At eight o’clock I pulled into the driveway of the Riggs house. The sun had almost finished setting, leaving a rosy glow on the horizon and deep shadows beneath the trees. In the main house, a single light was lit in an upstairs window. There was another light in the window of the guest house, which I could see when I got out of the car.

I’d dropped off my boxes at my apartment. I’d had something to eat and changed into a simple cotton sundress of deep red with a pattern of dark blue and green leaves. I wore flat sandals, almost no makeup, and my hair was down, clean and brushed, falling down my back. A casual late-summer outfit. Carefully chosen for meeting the hot virgin ex-con former client who I was a little bit obsessed with and hoped to either analyze or devirginize—or, if I was lucky, maybe both.

My stomach was still twisted when I knocked on the guest house door, the aftereffect of the encounter with Kyle. Then the door opened and Jace was there, and the sour feeling turned into a twist of pure crazy anticipation, deep in my gut, up my spine, and between my legs.

He was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt that had a smear of something black on it—grease, maybe. His hair was mussed and his eyes were a little wild. “Shit,” he said. “It’s eight already, isn’t it? I just got back.”

“From where?”

He scrubbed a hand through his hair, making it stick up more. “My brothers…” He trailed off. “Never mind. I was going to take a shower. I didn’t have time. I don’t think I smell good.”

“Is this a bad time?” I asked.

“No, no. Shit.”

He was so flustered, it was kind of adorable. “Okay then, if it isn’t a bad time, are you going to let me in?”

He seemed to take this question seriously. “Yeah, I am.” He stepped back, but he also curled his hand lightly around my upper arm, as if he thought I would go running off. “Sorry. Come in.”

I let him lead me into the guest house. I was distracted by his arms—I’d never seen him in short sleeves before. He’d always worn a jacket or a hoodie. He had tattoos down both arms, coming from under his sleeves and snaking down his forearms. There was ink on the soft skin of the inside of one bicep. I hadn’t known that about Jace, that he had tattoos. Good lord. The anticipation twisted harder.

He didn’t seem to notice my lust-filled silence. “Just have a seat or something,” he said. “I meant to clean up in here.”

I brushed closer to him and caught a sharp smell. Oil, the tang of sweat, and possibly gasoline. “It’s okay,” I said. “If you want to take a shower, go ahead. I’ll wait.”

He paused and looked at me. Those gray eyes, those dark lashes. He was uncertain about something, I could see that. I wondered if it was me or something else. I wondered if he could see the uncertainty in my own eyes—uncertainty about Kyle, about myself, about whether I should even be here. Even though, if I admitted the truth to myself, there was nowhere else I wanted to be.

As if he was reading my mind, Jace said, “What are we doing, Tara?”

“Talking,” I replied. “If you want.”

His gaze dropped to my neck, my collarbones, then rose back to my face, and for a second his eyes grew dark. You don’t want me the way I want you, he’d said. Right now the air between us was about to catch fire. I stood there and let it sizzle, let him decide.

He took a breath and rubbed a hand over his jaw. He was wearing his rings, and I realized I wanted him to be wearing his rings when he put his fingers inside me. I was shocked and turned on at my own thought.

“You want a drink?” Jace said.

“Okay,” I managed.

He turned away, and I looked around for the first time. The guest house was actually rather nice—a little like a hotel suite. The main room had a big bed in it, neatly made, with a simple plaid coverlet. A small table and two chairs. A door leading to a bathroom on the other side of the room. On this side, near the front door, a corner of kitchen, with a sink, a fridge, a small stove, and a coffeemaker. It wasn’t much, but I imagined for a man who’d spent twenty months in a cell with no privacy, it was luxurious.

There was a well-used laptop sitting on the small table beneath a stack of books. There were more books next to the bed, and still more on the kitchen counter. A small TV sat in one corner, but since it had books piled in front of it, it didn’t look like it got used much.

While Jace opened two beers he had in the fridge, I looked at the book nearest me, which was pressed open against the counter, like he was midway through reading it. It was Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment.

