it?”

“A year. I would have been done with it a long time ago, but the shop really picked up, and I haven’t had time or energy to get back to it.”

“It’s so peaceful out here.” She handed him the phone and wrapped an arm around his waist.

“Jeremy and I used to come out here to kill time. When he came home on leave, we’d take rides through the country. This place had been abandoned for as long as I can remember. We’d always stop here, sit on the concrete walls of the porch, and bullshit, talk about life, his tours, our troubles. Sometimes we’d shoot tin cans out back.”

She sighed and hugged him close. “I know it’s no consolation for losing him, but it’s great that you two had such a close relationship while he was alive.”

He nodded, feeling like she got him. Really got him. “I live on those memories.”

“Show me the inside.” She took his hand, pulling him toward the house while she walked backward with an adorable grin and flashing blue eyes. “I’m especially interested in the bedrooms.”

The way her flowy skirt bounced around her knees made his body ache. “And I’m especially interested in getting you to one of those bedrooms.”

He unlocked the door and pushed it wide, then stepped aside to let her cross the threshold. Construction equipment and supplies were piled in various corners. Some rooms were torn down to the studs, some partially drywalled. Isaac found himself holding his breath. He’d never shown the house to anyone. Not his parents, not friends, not clients. He’d just referred to it as “the project.”

She gasped as she walked into the foyer. The grand staircase curving to the right always took him a little aback, and he found himself thrilled she obviously felt the same.

“Oh my God, that’s gorgeous.” Her sincere love of the house warmed him. She ran her hand over the chipped and weathered banister. “I can’t even imagine how stunning it will be when it’s refinished.”

He gestured toward the different rooms. “Main living room is in there, formal dining there, and the kitchen is that way. Bedrooms are upstairs.”

But Isaac only had eyes for her gorgeous legs as she strolled into the living room.

“Oh my God, a Bösendorfer.” The reverence in her voice pulled his gaze up, and Isaac found her hand sliding over the top of the baby grand. She turned a grin on him. “You play?”

“No. Jeremy was the musical genius.” He shrugged. “My mom would make me do my homework at a table in the living room while he practiced to keep us both within view, but I secretly loved hearing him play, so I never complained.” Ava gently lifted the key cover, a familiar movement he’d watched Jeremy make thousands of times. “Do you play?”

“I do.” Her hand slid over the keys. “But I haven’t played in months. We had a Steinway growing up, but I’ve played a lot of different pianos and always wanted a Bösendorfer. Something about the sound, the fluid movement of the keys, the notes…” She played a slow scale on the ivories, and the sound resonated through the otherwise empty room, creating ripples of familiarity down Isaac’s spine. “But my parents needed a Steinway. Somehow, they believed the name aligned them with the elite, when in reality, they were just ignorant about quality pianos. I’ve discovered they’re far more ignorant than even I realized.”

He followed her to the bench and sat, then pulled her sideways onto his lap. “My father was the one who got Jeremy started, but his arthritis keeps him from playing now. It sat unused for years after Jeremy enlisted. I guess they saw my house as the perfect opportunity to move it through the family.” He laughed at the irony of it, something so expensive and elegant in his ramshackle foreclosure. “Maybe they thought I’d try my hand at it. Or maybe my mom knew how much I loved hearing Jeremy play. I don’t know. It’s ridiculously out of place, but it holds a lot of sentimental value.”

He slid a hand over the length of her smooth thigh beneath the hem of her skirt, over her knee, and back up, sneaking beneath the fabric for more skin. Ava hummed with pleasure and dropped her lips to his neck. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.”

“Same.” He stroked her thigh again. Warm, soft, supple. “Do you want to talk about what’s bothering you?”

“Nope.”

He didn’t think so, but he felt better about letting his mind turn to sex now that he’d asked. One more slow sweep of his hand up her thigh, and he let his fingers drift toward the heat at the apex, brushing her panties. She hummed. “Do you want more of this?”

She sighed. “Yep.”

He pulled his hand from her leg, gripped her waist, and lifted her off his lap, turning her to face him. “Slide those little panties off.”

Her smile was both sexy and shy, but she held his gaze as she lifted the edges of her skirt to slide her thumbs into the hips of her panties and ease them down her legs, keeping her body strategically covered with the fall of her skirt. She let the silk drop to her feet, then bent forward, resting her hands on his thighs, and kissed him. Gently. Letting her tongue trail over his lips. The smallest gesture from this woman could turn Isaac inside out.

He reached behind her and closed the piano’s key cover, then lifted her off her feet and settled her ass on the wood. Ava laughed and planted her hands on the cover to hold herself steady on the narrow ledge.

Isaac used one foot to pull the stool close, sat, and looked up at her. “Open your legs.”

Ava’s blue eyes sparked. She pulled the corner of her lip between her teeth and slid one thigh to the side, then the other.

