He didn’t respond right away, and though I was desperate for answers, I didn’t press him. Right now, I had to touch him. I wanted—no, needed—to have our skin in contact. Without contact, he might disappear in a flash, and I’d wake up, only to have been caught up in a dream.

I’d had similar dreams during the past year, some so real I’d awoken smiling and warm with afterglow, only for tears to choke me when I realized Price was gone and I was in bed alone.

His shoulders were still broad and strong, more bronze than I remembered, no doubt from the tropical sunshine. His dark hair had grown longer and now covered his ears, but it still felt like fine silk between my fingers. His finely muscled chest and abdomen still stole my breath, and when I trailed my fingers over one nipple, he inhaled and closed his eyes, just like he always had. Still so responsive to my every touch.

His lips were full and pink, and a few days’ growth of beard laced his jawline. This was different. Price had always been clean-shaven. I cupped his cheek, letting the onyx stubble scrape against my fingertips. Yes, different. Different but good. He looked rugged. Gorgeous and rugged.

And then I looked into his warm brown eyes, and a chill speared through me. His eyes had changed. He still looked at me with the same intensity, the same love, but something new gazed out at me as well.

Those eyes had seen things. They shone with a new understanding, a dark understanding that had been forced upon him.

Price might look basically the same, might still love me and be able to bring me quivering to my knees, but something had changed within him.

“Price,” I said again, “you have to tell me everything.”

He sighed, nodding. “You deserve as much, but you have to understand. I can’t tell you everything. Not yet. Not if I’m going to keep you safe.”

Chills gripped the back of my neck. Keep me safe? For the first time, reality hit me like a cement block. Price hadn’t died in that commuter plane crash. Price had lived, had chosen not to come back to me. He’d faked his death.

A man didn’t fake his own death for the fun of it. That haunted understanding I saw in Price’s eyes? It had led him here. Led us here. But whatever the reason, had it been enough to keep us apart for a year?

Every cell in my body screamed at me to pull him to me, to kiss him, to forget the last year. What did any of it matter? Price was back. Literally back from the dead. We could have those babies now. We could grow old together. We had a second chance—

No. I shook my head, still cupping his cheek. I couldn’t let go of him. Couldn’t risk him disappearing in a puff of smoke. “You owe me the whole story. You disappeared.” Sobs choked me. “You let me think you were dead!”

He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his neck. “I’ve thought of you every day. Every fucking minute of every fucking day.”

“Do you think I haven’t thought of you? You were my life, Price. And you let me mourn you, bury you. How can I get past that?”

“I know this is difficult to understand, but there were circumstances—”

“Circumstances you won’t let me in on. At least you knew I was alive! You weren’t plagued with visions of my body plummeting to the ground, erupting in flames.”

“God, baby.” He closed his eyes, wincing. “Please. Don’t do this.”

“You did this, Price. You chose this. You chose not to come back to me. I was a good wife, damn it! Why did you do this?”

“Kate, please.” He grabbed my wrist and removed my hand from his face. He pressed a soft kiss to my palm. “I will tell you everything when I can. There will be time. I promise. For now, can’t we just enjoy our reunion? Embrace this night?”

I let out a soft huff. “Is this the only night we’ll have?”

This time he cupped my cheek, and his dark eyes smoked with intensity. “That’s up to you.”

Up to me? “What the—”

His lips came down on mine, not softly this time. This time he took, and I let him, opening for him as if by instinct. My mouth, my body responded to his, just as it always had. Just as it always would.

Our kisses had always been passionate, always flaming hot, but this one blazed through me like wildfire. Our tongues tangled and dueled until Price finally broke away, panting.

“You’re mine, Kate. You’ll always be mine.” He crushed his mouth to my lips again.

I hadn’t been his for the past year… But my thoughts stopped there as his kiss overpowered me again. My nipples hardened and poked into his smooth chest, aching for his touch, his lips. When they could no longer stand being ignored, I broke the kiss.

“Price. My nipples. Please.”

He cupped my breasts. “So beautiful.” He stroked the tops of my breasts, avoiding my wrinkled areolas and aching peaks.

“Please!”