Jace caught me reading the title, and I smiled at him. “Light reading?”

He shrugged and handed my beer to me. “It was fifty cents at a library sale, and I like to read classics.”

“Is it good?”

“It’s hard to understand, and the language is complicated, and everyone’s name seems the same,” he said. “But I keep at it. I like a challenge, and it’s better than TV.”

I sipped my beer and smiled at him.

“What?” Jace said.

“You’re complicated and hard to understand,” I said. “And a challenge.”

His eyes widened. “A come-on line,” he said, pleased. “I knew it. I thought you just wanted to talk, counselor.”

I felt myself grinning. “It was pretty good, wasn’t it?”

“Not bad,” he said. “Have a seat.”

I took my beer and sat in one of the chairs. The bed sat in the middle of the room, basically shouting at us, but Jace didn’t seem to notice. He sat on the edge of the bed and untied his boots. “Sorry,” he said, glancing up at me. “Long day.”

“Really, I can come back.”

“Quit it.” He kicked the boots off. “You said you had questions. Ask away.”

“Okay.” I ran my fingers over the lip of my beer bottle. Jace put his elbows on his knees, letting his hands dangle between them, and watched me. I realized that this setup was a little like counseling—the two of us sitting across from each other, me asking questions. He wasn’t my client anymore, and we were in his home—his bedroom—and we were on the edge of pushing our relationship into sex. But still, this setup was the one he was used to, the one we were both used to in a way. So I relaxed my shoulders and went with it.

“I’ve been thinking about what you told me,” I said, “about your lack of sexual experience.”

He rolled his eyes—there were those familiar Jace defenses. But to his credit, he didn’t shut me down. “Go on.”

“Well, it seems to me that sex is only the surface issue. The deeper issue is intimacy.”

“As in?”

“As in, you have a problem with it.”

He laughed, not seeming to notice that I went thick with lust at the sound, at the way his face relaxed when he did it. “I guess I’d have a problem with it if I’d ever had any,” he said.

“That’s what I mean. Your mother left when you were very young, and your father was a terrible parent. Your brothers weren’t any help, though they’re older.”

“They were too busy surviving on their own,” he said.

“Fair enough. But that left you alone.”

“Plenty of people who are alone do a lot of fucking,” Jace pointed out.

I nodded agreement. “But that’s how they express, however unsatisfyingly, their desire to be close to another person, even for a short time. And that isn’t how you do it.”

“So how do I do it?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “You tell me.”

He didn’t even think about it. He reached down and took my heel in his hand, lifting my foot up. He slid my sandal off. “I do it by arguing with my counselor,” he said. “By going to her office and sitting on the bench outside. By harassing her.”

“You’re not harassing me,” I said, outraged on his behalf. I couldn’t take my eyes from the sight of his hands on my skin, those beautiful fingers, those sexy rings. “I like it.”

“Good,” he said, putting one foot down and lifting the other. He took the other sandal off and let his hand wander smoothly up the back of my bare calf. “Okay, we’ve analyzed me,” he said. “Let’s analyze you.”

His hand on my leg was obscene. I was wet, my pussy pounding with pressure, and I was also crazily glad I’d shaved my legs this afternoon. “What about me?”

“Your intimacy problem,” Jace said, his gaze also on his hand as it moved.

“I don’t…” I had to stop talking when his fingers traced the soft skin behind my knee. “…have one.”

“Sure you do.” He was so quietly confident, so self-assured. He lifted his hand from my leg and took my elbow instead, tugging me from the chair and over to sit on the bed. He stood in front of me, all six feet plus of him, muscle and motor oil and masculine perfection. He touched the side of my face, traced a finger over my lower lip. “You said you didn’t like fucking the last guy you were with.”

“I…” Had I said that? My mind was blank. “I didn’t like it,” I said, thinking of what it had felt like to have Kyle touch me, be inside me. Of the times I’d cried silently in the bathroom afterward, thinking there was something wrong with me.

“You lived with him,” Jace said, kneeling—actually getting on his knees in front of me. “And you hated fucking him.” His hands moved up beneath the skirt of my dress, his fingers hooking into the waist of my panties, tugging them. “That left you alone. All alone.”