Isaac gripped her ankles and pulled her feet to the piano bench on either side of him. He let one hand trail up her calf, along her inner thigh and beneath her skirt. “I may not play the piano,” he murmured, “but I bet I can make Ava sing.”

A nervous laugh slipped through her lips just before he stroked the backs of his fingers across her hot, soft pussy. Ava murmured a sound in her throat.

“That’s a start.” He watched every micro expression cross her face as he brushed his fingers over her sex again and again, just whispers of friction, teasing her until her breath quickened. Until she started to wriggle toward his touch.

“This is the sweetest little secret, this juicy little pussy.” He pushed one finger inside her, an excruciatingly slow movement. Then he pulsed deeper, rubbing the swell that made her head fall back on a moan. “I could finger fuck you for hours, just watching your reactions, teasing you into a hundred orgasms with nothing but my fingers and tongue.”

Ava groaned, an impatient sound.

Isaac used his free hand to push her skirt to her hips, opening a deliciously erotic view of his masculine hand invading and manipulating her tight, nearly bare sex. He moaned and shifted on the bench, trying to relieve his own need. “Look at this pretty pussy,” he murmured. “Watch me touch you, Ava.”

She opened her eyes and let her head list foreword. Isaac added a second finger and fucked her in slow, deep strokes while she moaned.

“You like that, don’t you?” he murmured, his own breath coming quicker. “You like my fingers inside you.”

His fingers glistened from her excitement, making him hungry. Her scent filled his head, making him high. He dragged her wetness over her clit and pushed back inside her, earning him a tortured moan.

“I’m going to watch myself finger fuck you until you break,” he told her, pushing into her slick folds. Watching his big, rough, stained fingers disappear into her pink, plump, slick pussy.

Ava’s hips shifted and rocked on the edge of the piano ledge. “Isaac…”

He ignored her plea. He was having way too much fun. He was fascinated by the sight of her. “Don’t rush me, baby. I’ve found a new addiction. And I’m obsessed.”

She whimpered.

“I’m going to discover exactly what makes you writhe and moan and scream and whimper.”

“Oh my God,” she murmured and dropped her head back. “Isaac.”

Releasing her ankle, he licked the fingers of his other hand and stroked saliva across her clit with his thumb. Ava’s hips bucked off the ledge, and she choked out a sound, forcing fire through Isaac’s veins. While he stroked deep inside her with one hand, he continued to make whisper-soft circles over her clit and watch Ava rise until she climaxed.

Her back arched, and her pussy squeezed his fingers in convulsive bursts that made his cock ache.

“Oh, fuck…” she breathed, head against the piano.

Isaac smiled and pulled his fingers from her pussy, dripping wet. Without giving her any break, he covered her with his mouth, licking her juices. She gasped and shivered. Drove one hand into his hair and fisted it, lifting her hips to his mouth. The woman was so fucking hot, she bent Isaac’s mind.

He slid a finger over the sweet pucker of her anus, stroking until she moaned his name again. Isaac was hungry and hard, aching to exploit her inhibitions. While he teased her clit with the tip of his tongue, he slid a finger into her backside and lifted his gaze to watch ecstasy tighten her expression. Her head lolled to the side as she watched him work her. Her eyes hazed over, her lips parted, and her legs relaxed even wider. With her hands braced on the piano cover, her feet on the bench, she lifted her hips, then lowered, fucking her ass on his finger, rubbing her pussy against his mouth.

Her head dropped back on a moan. Her body trembled.

Isaac plunged his finger deep on each drop of her ass, never giving her clit more than a split-second brush with his tongue. Ava was wild with lust, rocking her hips faster, driving into his hand harder.

When she broke, she shattered. Her body bucked. Her thighs closed, squeezing his head. Isaac covered her pussy with his mouth, drove his tongue into her, and rubbed her clit with his lips, eating her and eating her and eating her, reveling in the series of chaotic orgasms ripping through her body.

Ava finally pushed a hand into his hair and fisted it, pulling his mouth away. “Stop, stop, stop.”

“Need a break, baby?”

“Yes.”

Isaac pushed to his feet and used his body weight to keep her steady while he dragged his wallet from his back pocket. It felt like a lifetime before he could rip the condom open and roll it on. “Okay, break’s over.”

He gripped her waist, dropped her to her feet, and spun her toward the piano. After spreading her arms wide and curving her hands over the turn of the wooden key cover, Isaac guided his cock to her pussy and thrust. She enveloped him, her pussy slick and hot.

“Ah, fuck,” he bit out.

He tried to fuck her slowly, but the way she moved, the sounds she made, the sight of her bare ass, the way she held tight to the piano to meet his hammering thrusts. It was all too much. Too perfect. Isaac barely held out as he drove her to one final orgasm before letting his own tear him apart.