Denise held the trembling dog away from her as anxiety caused it to empty its bladder. It was the second dog that had done that. She hadn’t been quick enough with the first dog and now she reeked of piss.

Blowing out a breath through clenched teeth, she set the dog down in the pen and it ran to the corner to curl up on the mat with the other two dogs already huddled together.

On a positive note, most of it should wash off in the torrential downpour she had to walk through to get back to her apartment.

Perfect fucking ending to a perfect fucking day.

The dog seemed to calm down as the others welcomed her and she arranged herself on the pile. Even the damn dogs had someone to comfort them. She had…her. Her nose began to sting and her bottom lip trembled. Turning on her heel, she headed to the barn door. Setting the lights on low, she stepped through the smaller man-door, making sure to lock it behind her.

The sheets of rain drenched her within moments. A few steps into the yard, thunder crashed overhead.

“Fuck!” Mother Nature’s violence fed the anger roiling inside her, primer on the detonation cord waiting for an inopportune moment to set off the explosion she was desperately trying to keep contained.

But it wasn’t fucking fair. Sarah was loving and kind and forgiving and had finally been in a good place in her life. She had two smart, beautiful kids who didn’t deserve to lose their mom to cancer.

Denise was halfway across the yard when lightning split the sky and struck a tree in the field next to the barn.

Fists clenched at her side, she screamed into the storm. Everything came crashing down—the anger, the pain, the fear, and uncertainty pressed mercilessly down on her and she couldn’t bear the weight of it any longer. Her knees buckled and she sank to the ground.

Violent sobs forced their way out of her chest. The storm raged and crashed around her, echoing the one inside her. A small, rational section of her brain told her to get her dumb ass up and out of the rain, but she couldn’t make her limbs move. Couldn’t find the strength to keep pushing forward.

“Denise! Denise!”

Hands grabbed her upper arms, jerking her out of her stupor.

Surging to her feet, she fought the person holding her, pushing away from him.

“Denise, it’s Chris!”

She didn’t care. She needed to lash out and hurt something—someone. Use her fists to transfer this pain and anger away from her onto someone else.

Her fist connected with a hard wall of flesh, followed by a muffled, “Oomph.”

“You wanna let it out?” he shouted. “Have at it.”

“Fuck you!” She threw a left jab, followed by a right hook to his jaw, snapping his head to the side.

He turned his head back and laughed. “That’s it?”

“Fuck! You!” She shoved him and forced him back a step.

He took two forward, crowding into her space. The thin material of his t-shirt molded to his chest and abs while water dripped from his face. He held his arms out to the side, daring her to hit him again. “Come on, Denise. I know you can do better than that. Give me your worst.”

Something inside her broke. Shattered. She didn’t want to do her worst. She didn’t want to keep feeling this way. Taking a shuddering breath, she closed the distance between them and grabbed the sides of his face, pulling his mouth down to hers.

He flinched and, for a few heartbeats, she worried he wouldn’t respond. As she made the decision to pull away, his arms banded tightly around her and he opened his mouth, his tongue thrusting into hers.

Thank God. This was what she wanted to feel. Comfort and care from another person, in the touch and caress given by a lover. Given by Chris. Pressing her body against his, she wrapped her arms around his neck.

Pulling back slightly, he said, “Up”, then sealed his mouth back to hers. He bent slightly and hefted her weight.

Denise wrapped her legs around his waist, locking her water-filled boots together behind his back. Rain seeped past her lips and mingled with their kiss, making it wetter and hotter. His wide-legged pace ate up the distance across the yard and he was climbing the stairs in mere seconds.

Halfway up, he stumbled on a step. Sharp wood risers dug into her back and hips when he fell forward, all but dropping her on the stairs.

“Ow! Shit. Sorry.” He braced himself above her, blocking the rain from falling into her eyes. “You okay?”

“I think so,” she said. Pain radiated from the center of her back and hips where she’d landed, but the bruises would be worth it tomorrow.

“We should probably walk up normally.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t want to give you room to think.” He used a finger to hook a wet strand of hair off her cheek.

“About what?”

“About whatever it is you think about that makes you shut down.”

His gaze was too intense. She looked at his mouth, his lips wet from the rain and their kiss. All she had to do was say the word and he would walk away. He’d pretend he hadn’t found her losing her shit in the middle of a thunderstorm. But how many times could she push him away before he stayed away for good? She was so tired of being alone. Even when she went back to Sarah’s and Kaden and Kimber, she’d still be alone.

She looked back up. Chris waited patiently while cold rain pounded onto his back. “I’m not going to shut down.”

He hesitated, as if he was going to ask her something, but decided against it. She almost asked him what, but the same hesitation stopped her.

What about tomorrow?

She didn’t want to think about tomorrow when she had to face the reality of being a single parent and all that entailed. Right now, she just wanted to think about him and the next few moments.

Curling up, she kissed him. His hand cradled the back of her head as he slanted his mouth over hers. They stayed there until another rumble of thunder rolled over their heads. She pulled away. “No thinking. For the next ten minutes, at least.”

He scowled at her. “Ten minutes, my ass. Up.” Pushing away from the stairs, he helped her stand then turned her and prodded her up to the landing.

