She stared at the woman in the bathroom mirror, someone she barely recognized.

She had the same features as Iris. Same dark hair, same blue eyes. Same lips she’d always thought were too small for her face. But there was a deceitful gleam in those eyes that transformed her entire face. There was a swollen, breathless quality to those lips. And her hair, which she’d rubbed as dry as she could with a towel, was a wild tumble, and every strand Elijah had touched tingled at the roots.

He’d gone to his room to change and dry off, and then he was coming here, to her guest bedroom, because it was farthest from all the others. No one would hear them talk or . . . whatever else was going to happen once he got here. He’d left it up to her, and she still didn’t know.

It was almost two a.m. and she had an early flight. She needed to sleep, but it was a sacrifice she was willing to make to get this time alone with him. She could sleep on the plane.

A light tap sounded at her door and, taking a breath, she went to let him in. The sight of him made her heart turn over in her chest as it always did lately. Shirtless, wearing only black pajama pants, his ink stark black on his skin, his dark hair blending into the shadows behind him. He stepped in and shut the door, never taking his eyes from her face.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She was, and she wasn’t, but she nodded. The one thing she was okay with was his being here. She couldn’t have refused this if her life depended on it.

Maybe it did. The life she knew, anyway. Her future.

He opened his arms, and she went into them, drawing strength from him as he dropped his mouth to her hair. Just this, just being held, her cheek to his warm chest, was the best thing ever. She hadn’t missed much about Jacob, but she had missed companionship, those beginning stages when anything seemed possible. A long, cleansing, pent-up breath shuddered out of her.

They stood that way until she could have fallen asleep against him, but then he led her to the bed with an arm around her shoulders. He waited until she crawled under the covers and then slid in after her. Bless him, he tried to keep distance between them, but she closed it immediately, having not gotten enough of being snuggled next to him yet. His arms around her was something she had needed for a long time.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“For what?” With her ear pressed against him this way, she could hear his voice rumble through his chest, could feel the strong thud of his heart beneath her cheek.

“Everything.”

“I haven’t done anything.”

“You’re here for me.”

“Well, you could say my motives aren’t entirely pure, Iris.” The devilish note in his voice made her smile.

“I doubt much about you is pure.”

“You’d be right. But I’m trying.” His fingers found hers under the covers and laced through them. Iris kept thinking she was going to wake up alone in this bed at any moment, because this had to be a dream.

“What are you thinking?” he whispered, turning so his lips brushed her forehead. He liked asking her that, apparently. She shivered. “Talk to me.”

“I’m scared,” she admitted, closing her eyes.

“Of me?”

“Of you. Of me. Of Heidi. Of going home tomorrow. Everything.”

“Let tomorrow take care of itself. Heidi isn’t here. Only you and I matter right now, and I won’t let you be hurt.”

He could hurt her more than anyone else, though, didn’t he realize that? But it was the risk you always took when you began to have feelings for someone. That you might give them your heart only for them to eventually eat it right in front of your eyes. She’d been there before. She’d watched it happen.

What she had to decide was whether the beauty was worth the pain that might come.

“You’re shaking,” he whispered.

“I can’t help it.”

“Don’t try.” His arm around her tightened. “Look at me, Iris.”

She lifted her head from his chest, seeking his eyes, finding them heavy-lidded and gentle. He brought their joined hands out from under the covers and kissed one of her knuckles, only a light tease of his lips. Iris closed her eyes and sighed. “Do you want more?” he asked softly.

At the center of everything, all the uncertainty, all the fear, was this. This one irrefutable truth. “Yes.”

His mouth moved from her hand to her lips. In the pool, their first kiss had been too light, too tentative. Their second had been too wild, too desperate. This one scrambled her racing thoughts into one maelstrom of pulsing need. He dipped his tongue in slow sweeping motions, tasting, savoring, a slow feast that sent all her senses into overdrive.

It was perfect. Perfectly slow, perfectly sweet with an edge of perfect sin. He released her on a shuddering breath, his eyes somehow gleaming in the darkness. “How much more? I don’t want to push, but I’m dying to touch you.”

“Touch me. Please.”

His mouth came back, melting any lingering resolve—she might give him anything if he asked it. If he could make her body sing with only his lips, what could the rest of him do? When his kisses reached her ear, he whispered, “I want to make you come, Iris.”

Her blood seemed to stop, seemed to reverse its flow in her veins. She felt turned inside out, like all her innermost feelings might spew forth at any moment. All she could do was whimper in response and clutch him tighter.