He smiled and took a nipple between his full lips. The surge arrowed straight into my pussy. I loved having my nipples sucked, and no one sucked them like Price.

“Mine,” he said against my flesh. “All mine.”

I moaned as he twisted the other nipple between his thumb and forefinger. Sparks radiated through me, culminating in the ache between my legs. Price continued sucking while he trailed his free hand over my abdomen, leaving electricity in his wake. When he found my clit, I arched into his fingers.

He let my nipple drop from his lips. “God, you’re dripping wet, Kate.” He smoothed his fingers over my slick folds and then slid down my body, the heat of his muscled flesh scorching me. “Too long since I’ve tasted this sweetness. Too fucking long.”

My eyes were closed when he swiped his tongue across my slit, but then I opened them, and sure enough, he was there, gazing into my eyes like he always had, his own dark and full of desire.

I stared into his eyes, and then I saw his soul. He was there. The same Price. Things might have changed in the last year, but he was still Price. And he was still mine.

He tugged and sucked, murmuring against my inner thighs, growling as he ate me. I climbed higher and higher, and when I was near the peak—could actually see the snow-capped Adirondacks in my mind’s eye—he thrust two fingers into me and I flew.

“God, Price!” My body quivered around me, my blood whooshing like boiled honey through my veins.

“That’s it, sweetness. Come. Come for me. Only for me.”

He continued pushing his fingers into me, caressing my G-spot, and as my convulsions were settling, I took wing once more, this time my womb pulsing deeply, the kind of climax that sank inward toward my heart, toward my soul.

Before I could open my mouth and beg him to get inside me, Price was hovering over me, his cock head tickling my clit.

“God, please,” I gasped.

He plunged into me, touching my innermost secret place, uniting not only our bodies but our spirits. It was earthy. It was passionate. It was the most basic life force.

It was love.

I gave in to the moment, to the pleasure he evoked in me. All thoughts fled from my mind, leaving only feeling. Pure emotion. It coursed through me like a warm summer breeze, taking me with it and leaving the past year in the dust.

Only now mattered. Only this moment. This man.

He fucked me hard, tiny drops of perspiration emerging on his brow, and never once did he move his gaze from mine.

“This is us, baby. This is real. This is what we can have. Forever.” He thrust harder, his pubic bone pummeling into my clit and making my skin prickle. Soon I was on the verge of another climax, my whole body singing like a choral symphony.

“I’m going to come, Kate. I’m going to come. Come with me, sweetness. Now.”

His words tipped me over the edge, and I sprang forward, giving him everything I had. Everything I was.

“I love you, Kate,” he said, wincing as he released into me.

“I love you too. Always.”

---

I opened my eyes. I was still in the downstairs bedroom, the one Michelle had chosen for herself, my body tangled in the soft cotton sheet. I sat up, blinking. Darkness had descended.

Price. Where was Price?

No. It hadn’t all been a dream.

My pulse racing, I got up, wrapped my sarong around me in a makeshift sundress, checked myself in the bathroom mirror, and left the bedroom. I found Price and Michelle on the front lanai. I opened the door.

Michelle stopped speaking abruptly before I could catch what she’d been saying. “Kate. Come join us.”

Price stood. “Hey, you. Did you have a good nap?”

In truth, I’d slept better for those few hours than I had in the last year. But I said only, “Yes.”

I took the seat Price was holding out for me, and Michelle started pouring me a glass of wine, but I shook my head. I didn’t want to drink right now. I looked to my husband, and in the moonlight, the haunted understanding in his eyes was even more apparent. What had he and Michelle been talking about?

I inhaled and let out a slow breath. “Go ahead and talk about whatever you were talking about.”

“We were just making small talk.” Michelle took a sip of her wine, not meeting my gaze.

“Yeah? Small talk about what?”

“Nothing, baby,” Price said. “Chelle was just filling me in on Mom and Dad.”

“Yeah, and they’re both going to kick your ass if they ever find out what you’re up to,” she said.

Price laughed—a strange sound that wasn’t like his normal laugh. But what did I know about what was normal anymore? Price had touched my soul earlier both times we made love, and for a few blissful, sacred moments, reality had been suspended.

Reality was back now. With a vengeance.