She pulled her wet feet out of her boots and pushed open the door. Spinning as soon as she cleared the threshold, she threw herself into Chris’s arms, latching onto his mouth once more. He shifted their bodies so he could close the door, stumbling back against it as he took her weight.

“Shoes,” he mumbled against her lips.

She stepped back and watched him bend at the waist to untie his hiking boots. He’d changed out of his suit at some point. Water pooled at their feet as it dripped from their bodies. Tugging at her shirt, she shimmied out of the clinging material, dropping it in a sopping pile. He paused and looked at her shirt, then sped up his movements.

“Fucking laces are knotted,” he muttered. He reached into his back pocket and a pulled out a knife. Flipping it open, he slid it under the laces of his right shoe and flicked his wrist. He closed the blade and stood while kicking out of his boots.

“Eager much?”

“Fuck, yes.”

She glanced up from the stuck zipper she was trying to work down. His gaze was fixed on her chest. She noted her simple white bra had become see through. He’d apparently noticed the same thing.

He lunged at her, taking her to the ground in a controlled move while his mouth latched onto her nipple. Sweet baby Jesus, he’d better be able to get her jeans off. Heat radiated from him, warming her front while the cool floor under her caused her to shiver.

Or maybe it was all him. He pulled the cup of her bra down, flicking her pebbled nipple with his tongue. She moaned and thrust her hips against him. He tugged at her pants, wrenching at the zipper until it gave, then peeled them down her legs. On the way back up he put his hot, open mouth on the exposed skin of her hip, sucking briefly before licking the same spot.

Her eyes closed and she rolled her hips up, pressing harder against his mouth. For once she wished she was the type of woman who wore sexy, lacy underwear instead of simple, cotton briefs.

“I’m about to be doin’ a whole lot better,” Chris said.

“What?” She popped her head up in confusion.

He nuzzled the juncture of her thighs. “Your underwear says, ‘How you doin’?’ I was letting you know, I’m about to be a whole lot better. So are you.” His teeth scraped against her clit, through her underwear.

Liquid warmth spread up and out. “Chris, I want to feel you inside me.”

“You will. Just as soon as I can get out of these jeans.” His movements were frenzied, pushing the wet material of his pants past his thighs.

She lifted her hips and shoved her underwear down to her knees, managing to free one leg from the constricting material. His cock sprang forward and the warm, hard length rested against the inside of her thigh. His hands seemed to be everywhere at once—her butt, her breast, her hip—as if he wanted to touch all of her at one time. Wrapping her hand around him, she stroked from the base to the tip, rubbing her thumb through the drop of moisture at the tip.

He groaned and one of his hands briefly disappeared behind his back and returned holding a condom. He ripped the packet with his teeth, then pushed her hand out of the way while he rolled it on. Lining himself up with her entrance, he pushed forward, bottoming out in one hard thrust.

She hissed against the invasion and the sting. Surrounded. Engulfed. As if an ocean wave had crashed over her, enveloping her in its peaceful silence all while threatening never to release her from its powerful grasp. Dropping his face into the hollow of her shoulder, he stayed still, buried to the hilt. His lips soft and gentle against the sensitive skin of her neck while he throbbed inside her, his heartbeat keeping time with hers, a clock ticking down to some kind of explosion. One that had the power to cleanse or destroy.

It may have been seconds or hours, but just as she reached her threshold and was ready to push him away and retreat to her bedroom, he moved. Slow at first, as if he needed a moment to find his rhythm, then fast, hard, and uncontrolled. He hooked an arm under her leg and moved it to his shoulder, tilting her pelvis up, which allowed him even further into her core. Pushing up, he pistoned his hips with enough force she began to inch across the floor. She held on to his back and shoulders, wrapping her other leg high around his ass.

He looked down at where they were joined. She followed his gaze and watched him thrust in and out. Her breathing quickened as she anticipated each time he disappeared into her tight sheath, savoring the brief press against her clit, straining for more contact. More pressure. Something to help push her over the precipice she hovered on.

He dropped down to his elbows, obscuring her view. His hands cupped the sides of her face, his thumbs brushing the tops of her cheeks. She looked into his eyes and promptly closed hers.

“Denise.”

She opened her eyes.

“Stay with me.”

Her brows pinched together, unsure of the meaning in his gaze. It unnerved her. There was something…more. Something she wasn’t ready to face.

He thumbed her clit, putting just the right amount of pressure on the hood. There it was, that feeling coalescing in the very center of her. Her eyelids fluttered shut as she concentrated on letting her orgasm take her.

“Eyes open, Denise.”

Her eyes snapped open and immediately clashed with his. The damn broke—in more ways than one. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes as she came. The wave of release pushing everything up and out of her.

She closed her eyes and turned her head away, hardly aware of whether Chris came with her or after her. Dropping her leg, she waited for him to finish. She felt like an asshole, but she needed him to be done and to leave her alone. He kissed her cheek and her temple. Trying to hold it in only made it worse and she began to tremble.

“Shhh. It’s okay.”

But it wasn’t. Her body heaved with the force of her crying. She covered her face with her hands and curled onto her side, pulling her legs up close to her body.

“Shit. Denise, please talk to me.”

She shook her head. “Just go.”

“Fuck!” A chill descended when he stood and she heard the rustling of his jeans.

He’d done exactly what she’d asked him to do. So why was she crying even harder now that he was gone?