“You feel so good.” He kissed and licked and bit at her mouth, at her chin, at the curve of her shoulder as he pushed up into her. “So damned good.”

But she couldn’t speak at all anymore, couldn’t do anything but try to take him even deeper, even closer, with the water cradling them and the sun setting behind them. He held her hips in his big hands, rocking her down over him again and again until her breath was coming out in panting sobs and the water was rippling in a perfect circle all around them.

She felt utterly raw and exposed, but when he was loving her like this, it didn’t feel wrong to let her walls all fall away. Not when she knew he’d already dropped all of his.

“I love you.”

He’d said the words to her last week, but her heart had been locked up tight that night. Now, with the locks stripped away by longing, she finally heard him. Finally understood that he wasn’t just saying what he thought she wanted to hear.

“I love you.”

Every time he said it, the three little words went deeper into her, straight into the center of the heart she’d so carefully guarded her whole life.

“I love you.”

His mouth was barely a breath from hers, and where he would usually have been kissing her as she came apart in his arms, tonight he whispered the words over and over again—IloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyou—in a kiss made entirely of love.

Kerry went tumbling into a release so powerful, so astonishingly wonderful, that she could have sworn fireworks were shooting out over the lake. But tonight, every beautiful explosion, every dazzling detonation was inside of her as Adam’s lips finally crashed into hers again, and he kissed her through his own release.

The surface of the water around them calmed long before her own heart rate steadied. As she laid her head on his shoulder, the truth was that Kerry never wanted to let go. Never wanted to have to think past the beauty of their physical connection. Never wanted to have to dissect anything more than the fact that Adam made her feel safe and warm.

And loved. So loved that she reeled from it. She couldn’t quite believe that anyone could feel so deeply for her, deeply enough that he would say the words to her again and again and again the way Adam had.

He stroked her back. “I should take you inside and dry you off before you get cold.”

“I’m not cold,” she protested, but she knew her body temperature would soon drop. It was just that as soon as they got out of the water and got dressed and weren’t making love anymore, she’d have to make good on her promise. Her promise not to run, but to talk. Really talk to him about the two of them.

The moon illuminated his face as he put a hand on her cheek so that she would have to look him in the eye. “I know you promised to talk to me, but it doesn’t have to be tonight. Just getting to be close to you again is enough for me right now.”

It was so tempting to take him up on his offer to push off their talk. But there was too much between them, too many things left unsaid, too many needs and desires pushing at their boundaries, for them to simply get dressed and get to work on the wedding.

“No, we should talk now.”

His eyebrows went up. “Right now? Because I’m not sure I can get enough synapses to fire when we’re like this.”

It was so perfectly right, so wonderfully natural to be wrapped up in his arms, that it took her a few seconds to realize they were still totally connected in every way they could be under the water. Nervous laughter escaped her.

“You’re right, we can get dressed first.”

“God, I love to hear that sound. Your laughter.” He closed his eyes, as though the emotions he was feeling were too strong for him to deal with. “It’s one of the most beautiful sounds in the world.”

Her entire chest warmed even as shivers started to take over the rest of her.

“Come on, beautiful, let’s get you into a warm shower.”

Kerry had never been an exhibitionist, had never thought she’d do anything as crazy as having sex in a lake, but as he handed her his T-shirt from the dock to put on and she walked out of the water nearly naked and holding Adam’s hand, she felt strangely calm about the incredible breach in the propriety she’d been raised with.

And, of course, when they finally made it to the shower, there wasn’t any chance at all that they wouldn’t come together again. Just as fast as they had in the lake, just as desperately, with her back against the tiled wall and his hands tangled in her hair while he kissed her the entire time that he loved her back over the edge of exquisite pleasure.

He didn’t say I love you this time, but she heard it in every stroke of his body into hers, in the pounding beat of his heart against hers, in the dance of his tongue over hers.

She hadn’t slept well for the past week, and as soon as he draped a big plush towel around her body and began to gently dry her skin, her eyelids started to droop.

“You’re exhausted.”

“No,” she protested. “I’m okay. We can still—”

“Talk after you rest.”

He lifted her into his arms before she could make any more protests and brought her into a rumpled bed that smelled wonderfully like him. She should have told him she was staying at the inn and that she needed to take her nap there. Instead, she said, “You never make your bed, do you?”

“Never could figure out why I should bother when I’m just going to get back into it again.”

“Because,” she said before yawning big and long, “it looks prettier when it’s made.”