“This movie again, sweetie?” Dan breathed into my ear as he pressed a soft kiss to my neck.

I groaned, turned, and stretched out, reaching up to link my arms around his neck, pulling him closer to me. I glanced at the TV and realized I had drifted off watching Shirley MacLaine racking up dead husbands in What a Way to Go, one of my favorite movies. I had a serious addiction to classic films, something my mom had fostered in me.

“I missed you, babe, how did your first official day go?”

He leaned over, placing one knee on the bed next to me and both hands on either side of my head, caging me in.

“It went well, all things considered. I’m sorry it’s so late,” Dan murmured against my mouth.

He kissed me again lightly, sweetly, and ran his tongue along the seam of my lips. I granted him access, stroking his tongue with mine. As we continued to kiss, I shivered as desire coiled low in my belly, heat gathering between my thighs.

I moaned into his mouth, running my fingers through his hair, lightly tugging, my signal to him that I wanted to play. He groaned, lowering his body to mine, and began kissing a trail down my neck to my collarbone.

I loved this, missed this. The feel of him in my arms, the weight of his body against mine. I needed this connection with him, needed the noise of us to quiet all the thoughts in my head. While his frequent absences had created an emotional distance between us, I always knew we could connect physically, that there was a comfort found in losing ourselves in each other.

I arched my back as I ran my hands down his sides, reaching for the hem of his shirt, wanting more of his skin, to feel his warmth against me. He took the hint and sat up a bit, reached back, and tore his shirt off with one hand, a boyish grin lighting up his face.

He grabbed the hem of my shirt and said, “Off, now,” his voice rough with desire, the sound of it sending a shiver down my spine.

I sat up, crossing my arms, and pulled my shirt off. Before I could get it past my hair, Dan slipped a hand behind my back, pressing my body up toward his. His lips wrapped around my nipple, sucking it into his mouth.

I moaned again and rolled my hips up to meet his, silently begging him to cut to the chase and put us out of our misery. He laid me back down, switching his attention to my other nipple, running his tongue over it the way he knew I loved, lightly biting it in the way he knew would make me wet almost instantly.

I whimpered and moved my hips faster, trying desperately to get some friction, anything to ease the growing ache between my thighs. Or ramp it up, I wasn’t sure at this point.

I moved my hands between our bodies and ran them down his chest to his flat, ripped stomach. I reached for his belt buckle, impatiently tugging to loosen it and work his pants off, first with my hands, and then with my feet. He laughed. I returned his smile. He stood up and finished taking them off, tossing them to the side.

Dan stopped and stared at me with a look so full of lust and love, my breath caught. Before I could breathe again, his hand slid down my body, caressing as he went: the side of my breast, a whisper against my ribcage, a feathering on the curve of my stomach, a quick grip on my hip, the light pressure of fingers on the inside of my thigh. His hand then dipped between my legs, tracing my center through my thin pajama pants.

“Shit,” he groaned. “You’re already so fucking wet, I can feel you through your pants.”

Dan was normally so reserved, but I loved how filthy his mouth got when we were intimate. He slid his body down mine until I could feel his warm breath between my thighs.

“Fuck, I can even smell you. So good, baby. I’ve missed this.”

He pulled my pants and panties off with a firm tug and dropped them to the floor as I quickly wrapped my legs around his waist and tried to pull him down on top of me, wanting him inside of me, feeling like I would die if he didn’t fill me right then.

He moved down my body, spread my legs further with his wide shoulders and looked up, giving me a devilish smirk that made me even wetter, if that was possible. His head dipped down as he licked my slit with the flat of his tongue.

My back arched so hard in response, I almost screamed. He continued at a steady pace, sometimes focusing his attention firmly on my clit, lapping at my wetness, drinking my desire.

“Dan, this feels so good, but I want you inside me,” I managed to groan out through my panting.

He said nothing but gave me a look I recognized. One that said he wasn’t going to stop until he was good and ready to. Before I knew it, I arched off the bed again, back bowed, grabbing at his hair as I forced his face right up against me, exploding on his tongue as his mouth continued to devour me.

As I came down, he pulled away, smiling at me, and I couldn’t help but giggle. I loved that about us, that our lovemaking was always full of smiles and laughter along with the passion.

He climbed his way back up my body, kissing me roughly on the mouth and grinding his thick, hard length against my overly sensitive bundle of nerves. I could taste my arousal in his kiss, and I felt how ready he was for me.

I wrapped my legs around his waist again, crossing my ankles and resting them on his tight ass. I began to grind against him, my wetness making us both slippery.

“More. I need more. I need to feel you inside me now,” I begged, still breathless from my orgasm and his kiss.