“Jace,” I said, but I lifted my hips so he could pull my panties off. He drew them down my legs and threw them away.

He put his hands on my knees and parted them, though the hem of my dress sagged down and still covered me. He lifted his gray gaze to mine and held it. “You fuck anyone else since him, Tara?”

I couldn’t look away from him. “No,” I breathed.

He moved his hands up under my dress, parting my thighs wider. “I didn’t think so,” he said. “Heal thyself, counselor.” And he dipped his face between my legs.

I made a mewling sound, and it was so good, so good, that I dropped back onto my elbows on the bed so he could have better access. Jace parted my pussy lips, found my clit, and licked it soundly while kneeling on the floor. Everything inside me went haywire as his beard scraped the skin of my inner thighs and his tongue slid down, into me, then out and up to my clit again. My legs jerked, and Jace held them, and he sucked my clit softly, and just like that I came, the orgasm a rush that made me feel relief and an edge of deeper want at the same time. I pulsed my hips up against his mouth and then flopped fully back onto the bed.

“Oh, my god,” I panted.

Jace took his mouth off me and pushed my dress up, past my waist, his touch a little rough. I took over and pulled the dress the rest of the way off as he bent and kissed my lower belly, my hipbones, his hands holding me still as he worked his way up to my breasts. I unclasped my bra and tossed it away. I had barely a second to wonder if I should be self-conscious about my small breasts before he lowered his mouth to one nipple.

I moaned again, arching up into him. My nipples had always been painfully sensitive, something he seemed to instinctively know. I yanked at his T-shirt, and he reared up briefly to rip it off. I had a glimpse of his muscled shoulders, the sleek ink of his tattoos on his warm skin, before he bent down and took my other nipple in his mouth.

I ran my hands over his arms, his biceps, his shoulder blades, the muscles of his back. I touched his soft hair and the back of his neck as he released my nipple and kissed upward, moving until he was fully over me. Then I ran my hand down the side of his body to his hip and I cupped him through his jeans—his hard cock, his balls. I curled my fingers over it and rubbed my palm on it as he moaned against my skin, his hot breath on my neck.

“You’re not my type,” I breathed, cupping him harder.

His tattooed arms were tense, holding him over me. “I know,” he said against me, his beard scratching me. “We’re a terrible idea. You want to fuck me, counselor?”

He’d called me that in defense, and in friendship, but when he said it now it was unbearably hot. “Yes,” I said.

“Good. I want to fuck you, too. I have since we first met.” He eased up and kissed my mouth, deep and needy yet gentle, his tongue tasting every part of me. I kissed him back, let him inside my mouth as I undid the buttons of his jeans and worked my hand inside them, tracing his cock through his boxer briefs.

He broke the kiss, scraping his teeth on my lip. We were both panting like teens in the backseat of a car. “Fuck, I want to be inside you,” he said.

I rubbed him harder. He felt big, and I’d never wanted anything so much in my life. “Tell me you have a condom,” I breathed.

“Found some in the bathroom. Probably from my brothers.” He seemed to have lost the ability to make complete sentences. He pushed off me—I extracted my hand from inside his jeans—and stumbled to the bathroom in the dark. I heard him bang around in there, and then he came back as I sat up and scooted to the edge of the bed again, naked now.

He stood in front of me, and I yanked at the waist of his jeans. “Off,” I told him, impatient. He handed me the strip of condoms and I pulled one off, unwrapping it as he pushed his jeans and boxer briefs to the floor. Then he stood in front of me naked, his cock out and ready for me. I took it in my hand and put the crown in my mouth, unable to help myself.

Jace made a strangled sound. “Tara.”

He tasted good. I pushed his cock further into my mouth, taking in its outlines with my tongue, tracing its contours. He was big and thick, just like I’d imagined. Because yes, I’d imagined Jace’s cock. Multiple times.

He hissed a breath. “Tara,” he warned again.