She’d only had one man, and he’d never bothered with that. Any orgasms she’d experienced since, she’d given them to herself. Eli’s fingers slid through her hair as he lifted his head to look at her, sending tingles along her scalp. She gazed at his beautiful face and nodded, knowing she needed this more than anything else in the world. “Yes.”

With a groan, he rolled her beneath him and dropped his head to her neck. Fingertips skimmed gently under the hem of her sleep shirt, pushing it up until his palm cupped her breast, his thumb lightly brushing her taut nipple. Iris gasped, arching into him, feeling the press of his erection through his pants. She wanted to see him, touch him, but timidity held her frozen. “Can I see you?” he murmured, mirroring her thoughts.

All the ugly insecurities from the pool came rushing back to her, the ones that had almost torn her away from him. Every imperfection she could think of zoomed through her mind. She almost told him no, please, not this time, but something in the reverent way he looked at her killed the words in her throat. That look went deep, and suddenly her skin didn’t matter. She wanted to be as close to him as she possibly could.

Iris sat up slightly to let him strip off her shirt, watching his face as he saw her for the first time, relishing the gleam of hunger that sparked in his eyes, the way his chest surged with his indrawn breath. He exhaled that breath raggedly, and the hand he lifted to caress her newly bared flesh trembled as it made contact. She lay back again and closed her eyes, licking her lips, every inch of her responding to him. Her body moved with him instinctively, something primal and greedy for pleasure taking her over. By the time his hands went to the waistband of her shorts, sliding them down, she was ready for that. But she didn’t want to be the only one baring all.

“Can I see you?” she asked him as he tugged her shorts and panties off at her feet and tossed them on the floor. Eyes on hers, his hand went to his pajama pants and gripped, pulling the fabric down and revealing what she’d been feeling against her all night. He was a shock to her senses, so thick, so hard, and something clenched deep in her core. Her hand went to him without being directed by conscious thought.

Eli caught her reaching fingers on a rough groan. “Baby, you touch me right now and I’m likely to go off. I don’t want to do that yet.”

Now, finally, she felt her power. Some other woman spoke through her lips. “What do you want?”

“I’m not even going to tell you everything I want.” He managed to make the words sound rough and dirty. “But I’ll take what you’ll give, Iris.” As he crawled toward her, she fell back before him, her legs trapped on either side of his knees. When his eyes went to the juncture of her thighs, she nearly hyperventilated. What was it about the way he looked at her? Like he was the magnet, and she the jumbled mess of metal shavings that danced at his presence.

He braced himself on one arm. The other hand went to her, fingertips gentle as they teased through the wetness he’d already invoked. She couldn’t look away as, a moment later, he brought those fingers to his mouth and tasted her. Her cheeks flamed. I’m going to die.

“I’m going to put my mouth on you,” he said, or at least, that was what she heard. He probably said something perfectly Eli like I’m going to lick your pussy until you scream, but her brain was filtering out anything that might cause her to actually die. So far he had been asking permission, and she liked that, but being told what he was going to do next had an erotic edge that sliced through all inhibitions.

“Yes,” she whispered.

He lowered himself between her legs, one hand flat on her stomach, his thumb stroking just above where he was about to put his mouth. Iris, overheated and needy, shook with anticipation as he brought his lips down to her, and then the first touch jolted through her like heat lightning. He held her still as sensation wracked her, almost too much to bear as he flickered his tongue against the aching need he’d brought forth in her. All the while, he watched her, staring up the length of her body as she undulated under his skilled mouth, growing more restless as he kissed and licked and sucked. It was the most intimate thing she had ever done, bringing her body to roaring life in a way she had never felt before.

When she shook apart mere moments later, she tried to keep quiet, tried to bite down on the embarrassing, keening cry he wrenched from her, but she couldn’t. All she could do was clap her hands over her mouth, gasping and sobbing with pleasure like she’d never felt before, not even with her vibrator.

It was a poor substitute for this.

“Oh God,” she sighed as the spasms abated, and she finally trusted herself to speak without shrieking. “Oh God, why?”

He lifted his mouth from between her quaking thighs, raising himself until he was face-to-face with her, a crooked grin on the talented mouth that had brought her so much pleasure. “Why what?”

“Why do you want me?” The words tumbled out of her scoured-raw soul.

“Because you’re sweet, and good, and beautiful, and you break my fucking heart.” He kissed her, taking her breath. “Because when I look at you, I believe again. I believe there’s something real in this fake fucking world.” He murmured the words in a rush against her lips, then let his tongue sweep hotly inside. She tasted herself there. She tasted them both, and they were melded perfection.