Price, still standing, turned to Michelle. “Would you mind excusing us? I’d like to take my wife on a walk.”

Michelle smiled. “Of course not. Please. Go.”

He turned to me then. “Kate?”

I sighed and stood. So there would be a walk. But would there be a talk? Or would we end up making love under the stars? I couldn’t help how my body responded to Price, but at some point, I was going to require some answers.

He looked amazing, his dark hair in disarray, his white linen shirt covering his chest. A few buttons were undone, his bronze beauty teasing me. Even his feet were gorgeous in his Tevas. His well-formed legs, corded with muscle, were flexed and ready to walk. Or maybe run.

He was tense. I’d known him long enough to read him like a book.

I stood and put my hand in his.

“I’m going to whip up something for a late dinner,” Michelle said. “I made sure the kitchen was stocked. Be back in about an hour if you want some.”

“Okay. Thanks, Sis.” Price led me off of the lanai and onto the light sand.

I squished my toes into the warmth. “I forgot my flip-flops.”

“No worries. If I see a jelly fish, I’ll carry you.” He smiled.

“I was thinking more of stepping on sharp shells,” I said. “I’ll be back in a minute.” I headed inside.

Michelle was already pulling veggies out of the crisper. “Did you decide not to go?”

“No. Just getting my shoes.” I headed into the downstairs bedroom and retrieved them.

“How about shrimp stir-fry?” Michelle said when I walked by the kitchen.

“Sure. Great.” All food had tasted like dirt for the past year, so what did I care? Maybe tonight I’d actually experience flavor again.

“Hey…Kate?”

I turned back toward the kitchen. “Yeah?”

“Go easy on him. He’s been through…a lot.”

“I get that, Chelle. I really do. I don’t know what happened yet, but it can’t be pretty.” I sighed. “I’ve been through a lot too. And not just me. You, Brenda and Sonny, all of his extended family and friends…” I shook my head. “He won’t tell me anything.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” She looked down at the cutting board she’d pulled out of a cupboard.

Her reaction niggled at the back of my neck. “Wait. Has he told you anything?” A spear of envy lanced through me.

“No. Not really.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Nothing. It means nothing.”

Michelle and I had been friends since she was a freshman and I was a junior in college. We’d met through Price, of course, but we’d become close independent of him. I trusted her, but right now, she wasn’t telling me something.

“It has to come from Price,” she said. “Now go on. Make up for lost time. You both deserve that.”

I nodded and headed onto the lanai. Price stayed silent when he took my hand. We walked away from the villa, the light of the moon casting a silver glow over us.

After we’d walked for several minutes, Price looked up. “The stars are amazing here. No pollution and smog to hide them.”

I looked at the sky. The stars did indeed seem more sparkling and numerous. “They’re dazzling,” I said.

“Not as dazzling as you are.” He cupped my cheeks and gave me a chaste kiss on my lips. “Can you ever forgive me, Kate?”

What a loaded question. Price was the love of my life. There was a time when I’d never imagined he could do anything that would require my forgiveness. Perhaps he still hadn’t.

“You said something earlier. You said whether we had more than one night was up to me.”

“Yes.”

“What does that mean?”

He brushed his hand from my cheek, over my shoulder, and down my arm, making it tingle. “It means I can never go back, Kate.”

“Why?”

“Because I know things. Things I shouldn’t know.”

“Tell me. Tell me what you know.” I stroked his strong forearm, an overwhelming urge to love him and protect him billowing through me. “Maybe we can fix it. We always said we could get through anything together.”

He closed his eyes, sighed, and then opened them and looked again to the stars. “God, you’re so innocent. So was I until about a year and a half ago.”

My arms caught a chill, and I rubbed them despite the warm night air. “Price, you’re scaring me.”

“I don’t mean to, baby. I don’t want to. Maybe I’m being selfish, dragging you and my sister into this. Maybe I should have left well enough alone, let you get on with your life.”

“Price, please.”

He brushed his hands over my shoulders and down my arms, taking both of my hands. “That commuter plane going down was supposed to kill me, and thank God they thought it had. Otherwise, I really would be dead right now. So would my parents. So would Chelle.” He closed his eyes, grimacing. “And so would you.”