He was right. I wanted him inside me, right now. I drew back and unrolled the condom over him, sliding it down to the base, then stroking his balls as I kissed his hip.

With a growl he pushed me back on the bed, and then he was there with me, his big body against mine, his hard thigh between mine, his hands tangling in my hair. He kissed me quick and deep, his mouth hard on mine. “You like that?” he asked. “My cock?”

“Yes,” I said, because I did. I did.

“Then fuck me,” he ordered.

He rolled on his back. I straddled him and he leaned back, letting me get in position. From here I could see the smattering of dark hair on his chest, the shadowed curl of his stomach muscles. I could see the landscape of his pecs and his gorgeous shoulders. I very much liked this view.

I positioned myself over him, put the head of his cock against me, and sunk down. Jace groaned and gripped one hip with his hands, his muscles straining with tension. I sunk further—I was wet, and so ready after an orgasm, but still I could feel him stretching me, pushing me apart. I panted in pleasure, gripping him with my knees.

“Fuck,” he said, pushing his hips up, penetrating me harder. My muscles relaxed and I took him, all the way, until he was finally fully in. I felt full, and a rush of possessiveness came over me for the cock inside me. Mine, I thought. Mine.

I rocked on him, and Jace pushed himself up on his arms, taking the back of my head roughly with one hand. His mouth came on mine, and we began, me moving my hips, him pushing up into me, his mouth scraping mine, his tongue inside me. “Fuck me how you like,” he said on an exhale, and I closed my eyes and rocked harder, letting him take me. I was lost. I didn’t even feel like myself, recognize myself. I just pushed myself onto him over and over, claiming him, chasing another orgasm.

Already I was close, so close. I pulled my mouth from his. “Your fingers,” I said, moving on him. “I need them. Please.”

He moved his fingers between us, stroking me. “There?” he asked softly.

“Oh.” My head fell back.

Jace moved his fingers. “There.”

That was the spot. I rocked harder still, moving my hips to get the most of his fingertips, not caring that we were sweating and the bed was rocking. This was mine. No woman would ever have this, this piece of this particular extraordinary man. This was mine, all mine, and I wanted to come, and I wanted him to come. I dug my fingers into the hard flesh of his shoulders.

He wound his free hand in my hair again, hard, his mouth coming to my ear. “I knew it,” he said in his sexy low voice as he stroked me with his cock and his fingers. “I knew you’d fuck like this. I knew you’d be so dirty for me. My smart-mouthed counselor. I wanted to be inside you. I wanted your legs spread. I fucking wanted to watch you come.”

I came apart, my body pulsing with another orgasm as I cried out. I felt myself squeezing him, rippling over his cock, and Jace thrust up into me hard, losing control. He pounded me from below, all of his strength drilling into me, and I took it, my body absorbing the shock. Then he let out a cry of his own and I felt him start to pulse.

He flipped me roughly onto my back without disconnecting and shoved into me that way, still pulsing, still coming, his body arching over mine. After what seemed like an eternity he started to relax, his body settling over mine, warm and sticky with sweat. We were still joined. I wrapped my legs around his waist and locked my ankles.

We lay there for a minute, unable to speak, unable to think. I thought, maybe, that I had never been so happy in my life. That had been spectacular. I felt fully, completely alive.

Still, Jace was a big man. I unlocked my ankles and pushed his shoulder. “You’re crushing me,” I said.

He turned his face into my neck. “I can die like this,” he said. “This is perfect. Right here.”

I smiled and pushed him again. “Don’t die, please.”

“I could go right now and have no complaints,” he said, but he pushed his weight up onto his arms. He leaned in and kissed me softly on the mouth, the touch strangely sweet.

He broke away and looked down to where we were still joined. “I should…” He pulled out of me, then looked at me. “Do you… need anything?”

Because, of course, he hadn’t done this before. I felt my chest squeeze. “No,” I said. “I’m fine.”

He swung off the bed and walked to the bathroom. And left me staring at the ceiling, wondering what the hell I was going to do. Because I wasn’t falling for him anymore. I had fallen.

And I had a feeling I still had further to go.