He reached up and pulled my hair, not gently, just rough enough to send another flood of wetness to my core, and plunged inside me with one hard push.

This. This was what I missed so much all the months he was gone. Every. Single. Time.

He began thrusting into me slowly, setting his rhythm and pace, my hips matching it. I closed my eyes, my head rolling back. I could feel my muscles tightening and knew it wouldn’t be long before I shattered again. It wasn’t always like this, but things were always more intense right after a long separation.

“Fuck, I don’t know how much longer I can hold out, you feel so fucking good,” he whispered harshly in my ear.

I kissed him hard, forcing my tongue into his mouth, wanting to taste him and myself mingled together. Our bodies were so in tune, years of experience guiding us to the rhythm that would guarantee our mutual release, like a dance we had done so many times it was muscle memory, despite all the time we spent apart.

Our pace increased to the music of our bodies meeting, my moans and panting, his groans. Our sounds sang out a chorus of harder, faster, more, deeper, right there.

I fell apart again, the breath I’d been holding rushing out. I contracted around his length, feeling him harden and pulse, groaning out his release moments later. He dropped his forehead to mine as I collapsed backward, spent and exhausted.

“I so needed this. I missed it. I missed you. I thought you would be around more with this project, but I’ve barely seen you over the last few weeks,” I said, laughing from the relief of release.

“I needed that too, baby. I hope after we get the new project kinks worked out that I’ll get to be home more. How was your day? What did you end up doing?” Dan rolled us onto our sides, pulling me close, throwing his leg over mine.

“It was good. I spent some time with Marie at the Madrona. It was nice to get out and actually have some human contact.”

“Who’s Marie?” he asked in a faraway voice. He was much closer to sleep than I was.

“Marie is the owner of the Madrona, the B and B we stayed at when we first got here. Sweet, older woman?”

I didn’t know why this surprised me. Dan had proven time and time again that if it wasn’t on his immediate radar, he forgot about it, including things that had just happened. This was another reason I’d spent so many birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays alone.

I turned over to continue the conversation, only to see he was already asleep. As I snuggled back into his hold, attempting to find a comfortable position so that I could fall asleep, I envied his ability to pass out at the drop of a hat.

Hours later, I was still wide awake. I disentangled myself from Dan’s embrace, grabbed the blanket from the bench in front of the bed and made my way out onto the balcony.

The air was chilly and it was lightly misting, but I could hear the crashing of the waves along the shore below and found a certain peace in that. I wrapped the blanket tightly around my shoulders and sat on the outdoor sofa, cuddling into the cushions and pillows, finally finding a comfortable position.

I tried to calm my brain down, using some of the meditation techniques Jos had tried teaching me. As I decided to try a different breathing exercise, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and it felt like someone was standing behind me.

“Dan, is that you?”

Nothing. He was still in bed and I was completely alone out here, though it didn’t feel that way. I turned back around, figuring it was paranoia getting to me.

Then it happened again, the sensation that someone else was here. I looked around, got up and walked the entire length of the balcony and back. No one was there, but I couldn’t shake it.

Probably an animal or something.

Settling back into the chair, I closed my eyes, taking deep breaths to calm down. Rationally, logically, I knew I was alone. I had to be imagining things because it was more remote out here than I was used to. I’d gone from having neighbors shouting distance away to having to drive a couple of minutes to reach the closest.

I finally calmed down when a breeze started to stir. It was almost like a caress on my neck, as though someone gently ran their fingertips along the nape.

As the sensation warmed my body and sent a shiver down my spine at the same time, I got the scent of something warm and masculine and divine. There was no other way to describe it. My eyes fluttered closed as the scent of sandalwood, something sweet like tobacco, musk, and salty ocean enveloped me.

It was quite possibly the best thing I’d ever smelled. Comforting, slightly arousing, a heady combination. As the scent and the caress of the wind faded, I opened my eyes and looked around one more time, hoping to find the source of the airy touch and intoxicating scent. I came up empty.

I went inside after and tried to watch TV and then read, all in an attempt to distract myself from what had happened on the balcony. It sat there in the back of my mind, needling at me, like a puzzle my subconscious was trying to solve. I tried to brush it off to some lingering discomfort in a new house, but I knew it wasn’t true. This place already felt like home.

I couldn’t forget that scent, or the sense of someone being out there with me, the caress. It brought back the dream from last night. What had happened out on the balcony brought out the same emotions the dream had. The windblown touch elicited the same excitement as when the man had touched me in my sleep. It made absolutely no sense and I realized the only thing I could do was try to ignore it all, push it out of my mind.