Lying together this way, it would be so easy to take him inside her. She wanted that with a ferocity she’d never felt. It couldn’t happen, of course. They had no protection. But even after what they had just done, she longed for more. He lay heavy and hard against her lower belly, and if he moved, if he tried, heaven help her, she wouldn’t stop him.

Eli’s mouth broke away from hers. “Fuck, I want you,” he ground out, and the whirl of her thoughts must be brushing against his own mind.

“I want you too,” she said tremulously. Just do it.

He closed his eyes, seeming to pull himself together for a moment. Then he rolled away. Though she missed him immediately, sense came in with the chilled air once his body warmth was gone.

“Hardest fucking thing I’ve ever done,” he grumbled as he collapsed on his back beside her. She lay quietly, trying to catch her breath.

What had happened to her reason? She’d been willing to risk pregnancy or who knew what else to have him. Thank God he was strong enough for both of them.

Iris turned her head to look at him, knowing in his aroused state that the decision had been doubly difficult. She couldn’t in good conscience leave him like this.

Turning onto her side, she let her hand slip down his firm abs, finally getting her first real feel of him as she encountered the hot, taut skin of his cock. This time, he didn’t stop her. A rough groan tore from his throat.

“Poor baby,” she crooned, and he chuckled, but there was an edge of what sounded like pain to it.

Iris didn’t know her way around the male anatomy, but it was self-explanatory. She stroked him, listened for his sounds, his breathing, and kept doing what he liked. What she did with her hands, she knew she could surely do with her mouth.

Eli’s hungry eyes followed her as she pushed herself up over him and kissed a trail down his stomach, the muscles pulling tight beneath her questing lips. She followed the lines of those muscles, of his tattoos, of the trail of hair from his navel down to his cock. She teased and licked and loved on him, relishing the way he groaned and twitched, the way his hands clutched fistfuls of her hair, not hurting but letting her know she had him on the same edge he’d kept her perched on for so long. Finally, she let him slide long and slow into her mouth, taking him until he touched the back of her throat, then retreating.

“Iris,” he groaned in agony. Was she doing it wrong? Any deeper and she would gag. Maybe this wasn’t as easy as she’d thought it would be. Maybe she should’ve taken Sara’s advice and watched more porn. Just as she was about to panic, he grasped one of her hands and pulled it to him, wrapping it tight around his thick base.

Oh. She felt dumb, but she was determined to get this right for him. With her mouth and hand working in tandem, his breathing deepened and quickened, and within moments he tightened his fingers in her hair and pulled her away. “I’m gonna fuckin’ come.”

She didn’t want to move. She wanted it all. But he held her off, only her hand to urge him on through his release. Iris nearly laughed when he grabbed a throw pillow with his free hand and crammed it to his face, remembering Talia’s words from a while back: He raises the roof when he fucks. That powerful voice was trying to tear its way out of his throat, but he kept it muffled. Just barely. She couldn’t make out all the words but was quite sure there were multiple blasphemies in there.

At last, his muscles went limp, letting the pillow fall away as his chest heaved. “Fucking hell.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Huh?”

“If I didn’t do it right.”

His brows drew together as he glanced down at the mess of white across his stomach, even his chest. “I’ve got ‘right’ all over me, Iris.”

“Well, I . . . had never done that before.”

“Then I expect you’ll be deadly soon.” He swung his legs off the side of the bed and stood, naked and glorious. The body she had admired so many times was even more gorgeous than she could have imagined. Rubbing his hair with one hand, he walked into the bathroom and she heard the shower crank on.

Iris fell back on the bed in disbelief, staring at the ceiling without seeing it. Wow. Wow. It was the only word she could conjure right now to describe it. Eli was back within only a few minutes, clean and dry, crawling back under the covers and pulling her to him. And though she wanted him here more than anything in the world, she cast a worried glance at the clock and nearly choked when she saw the time.

“What would we tell the kids or your parents if they figure out that you slept in here?”

“I don’t know,” he mumbled, snuggling her closer. “I don’t care.”

Of course he didn’t. He didn’t have anything to lose. One word from one of the boys to Heidi, and she was history. Seger she wasn’t too worried about. It was Dylan, bless him, who would rat her out without even meaning to. What had she done?

“Iris,” Eli said, “I can feel you thinking. Sleep. Everything is going to be all right.”

She laid her head on his shoulder, doubting sleep would come tonight. She might as well stay awake, anyway—her flight would be leaving in only a few hours.

But with Eli’s slow, steady breathing to lull her, she was asleep within two minutes.