“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he said, lying next to her, his leg over hers as he kissed her shoulder and up her neck. He’d always made her feel this way. The center of everything. It had been amazing until she realized he showed it too rarely.

But now? She took it for what it was. And hoped it was more. But she didn’t count on it, because he hadn’t earned it yet.

But she wanted him to.

She could have said all that, but she didn’t want to talk. She wanted him in her. More than she’d wanted sex in a very long time. It didn’t matter that she’d been engaged to marry someone else just a week before.

She’d wanted this with Vaughan for so long. Guilt over messing up with Ross would return later.

“Fuck me. That’s pretty much it. Over and over.”

He laughed. “Oh, I will. I promise.”

“Less promising, more doing. I’m all about action, Vaughan.”

He kissed her long and slow. Tasting, taking his time. “You’ve always been bossy. In bed it’s a fantastic quality.” He paused the kissing to look her in the eye. “I haven’t seen you naked in a really long time. It’s as fine an experience as I remember. Don’t rush me.”

“I can tell you’ve never had sex in a house with two small children in it.” She scrambled atop his body like she’d wanted to and when she ground herself, hot, wet and ready, over his cock they both groaned.

“When they’re gone is the time for long, slow fucking.”

“I’ll keep that in mind for future reference.” He tried to keep his tone cocky, but she knew he was as hot for it as she was.

He slid a hand up her arm, caressing her shoulder. She shivered at the contact, at the reawakening of all that feeling she’d buried when they fell apart.

It rushed through her. Bittersweet. There was still so much between them. He seemed to fit her in a way she never found with anyone else. Like this, skin to skin, she trusted him. Their bodies remembered what they had before.

He knew just how hard to graze his teeth over her collarbone, rendering her shivering, a muted moan of pleasure sliding from her lips.

She dragged her fingernails down his chest, over nipples she knew were sensitive. Beneath her, his body shifted, muscles of flexing against her inner thighs. That sensual caress turned her inside out.

So much. He made her feel so much.

And then she’d never had it again. No matter how many hands touched her, even in the same way he did then. Only this man seemed to render her bare, every nerve on fire, supersensitive. He played her body, and her heart followed.

Even the way he fucked was like music. One of those slow, ragged rock-and-roll songs about desire and longing.

All that intensity he exposed left her utterly defenseless, not just to how he made her feel physically, but the deep and until last week, hopeless love she’d carried all these years.

“Come back to me,” Vaughan said as he tipped his body, reversing their positions as he knelt between her thighs.

And there she was, physically open to him, as well.

“There hasn’t been a single moment since you left that I haven’t wanted this.” His teasing sensuality had gone very primal. Regret was in his gaze, but so was resolve.

“That’s the same.” He petted down her body. His gaze following her hands. “I could never get enough of you.” His thumbs spread her wider and then together, squeezing her clit that way.

An intense ripple of pleasure hit and she gasped.

“That, too.” One corner of his mouth hitched up. “I’m going to be here tomorrow. And the next day. I’m here. That’s changed. I’m aware of how much I’ve lost. That I’ll never, ever get back.”

He continued to speak while he squeezed her clit over and over. It got hard to listen, but she fought against climax and kept her focus on him.

He’d told her what she wanted to hear. What she’d needed to hear. And she wasn’t the only one laid bare.

He was trusting her, too. She needed to let go of the past she’d been using as a shield against him. She already loved him. If he left she’d be hurt either way.

She nodded. “You’re here now.”

He bent to kiss her stupid and she wrapped her legs around him, urging him closer.

“I’m not done.” Vaughan kissed her again before moving down her neck, across her collarbone. Down her sides, against her ribs, feathering against her hip bones and then back up to her nipples.

That was certainly worth waiting for. Kelly arched into his mouth, her fingers digging into his biceps and finding a lot more muscle than before. Mmm.

* * *

HER SKIN WAS still so soft and tasty. The warmth of her scent when he’d breathed her in at that place her neck met her shoulder incited him. He wanted more.

He liked sex, yeah. A lot. But with her it had been far more intense than it had ever been with anyone else.

This was what it was to love the person you had sex with. In the to-my-very-bones-love sense. He’d been lying to himself that it was just amazing sexual chemistry.

It was love.

And a lot of sexual chemistry, no fucking lie.

She writhed beneath him as he tugged a nipple between his teeth.

“Good to know that still works,” he said before licking against the sting of the bite.

“Yep,” she squeaked out and it filled him with even more joy when he’d been pretty sure he was so happy it wasn’t possible to feel even more.